I gotta be honest, I am not familiar with any of these names. Maybe that's because none of them are East Coast. Or maybe I'm just clueless. A potentially positive sign is that there are many midfielders among the group (midfield being one of U.S. teams' traditional weak points). Also only one goalkeeper, which is a position we don't actually need any help with.
- Eric Avila, midfield, age 20. Hometown: San Diego. Current teams: UC Santa Barbara, U.S. Under-23 National Team.
- Tony Beltran, defense, age 20. Hometown: Claremont, Calif. Current teams: UCLA, U.S. U-20.
- Josh Lambo, goalkeeper, age 17. Hometown: Middleton, Wisc. Current teams: Chicago Magic FC, U.S. U-17.
- Chance Myers, defense, age 20. Hometown: Thousand Oaks, Calif. Current teams: UCLA , U.S. U-23.
- Alex Nimo, forward, age 17. Hometown: Portland, Ore. Current teams: FC Portland, U.S. U-18.
- Patrick Nyarko, forward, age 22. Home town: Kumasi, Ghana. Current team: Virginia Tech.
- Ciaran O’Brien, midfield, age 20. Hometown: Tacoma, Wash. Current team: UC Santa Barbara.
- Brek Shea, midfield, age 17. Hometown: College Station, Tex. Current teams: Texans FC, U.S. U-18.
- Rob Valentino, defense, age 22. Hometown: Cave Creek, Ariz. Current teams: Univ. of South Florida, U.S. U-23.
MLS screwed up in their release.
ReplyDeleteRob Valentino is from University of San Francisco, not South Florida.
If you know none of these names, it's because you follow neither college soccer nor youth national teams. Every one of these is a fairly big name in college and/or YNT circles.
Nyarko and Avila are among the top five players available in the draft, and Myers and Shea also look like good-chance first-rounders. Nimo has great promise, let's see how he develops. The others are pretty highly regarded.