While the big tournaments of this year’s club ultimate season are fast approaching, right now, it’s World Cup season. In a recent NY Times Magazine story, US Soccer Team President Jurgen Klinsmann bristled at the American habit of rewarding star players for their past achievements with big contracts. He even named names; Kobe disagrees.
Johnny Bravo has finalized it’s 2014 roster, and some of the sport’s onlookers are eager to issue this Bravo team a free pass to the finals against Revolver on the past achievements of it’s component parts. In fact, never mind the regular season, let’s get to work on abolishing every other team and turning nationals into a best-of-seven series between Boulder and the bay.
But I’m with Jurgen; Kobe’s contract is a joke and we deserve nothing that we don’t earn this year. Landon Donovan took three months off, part of it during the qualifying stages. Our out-of-region players will buy more flights to practices than to tournaments. And let’s not forget: it was Boston and Seattle who played the far more polished semi-final in 2013. Given Seattle’s trademark plasticity and Boston’s discipline, I’m not sure that isn’t the match-up we should all want to watch seven times.
All that said, it’d be pretty nice to slot Donovan into Jozi’s spot for 30 minutes a game right now…
Here’s the roster:
Coach: Bob Krier
Andrew Mangan
Austin Gregersen
Bart Watson
Brett Matzuka
Brodie Smith
Craig Forshee
Dennison Bechis
Evan Padget
Henry Konker
Hidde Snieder
Hylke Sneider
Ian Toner
Jack McShane (C)
Jackson Kloor
Jake Juszak*
Jesse Roehm
Jimmy Mickle
Joshua Ackley (C)
Kurt Gibson
Matt Farrell
Nick Lance
Owen Westbrook
Phil Sun*
Ryan Farrell (C)
Ryan Morgan
Sean Keegan
Stanley Peterson
Tim Morrissy
Will Lokke
*Worlds Roster only
Practice Players:
David Wheeler
Jeremy Harker
Mark Rauls
Matt Bubernak
Roy Matthews IV
Todd Wolma
Tristan Voss