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15 January 2009

Top Prospect Disses the "Combine"


The New York Times Soccer Blog is reporting today that Wake Forest stand out Marcus Tracy has signed with Aalborg Boldspilklub, defending champions of the Danish Superliga and current Champions League contenders.

According to the Times Blog, he was considered a super hot prospect ahead of today's MLS combine, but opted out to play his football in Europe.

This whole "combine" thing has really got me thinking, do we (meaning Americans) go through the motions of the "draft" and "combine" simply because that's how American football does it?

I mean, would Tracy have not been seriously better off playing at at Aalborg Boldspilklub's academy over the last four years? This is a club in the Champions League after all and will be facing stiff Group E competition from Manchester United, Villarreal, and Celtic.

I don't know - I just feel like we - the United States - are doomed to be second best as a nation, in spite of our considerable resources and talent, unless we get our star talent mixing with other start talent much much sooner than aged 22...Marcus' age as of signing. Thoughts?

1 comment:

Chris Courtney said...

Thanks Gruff!

So nice to see a kid with the courage to tell it like it is. We should not be afraid that soccer is different and does not need to parrot what football, baseball, and basketball (all of which I love) do.

We don't need to make excuses to anybody.

Ciao,

Chris