As an aside, he's 27 and he's the 3rd youngest defender on the club's roster. It took a while for Gooch to pick a team and the rumors kept coming. AC Milan never came up until I saw the soccernet article this morning. He also fielded interest from Fenerbahce, Ajax, Palermo, Fiorentina, Gladbach, and some English club that I can't remember. There was also some chat of Real Madrid joining the race, but I didn't think that was too realistic. Either way, Onyewu has a shot at some playing time with one of the best clubs in the history of the sport. He'll be the first American in the Serie A since Alexi Lalas was with Padova in the mid 90's. This is a great move for Onyewu and also for American soccer as it could open up another league that will take Americans into consideration.
You do know he won't start? They will just use him if the starters get hurt or they will use him in garbage time.
there is an italian cup and ac milan is in the champions league, right? with those in addition to their league games, onyewu certainly will have a chance to prove if he's worthy of minutes or not.
Not to mention that they have a few guys who spent more time in treatment last season than they did on the pitch. With all the options Onyewu had, I don't think he every would have gone to a place where he would have not played.
You should hope he doesn't get mocked by the Milan footballers like Donovan got mocked by the Bayern footballers, even by the German media. Did you guys know the Bayern footballers were telling Donovan that their 8 year old sons play better then him, and Luca Toni said his dog plays better then Donovan LMAO! And that is coming from Luca Toni because the guy is the biggest joke in the world when it comes to strikers so that is a major insult! Donovan is done in Europe, and he even said that lol which is really funny. So if this Oguchi guy gets mocked by Italians he will be running back home soon. And Italians are even more worse when it comes to mocking and nationalizing or racist how ever you want to call it, specially to Americans.
you do realize that onyewu has never played professional soccer in the US, right? what does him running back home mean?
Considering how much American soccer media I read daily, I don't quite see how I could have missed any of those comments about or by Landon Donovan. Links please?
I've got my moments. I think its more about recognizing and not tolerating bull shit when you see it.
Not too closely. I watch it because its available and a lot of Americans are there. However, I don't particularly care for the style of play outside of Man United and Arsenal. I prefer technical and tactical play to physical play. This of course doesn't make much sense as I am a fan of the US National Team and MLS, but that's more of a hometown thing than anything else.
Yup, well of course tactical and technical would pretty much define United and Arsenal's style of play. Liverpool are more run-and-gun and Chelsea are just plain boring. You get some good football West Brom (surprisingly), and Aston Villa but most of the other teams rely a lot of physical prowess. That's why I find it so risky to bring in the small foreign players like Fabregas, Nasri, and Arshavin but they seem to of settled in quite nicely. I'm gonna try and get you to follow a bit more of the English footy next season--I'll start watching MLS again if you watch the Premier League! What is your favorite MLS team, by the way? DC fan, right here!
I watch the Premier League because its available. Liverpool has its moments, and I love the defensive midfield position, so when Essien is playing, I'll watch Chelsea. And of course, I watch Tim Howard and Clint Dempsey. The random West Ham-Sunderland match that I'll get on Fox Soccer Channel just isn't going to do it for me. In MLS, I'm a fan of the New England Revolution, coached by Steve Nicol and Paul Mariner. Its absolutely inexplicable to me that Mariner hasn't gotten a head coaching job in MLS yet. When healthy (and they really haven't been since Super Liga 2008), they tend to play a fairly attractive style (by MLS standards anyway) that involves attack from the wings and dominating possession with two defensive midfielders (did I mention that I love that position). It hasn't really been the same for them since Parkhurst left because he was just dominant in central defense and made two outside backs (Heaps and Albright) look like competent and capable centerbacks with how slick he was. Unfortunately, its been a really busy summer for me, so I haven't seen too much of the Revs this season. They seem to be playing a 4-4-2 now. Either way, Shalrie Joseph is still the best player in the league. If he played for the US National Team instead of Grenada, he'd be starting for a team in England or Germany. But since he chose to play for Grenada, I'll be ok with him sticking with the Revs.
Yup, I love the defensive midfield position too and that's why I like watching Liverpool games. Mascherano is arguably one of the best defensive midfielders in the Premier League and then they Xabi Alonso who is a defensive-minded playmaker (quite a strange mix) and has incredible range on his passes. Arsenal have been having trouble filling the void of Flamini's recent (sort of) departure and we'll probably never find a player like Viera again. Wenger has tried to fit Denilson, Nasri, and Song in the defensive midfield role but none of them have enough physical presence. Alexandre Song Billong is the only player who actually impressed me in that role but he still isn't good enough for a team that is trying to mount a title challenge next season. We've been looking at players like Melo, Cana, and Veloso and hopefully we pick up a big (in the literal sense) player this summer. I believe that if we find a really powerful midfielder, we can seriously challenge for the title. Sorry, I went off on a huge tangent. Have been to a Revs match? I've seen DC United three times. The first time was when we robbed Chicago Fire 3-1 and when Luciano Emilio was on his goal-scoring rout. Then I saw the first time Beckham was in the Galaxy squad and he got subbed on around the 80th minute. I saw them play another team but I totally forgot the night! Who is the dominant team in the MLS right now?
When I lived in the States I seriously tired to watch MLS and I swear my headed wanted to hurt because I just didn't understand what the hell they were doing out on the pitch they had no common sense to Football it was every hard to watch. English Primer League is the best League in the World then Spainish and I say in my opinion the Bundesliga.
Meh, it's not that bad. I used to watch a lot of League 2 football when I grew up in England and it's pretty much the same as the MLS so I'm used to it. I used to get quite pumped up standing in the Eagle's Nest at RFK Stadium!
Another productive conversation thwarted. Thanks Mixx! ME, there's not really a dominant team in MLS. Salary cap restrictions prevent that. Houston is probably the closest thing to it currently. They have an all-around strong roster headed by Stuart Holden (two goals and an assist in two matches in the Gold Cup) and Brian Ching. They won the two before last season and look favored to do it again, despite DeRosario going to Toronto FC. I've been to a lot of Revs matches. I went to several at the end of the year a few seasons ago because a guy who lived down the hall from my brother in college was on the team. The last one I went to was their Super Liga match against Santos last season.
