3 Interesting Freshmen

With the college season starting this week-end, it’s time to wrap up the players that I’m watching this year. I started this list of incoming freshmen before the U20 tournament and just haven’t come back to this until today to update.

There are three freshmen that I’m very intrigued to see play. While there are others that may be interesting, here are 3 players that I want to see if they can live up to their reputation coming into college.

The first is Anthony Ampaipitakwong. I assert that his name is larger than he is – since he’s a smallish (reported to be 5′7″ – we’ll see) attacking midfielder. His name isn’t hard to say if you break it down. I’ve been instructed that it is pronounced, am-PIE-pita-kwong. Ampaipitakwong is a five-time NSCAA boys All-American spending 2.5 years at Bradenton. As part of the Dallas Texans, he captured a national championship in 2005. He has vision and playmaking ability.

While I’m not in the “you must be tall and fast to be a soccer player” camp, college soccer can be physical. For a smaller player to be successful, he will need to be quick and alert to avoid being crushed. Ampaipitakwong will be playing for Caleb Porter at Akron. I’m planning on seeing Ampaipitakwong and Akron play at the Wake Forest tourney in September facing 2 tough ACC opponents (UNC and WF) early in the year. This will be a good test.

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Andrew Duran is the second player that I want to see play. He’s the reigning NSCAA national player of the year in 2006. He’s a two time NSCAA All-American. He’s participated with the U15 and U17 US national teams. Duran is a two way midfielder that has tremendous touch and he’s good in the air. He played for the renown Chicago Magic soccer club. He’ll be playing at Creighton University. I’m considering going out to Omaha in late September to catch Creighton play Washington and then bop over to Drake (Des Moines) to catch Northern Illinois the next day, but I can’t find a really good flight (time-wise and cost). At worst, I’ll catch them on Fox Soccer Channel against Bradley on October 10th.

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A third player that intrigues me is Ellis McLoughlin. He’s an integral part of the US U-17 team that is playing Germany in the round of 16 on Thursday, August 30 at 7am on ESPNU (congrats – if you get the channel). He has been nursing an injury and wasn’t sharp against Tunisia.

I’ve received mixed-messages about McLoughlin playing for Washington in 2007. According to this article in February 2007,

http://gohuskies.cstv.com/sports/m-soccer/spec-rel/021607aaa.html

“…but McLoughlin will join the team in January, 2008, due to his academic schedule and a pending FIFA U-17 World Cup opportunity.”

But this preview, in August 2007, doesn’t mention that he’ll be missing time.

http://gohuskies.cstv.com/sports/m-soccer/spec-rel/081407aab.html

“…Wurzberger notes depth as another team strength, made possible by the talented group of incoming recruits led by U-17 US national team forward Ellis McLoughlin.”

So, perhaps McLoughlin has changed his plans. I hope so, because I want to see him play in mid-September at the New Mexico tournament (UCSB, Washington, New Mexico, SMU) – Terrific tournament.

 

Three players, let’s see how they adjust!

 

David Estrada, UCLA

David Estrada, a 2006 freshmen forward from UCLA, was awarded Soccer America’s 2006 Freshman of the year.  Impressively, Estrada joined the UCLA team as a “walk on”.  In 2006, he led UCLA in scoring with 12 goals and added 4 assists.  In the beginning of the year, Estrada didn’t get a lot of minutes.  He only started 13 of UCLA’s 22 games. 

Against Maryland and Virginia (labor day week-end), Estrada only had a few minutes on the field.  The injury to Maxwell Griffin provided an opportunity for Estrada to get minutes. 

Against UCSB on October 5, he got his first start and scored his first goal.  By the end of the year, he had established his starting position.  He had 2 terrific goals in the NCAA final four against UVA.

I have only seen him play on TV (excluding the handful of mop-up minutes), but it’s apparent that he has tons of talent.  Estrada has terrific quickness and dribbling ability.  He shoots very accurately.  He’s someone to watch very closely.  Teams will be watching and defending him much more closely in 2007. 

I’ll make one more prediction – I bet that UCLA has him on scholarship, now!

 

Kyle Nakazawa, UCLA

Kyle Nakazawa, an attacking midfielder for UCLA, was named to the 2006 Soccer America 1st team all-Freshmen team. He was highly acclaimed coming into his freshmen year at UCLA partly because he was the starting attacking midfielder for the US U17 team that finished 5th in the FIFA U17 championship in Peru. In 2006, he had 4 goals and 8 assists including only making 1 of 3 PK. As an aside, how do you miss 2 PK? He, obviously, has skill. I question his passion. The Bruins rely on Nakazawa to start the attack. At this stage, he isn’t sufficiently competent for UCLA to depend upon as the engine.

UCLA made a trip to the east at the beginning of the season to play Maryland and Virginia. A tropical storm delayed the UCLA-Maryland game from Friday night until Saturday morning. Unfortunately, it also canceled the FSC first scheduled televised game of 2006. It also, delayed the UVA-UCLA from Sunday until Monday (Labor Day).

 

Rob Valentino, University of San Francisco

Rob Valentino, a defender from the University of San Francisco (USF), was a 2006 CSN pre-season All-American. While not receiving any national awards, he awarded Western Coast Conference (WCC) player of the year in 2006, adding to his 2005 WCC defender of the year. He will be a senior in 2007-2008. In 2006, he had a goal and 6 assists (not too bad for a defender). In 2005, he had 4 goals and 2 assists.

In 2006, I saw Valentino play against Penn State. He didn’t really impress me on the defensive side. This might be more due Penn State’s incompetent attack than a deficiency on Valentino’s part. He did have a very pretty assist. From a free kick, Valentino launched a 40 yard high ball to LA Galaxy draft pick, Kevin Long, for a wonderful leaping header goal.

May be difficult for me to re-assess Valentino in 2007, since the USF tentative schedule constrains them to the west coast. Oh well, maybe TV.

UPDATE 8/26/07 – JM – Rob Valentino will miss the 2007 season because of knee surgery.

 

Kevin Forrest, Washington

Kevin Forrest, a forward from the University of Washington, was selected to the 2006 2nd team CSN All-American team. 

<== Maybe it’s me and my hair-envy – but why? You can’t think the hair looks good?? 

Forrest will be a red-shirt Senior in the fall.  In 2006, he scored 16 goals with 1 assist.  He sat out 2005 with a foot injury.  He had a slight knee injury in 2006 and sat out two games.   In 2004, he scored 9 goals and 3 assists.  Forrest was not on my watch list at the beginning of 2006. 

I have 1 game on tape that I’ll review in May to watch him specifically – I was watching Ty Harden to prepare for the 2006 MLS combine. 

Questions for this year: 

• Will he be able to stay healthy? 
• Will he be productive? 

I suspect with Ellis McLoughlin getting some attention that it might help Forrest.  Additionally, with Raphael Cox and Jo Jo Katz still providing service, all signs suggest for a very productive year for Forrest.

 

Sal Zizzo, UCLA

Sal Zizzo, a right midfielder from UCLA, is a 2006 2nd Team CSN and NSCAA All-American.  He will be a junior next year.  Additionally, I expect that he will be on the Under 20 US team at the World Youth Championship this summer in Canada.  In 2006, Zizzo scored 7 goals with 9 assists. 

 Zizzo is a fabulous player.  He has professional wing speed and skill; he’s big (5′11″ according to the UCLA web site).  I like the accuracy of his crosses.  I saw him play against Maryland and Virginia in 2006.  Against Maryland, he didn’t make short passes with anyone except Nakawaza; otherwise he drove to the touch line and crossed to his forwards.   I would have like to see more active passes and runs off the ball.  Virginia had no answer to defending Zizzo – he constantly beat Short.  I like Zizzo a lot and I think he’s going to be a high first round MLS draft pick if he forgoes his senior year.

 A lot of countries are going to see him play in the U20 – it’s possible that he might leave UCLA before this year (ala Robbie Rogers).  This would be a big loss for UCLA.

 

Eric Avila, UCSB

Guess, I better post something positive before the Gaucho fans come looking for me with pitchforks after my post about Iro!

Eric Avila, a midfielder from UCSB, is a 2006 NSCAA second team All-American and 2006 CSN second team All-American. He will be a junior next year. Avila scored 8 goals and 5 assists in 2006. As a freshman, he was a member of the 2005 CSN all-freshmen team and was the Freshman of the Year for the Big West Conference. In the first game of 2006 against Akron, he was exceptional, scoring 2 goals (1 a penalty) and was a terror the entire day. He’s a good passer, terrific dribbler (confidently taking on players). I was very impressed with the speed that he reads/understands the game.

His goal that he scored during the run of play was brilliant. Bryan Byrnes (who I liked a lot except he was too old as an international – Irish for MLS) dribbled the ball right to left diagonally from 40 yards to 25 yards out (more east-west than north-south) pulling the Akron team to their right side opening up an unmarked Avila who received the ball on the Akron left defensive side about 30 yards from goal. Avila took 2 deft touches, the first to his right pulling his defender to Avila’s right side opening up the space that he wanted to exploit to his left side on his second touch passing his defender and finally burying the ball into the near post with a beautiful placed shot.

 

Andy Iro, UCSB

Andy Iro, a defender from UCSB, was a 2006 second team NSCAA All-American.  He’s a tall athletic player that appears to have all the tools.  He will be a senior this coming year.

CSN named Iro to their 2006 1st team pre-season All-American team.   He was on the pre-season Hermann watch list.  UCSB won the National tournament with Iro as co-captain.  Sounds like this guy might be a keeper.  The moniker that I deem most appropriate is “David Stokes”.  I saw him play early in the year against Akron.  In this game, UCSB won 5-0.  Even then, Iro was a tremendous disappointment.  I drove 6 hours round-trip to watch this guy and I don’t see what others see in this guy.  Sure, he’s tall, strong player with very good athletic ability (jumping ability, power not necesarily quickness).  He doesn’t seem to have a clear idea how to play.  Also, he was winded after 10-15 minutes.  It was  a scorcher out there.  By the end of the game, I was seriously worried about his health.  Was he sick?  If so, ok – saw him on a bad day.  Was he not in shape?  Then, I’m very concerned about his work habits.  Will he have professional habits?  Past results may indicate future results.  He was icing his knees – so perhaps he was out of shape because he was recovering from an injury.

More importantly, I’d like to see him live this year.  I may have to wait until the combine unless UCSB makes a trip east again this year.

Iro was born on November 26, 1984.   He is from England.  This means that Iro would only have 1 year as YI before advancing to a SI slot.  I think that he’s going to be a world-class disappointment for some team.