Keeping up with the 4th tier of American soccer is difficult. Clubs form. Clubs disband. They change owners, personnel, stadiums, and even cities, with great frequency. All this happens under the guidance of a mostly part-time, or volunteer leadership that has about a million other things in their lives to accomplish. So it’s no surprise that the League’s structure often isn’t “official” until days before opening weekend. Still, we hard core fans Chattahooligans demand information in the off season (those tailgating menus, nylon flags, and Jacksonville travel accommodations aren’t gonna make themselves). And with the fall addition of five new teams to our region, no one seems to know exactly what the 2012 season or schedule will look like.

But piecing together the various rumors, Facebook photos, and quick mentions from other clubs, we have a fair idea of how our region’s structure should look. We’ve also been reading more about our new members and where they’re located (for those away game trips to exotic locations like Mercedes, TX and Fort Smith, AR). A working picture of these developments can be seen in this Google Map: NPSL Southeast Region Home Fields.

So, with three months until our April 28th home friendly vs USL newcomer, Chicago Inferno, we’re getting a better picture of what 2012 will look like.

So Chattanooga FC is gearing up for the 2012 season: the first round of official tryouts was this past Saturday at Finley Stadium. Your favorite nosey scout from the Chattahooligan was there to scope out the scene. Here’s a few short notes:

It’s always tricky to know who’s going to be picked for the team and who’s going to come next summer at these first of 3 tryouts — as a good amount of the really talented players are given a bye by the coaches. They are allowed to show up at later tryouts, if at all. So we can’t really get a sense of how important this batch is… A few really talented guys standout, as do some really bad players, but the rest kind of blend together as pretty decent.

But new Head Coach Bill Elliott was there, along with Assistant Jimmy Weekley and GM Sean McDaniel.

Several three season CFC players attended: Russell Courtney, Moises Drumond and Ivan Heredia. A pleasant surprise was that former Dalton standout Irvin Espinal was back after walking away from the team early in the season last year. Perhaps he had issues with former Head Coach Crossman?

We weren’t able to identify all the talent there, but some current or former NCAA Div I players were there — a Clemson teammate of forward Michael Brooks and a younger brother of a Covenant kid who starts at the U of South Carolina. There was a good bit of local talent trying out too — kids from CCS, McCallie, UTC and Covenant, to name just a few…

The play looked good in general, and we’ll be excited to see how the team shapes up.

Other notes:

News on players from last season: Forward Mark Sherrod had an insane sophomore season at Memphis University — finishing as something like the second leading scorer in all of NCAA Div I! So while that looks good on CFC’s resumé for developing talent, it means that Mark is on the radar for some pro teams and looks like he’ll be heading elsewhere for the summer (we’ve heard rumor of Portland, not a bad place to go).

Another first season player (and Memphis teammate of Mark’s), midfielder Cody McCoy is rumored to be heading to NC to tryout with the USL Pro team Charlotte Eagles.

First season midfielder José Robles is also going to tryout at some sort of a pro combine, so he may not be able to return either.

All the best of luck to you fellas! Make Chattanooga proud!

The conference:

Apparently the Southeast Conference of the NPSL is being broken into 2 divisions: East and West, each compromised of 5 teams. All the teams in the same division will play each other twice, once at home, once away. They will also play some (maybe all?) of the teams in the other division once.

We think this is what we heard on the division break down:

EAST
Chattanooga FC
Knoxville Force
Jacksonville United FC
Myrtle Beach
Mississippi Storm

WEST
Atlanta Silverbacks
Georgia Revolution
FC Tulsa
Rocket City United
Galveston Pirate SC

Or something like that. If anyone knows more that we do, please correct us in a comment.

And the winners of each Division facing off in a playoff game to get to the national championships.

So it looks like our arch-rivals Atlanta and Rocket City won’t be playing us as often.

CFC finally announced that they have named a new coach today, we’re posting what they had on their site below.

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Chattanooga FC announced yesterday that Bill Elliott has agreed to take the Head Coach position for the team’s 2012 season.

“Bill’s great reputation along with his Chattanooga roots made him an easy choice for us. We felt his successful longevity at the collegiate level will be carried over to CFC and the upcoming season. We’re glad to have him and assistant coach Weekley in 2012,” said General Manager Sean McDaniel.

“I was born and raised in Chattanooga, I attended the University of Tennessee and I never thought I would leave East Tennessee,” said Elliott. “When the position was offered to me at the University of West Florida, it was a opportunity to make a career in my passion — coaching. Seventeen years later, I feel it was a good decision.”

Elliott is very excited to be back in Chattanooga for the summer season. He says he is glad to have his wife Chrissy, his three and a half year old daughter Peyton and his eighteen month old son Trey around his extended family that lives in and around the Chattanooga area.

Elliott has kept up with Chattanooga FC even while he’s been in Pensacola. “I think the CFC organization has done a fantastic job in the past three seasons. They have set a standard in the league and in the southeast and I am honored to be a part of that.” He also had great things to say about former head coach Brian Crossman. “I’ve known Brian Crossman for years, and I believe he did an outstanding job establishing a great foundation for the team. I hope to continue to build on that.”

Assistant Coach Jimmy Weekley echoed that sentiment. “Bill and I are former teammates (with the Chattanooga Railroaders in the ’90’s) and have been friends since college. Bill brings a wealth of knowledge to us. I am very excited to have the opportunity to work along with him in furthering the success of CFC.”

Bill Elliott is one of the top coaches in the NCAA Division II. In his years of coaching he has compiled an overall career record of 307-144-29, including a 248-101-28 mark at the University of West Florida (Pensacola). He is among the top NCAA Division II coaches in the top 30 in career winning percentage(.630) and career wins(150).

From 1995 -2001, Elliott served as head coach for both the men’s and women’s team. He is the only coach in conference history to lead both men’s and women’s programs to the conference tournament, and the only coach to have won both men’s and women’s titles. In his time serving as the head coach for the women’s team he led his team to the GSC tournament every year, winning three titles in seven years. Elliott has also won three men’s and three women’s GSC Coach of the Year awards.

Elliott came to West Florida from Tennessee Wesleyan College in Athens, Tennessee. He spent two successful seasons with the Bulldogs, leading both men’s and women’s teams to the playoffs in each season. Elliott’s 1993 women’s team captured the NAIA District 24 title, and he was named the district coach of the year. Overall, his women’s teams compiled a 17-18 mark and his men’s teams were 17-14-1.

Elliott’s coaching career began in 1992 at Division III Maryville College in Maryville, Tenn. as an assistant under Pepe Fernandez. In his year at Maryville, the women finished 15-3 and ranked 20th in the NCAA Division III. The men finished 10-8.

Elliott played high school soccer at Hixson High School in Chattanooga, where he led his team to a second place finish in the state as a senior captain.

Elliott also played Division III professional soccer in the United States Interregional Soccer League as a member of the Chattanooga Express. He helped lead the Express to a runner-up finish at the 1993-94 Indoor Soccer National Championships. In 1997, he was hired in mid-season as a player and head coach of the U.S.I.S.L. D-III Mobile Revellers with whom he had started the season as a player. In 1998, he was a player and assistant coach for the Pensacola Barracudas.

Elliott earned a bachelor of science in business administration in 1991 and a master’s of science in recreation and sports management in 1993 from the University of Tennessee. He also played played NCAA Division I varsity soccer for the Volunteers. Elliott holds the NSCAA Advanced National Diploma and a USSF A License.

So we’re now five games into the nine game home season stint of Chattanooga FC and its about time that we talk about the elephant in the room (or maybe more appropriately the elephant not in the room): Where are half of the fans from last year?

One of the great success stories of the first two seasons of Chattanooga FC was the amazing fan support. We averaged 2,200 fans per game in 2009, but more importantly we grew attendance every game (starting at 1,200 and ending at over 3,000). In 2010, we started like gangbusters with almost 7,000 people at the season opener, and averaged 4,400 for the five home games. A total of 22,000 people attended the games last year!

But so far this season we are averaging around 1,700 per game over five games. Where are the fans? And more importantly, why aren’t they attending games?

It might make sense if the team were losing or struggling, but they’re not. In fact, the team has not lost at home since the very first game in May of 2009. That’s a 14 game stretch with no losses in Chattanooga (and only two of those games were ties). And besides the fact that fans are virtually guaranteed to see the home side win, the team is arguably better and more talented than the side that went to the NPSL National Championship last year. So surely its not the quality of the soccer that’s keeping folks away.

So what could it be? Here are some possible reasons for the dip in attendance:

1. $5 Parking - It costs as much to park in the lots at the stadium as it costs to buy a ticket. Suddenly the expected expense doubles. What the heck? And thanks alot for that Finley.

2. Starting 4 weeks early - This year’s season started a month sooner than we did last year. That means there was a great deal of school sports and events and graduations going on to conflict with game days. The non-soccer fanatics have had a hard time registering that lots of games have already happened.

3. No big debut – Could we argue that last year’s unprecedented international friendly against FC Atlas opened the season with a big bang? We think we could. This year we started with a scrimmage against a Dalton team and a regular season match against an unknown newcomer to the league, Jacksonville United.

4. No World Cup - Surely the buzz around World Cup soccer last year got a good deal of fair weather fans to come to a game or two, just to say they’d supported live soccer.

5. More games - Oddly enough, getting the ‘more games’ that we’d been asking for may have deterred folks from coming out. There’s not a sense of missing it before it’s over — we have almost twice the matches of last year. Perhaps that’s perpetuating a sense of “I’ll make it by sometime, just not this weekend.”

6. The Honeymoon is Over - Is it maybe the case that Chattanooga is not a soccer town and all the folks who showed up the past two seasons were just curious? Now that the novelty has worn off, only the dedicated soccer fans are coming out. Does there need to be some sort of hoopla or big event to get the fans out again? What would it be?

7. Is it something else? Or a combination of all these things?

Tell us what you think Chattahooligans!

Oh my! Oh my! Oh my! Sunday night’s US Open Cup qualifier match between Chattanooga FC and the Atlanta Silverbacks Reserves was a veritable heavyweight slugfest — with both strong teams taking turns throwing jabs, swings and roundhouses at each other late into the fifteenth round. But in the end, it was Chattanooga FC delivering the knockout blow in the 116th minute of a 120 minute match. An epic battle to say the least, and one of the more exciting 1-0 games we’ve ever seen!

A brief sidebar:

How did both teams get to Sunday night’s championship match to attempt to claim the NPSL Southeast’s US Open Cup slot?

Both teams had a bye on Friday, Chattanooga FC because of winning the conference last season, Atlanta FC on a coin toss (perhaps?). Atlanta had an easier go in the Jacksonville United game on Saturday as the first season team has had trouble finding their feet (and wins) in the NPSL. After going down 1-0 early, the talented Atlanta team fought back to score 3 goals to win. They looked to be in the driver’s seat for most of the second half and did not have the demands of a close game from a physical opponent.

Chattanooga had a tough row to hoe against a talented and quick Rocket City United team. In the end, the Man of the Match Chris Ochieng proved too hard to handle and he powered a ball past goalie Tyler Early for an assist to James Moore (who slotted a fantastic goal from an extreme angle — his second of the year!). And only 10 minutes later he perfectly placed a beautiful cross from Mark Sherrod into the net to put CFC ahead for good 2-0.

Now, About Sunday Night’s Epic Battle:

After the overtime win against Atlanta, with all the back and forth play, amazing shots, wonderful saves, terrible officiating and heated gamesmanship, it appears to us that our new nemesis in the Southeast Region will be Atlanta Silverbacks Reserves (if all of them really are reserves!). This game — which stayed scoreless for almost 1 hour and 50 minutes — had a bit of everything, including a win for the good guys!

Some things the 1,500 CFC fans (who were at the game) are thinking, but no reporter is saying:

Atlanta’s team is a bunch of punks. They fouled often and purposefully. They faked and flopped like fish. Number 21, who somehow received no card at all for spearing Andy Stewart directly in the head (and in turn, split open his own thick skull and bled on the field), stopped play at least 5 times for supposed “injuries”… Either this guy is a delicate and fragile flower or he’s a faker who needed a bunch of breathers because he didn’t have enough talent to keep up with our strikers. Number 10 spent an inordinate amount of time taking little cheap shots at our players and arguing with the ref… Then there is the psycho coach who acts like a complete baby — hasn’t he been thrown out of 3 games with CFC? Get ahold of yourself man!

All this is to say: Atlanta could most likely have won the game last night if they took all the energy they spent on fouling and faking and applied it instead to playing well and scoring goals. They have a ton of talent and had many fantastic opportunities last night. If they weren’t so worried about getting in cheap shots, they might actually be better. But with that idiot coach of theirs, they will no doubt focus on how to foul us even more when they come back up here on June 25. Atlanta Silverbacks: if you really want to run a class organization, get rid of that guy. He’s an embarrassment to your team.

And the other shoe drops…

The incompetent officials. We can’t even come up with adjectives to describe their poor performance. First, they were from Atlanta (the woman line judge was the one who allowed the goal to count after they hit the ball out of our goalie’s grasp down at Silverbacks Park — hmm what a coincidence she would be assigned to this game!). Second, it almost seems like someone from USSF impressed upon them “an Atlanta win would be a better financial and marketing outcome for the US Open Cup than having small town Chattanooga FC win, so please do your best to help the Silverbacks.”

Well they tried their hardest. Two blatant fouls in the box — a galactic shove in the back to Mark Sherrod in the first half, a nice stomp on Moises Drumond‘s heel in the second — and not a penalty called. Oh, and then there’s the head butt number 21 did on Andy Stewart, that resulted in no call at all until the subsequent play — that one a free kick for Atlanta right on the edge of our box — come on! USSF: we have had plenty of bad refs in our three CFC seasons, but this crew wins the award for Worst Refs Ever by a long shot. Do not ever send them back or we will tar and feather them.

Now to the positives:

Chattanooga FC fought valiantly. The starters performed amazingly — winning a hotly contested first half with more goal scoring opportunities than Atlanta. The second half got a bit more even as fatigue started to set in and substitutes came in and had to develop touch and chemistry on the fly. While everyone played outstandingly, we think these folks deserve some extra props: Andy Stewart (for having to stop that incredibly speedy number 20 time and time again); Thomas Hunter (for yet another shutout against a great team, including that amazing save on the free kick near the end of regulation); Mark Sherrod (for creating some great opportunities and taking some nice shots); Russell Courtney, Moises Drumond, Luke Winter and Josh Shields (for great relief in substitution); Alex Rodriguez, Nick Odeny and Chris Ochieng should also be commended for lasting the whole 120 minutes!

Of course, the Man of the Match award has to go to Chris Ochieng — not only for his game winner in OT, but for his overall play. He consistently makes amazing decisions, moves and passes along with his really great shots. Truly a wonderful player to watch!

Whew. That’s enough for now… What is next? Who do we play on June 14 and where?

Well Chattahooligans, it wasn’t exactly pretty but Chattanooga FC dug out a 1-0 victory over the Knoxville Force last Saturday in front of just over 2,000 fans. The first “Tennessee Clásico” (as CFC called it) resulted in another W in for the home team, making CFC undefeated in the last 14 NPSL Southeast region games. (That’s also only 2 losses in the last 19 NPSL games, fwiw).

In the third game of the season, Chattanooga FC showed that the team chemistry is improving, but that it also still needs work. Wide midfielder John Calderwood seemed to be lacking the touch he’s shown in earlier matches, while James Moore and a couple other guys missed some great scoring opportunities early — the game could’ve been an out of reach 3-0 win just as easily as the slim 1-0 margin.

Chris Ochieng was left to toil alone as striker at the top for two thirds of the game. He certainly created some nice opportunities with his strength, foot skills and passing opportunities, but nothing quite materialized in the first half. Things changed dramatically around the 65 minute (or so) when CFC newcomer Mark Sherrod (prounounced shur-ROD) came in to score immediately off of a one touch rocket to the corner of the goal — supplied beautifully by a cheeky back heel lob from Mark Beattie. Far from done Sherrod combined with Ochieng and Ochieng’s sub (Winter?) to create several more great chances through the rest of the game. Fun to watch.

Sherrod has to be a bit of salt in the wound for the Force as he is one of two Knoxville guys who chose to play for CFC over the Force this season. We have to say we’re happy with his choice. And since he popped the game winner, Mark Sherrod is our Man of the Match for May 21.

We missed Fynn Glover in the midfield — we weren’t as consistent in the air as we are with him — but we at the ‘hooligan thought Heredia and Robles did an ok job holding down the fort. While we don’t have any specific stats to point to, we felt that CFC dominated possession through the game, easily 60% of time we had the ball… Definitely signs of improving team chemistry.

Defensively speaking,Thomas Hunter got his second shutout of the season and helped us to lead the southeast region in goals allowed (only 1). The defense obviously did not ‘break’ and allow a goal, but there were points at the end of the game where a sub for Knoxville gave us a good deal of trouble and we certainly appeared to ‘bend.’ Odeny was pretty good, and Stewart and Rodriguez were pretty consistent, but both had moments of weakness. Nick Chase seemed to play more defensively this game compared to the past two. Was this just how the game shook out or is he supposed to be less offensively focused.

All in all, we can’t criticize a win, but as fans we hope to see more scoring with the added striker up top. Chattanooga FC is currently tied with the Georgia Revolution — on 7 points each — for first place in the NPSL Southeast, though CFC has the first place nod due to Goal Differential of +3 (over the Revolution’s +2).

What did you all think soccer fans?

Chattanooga: the new kids on the NPSL block from Knoxville are coming to town and they are feeling a bit proud of themselves — nabbing their first win on the road last week to RCU, as well as drawing 1,200 fans to their first home game the week before… On Facebook the team was crowing about how their attendance was higher than ours.

K’ville, we’ll give you that nod if it is important to you, but anyone at our game knows we way undershot the actual attendance for financial purposes (to pay less for security) — easily 2,000+ fans were there 2 weeks ago. And that’s a pretty low turnout for us down here.

But nevermind that, we’ll just see if we can drum up our 2010 average of 4,400 of our closest friends for your game this Saturday! Then you’ll see what it’s like to play in front of a real crowd… and a hostile one at that.

But something else Knoxville may want to worry about: Chattanooga FC is undefeated in 16 make that 12 straight NPSL games, dating back to 2009 (9 wins, 3 ties). Be sure you bring your A game.

It will be fun to add another Tennessee team to the league — who will claim the state title? Can we call it a ‘derby’? We think we should, what would a good name be? The I-75 Derby? The State Derby? The Tennessee Valley Derby? What?

Come on down this Saturday ‘hooligans — and bring your friends! We need a proper welcome for Knoxville.

Chattanooga FC stumbled a bit this past Friday, allowing a late goal by the Silverbacks Reserves down in Atlanta and having to settle for a 1-1 draw. Not the ideal result — especially when we had two shots on goal with no goalie, and still could not find the net.

Since we didn’t do a proper match report last week, let’s compare and contrast match day one with match day two.

Last week CFC looked a bit rusty coming out of the gates (to be expected as the game was the first time a lot of the guys had ever played together). But the team seemed to find its form after 20-30 mins and (in general) took control of the game. Jacksonville certainly had a few decent opportunities, but their chances to score were kept to a minimum. And while we won 2-0, there were plenty of opportunities to have nabbed some more goals along the way. Our subs looked quite strong and there seemed to be no drop off in the level of play once the first stringers went out (take substitute James Moore‘s late goal as an example).

On match day two, even without Glover (who is reportedly gone for the season, more about that later) or Courtney (at his brother Drew’s wedding — remember speedy Drew from last year’s team?), we started off quite strong — playing the better soccer for the first 60 mins (or so) of the game. But in the waning minutes, with several subs coming in, we looked tired and skittish. We played defensively and allowed Atlanta to assert themselves — and get the goal in the last minutes of the game.

And about that goal: While the rule about touching a ball while it is in the grasp of a goalie is *technically* up to the official’s discretion, favor is almost always given to the goalie. As the Silverbacks corner kick bent to the near post, goalie Thomas Hunter went flying up, grabbed the ball with two hands solidly on it and started to descend. As he came down, a Silverbacks player headed the ball right out of his hands, it deflected off a teammate and into the goal. It sure looked like the ref should’ve call that in CFC’s favor… maddeningly she (yes she) did not. And therefore 1-1 draw on the road.

Even more frustrating was the fact that without this bizarre call, Atlanta seemed unable to muster any sort of dangerous attack. Hunter had about 2 saves that were threatening, while the rest were lazy crosses or overly long strikes.

Meanwhile, on our attacking side, Calderwood and one other CFCer (maybe Moore?) both had great opportunities for shots on wide open goals that flew over the net. Either of those would’ve sealed a win for us against an Atlanta team that seemed to only be able to possess well in their defensive third, not in the two attacking thirds.

Players worth mentioning from our first match: Beattie, Chase, Moore, Glover and Roblez all played very well. And while it is a tough call for Man of the Match, we’re going to give the edge to Mark Beattie for is high energy playmaking and skill. He was really fun to watch and he made alot of good thing happen.

Players worth mentioning from the Atlanta match: Robles, Rodriguez, Beattie, Chase and Odeny all played solidly. And while we love Odeny’s amazing ability to come away with the ball almost every time an attacker comes at him, and casual poise in the back, there were a couple very dangerous passes he made late in the game. Also worth noting, the play of our subs seemed to be a drop off from the starter’s play. This was a bit surprising after the game against Jacksonville, but perhaps it was just a coincidence that several of the guys were having off days on the same day. We shall see.

Good play as well: Ochieng got the goal (which was off a fantastic play and pass by Moore), but more important than that was the fact that he seemed to be getting back some of the strength and fluidity he had in his attacks last year. Encouraging improvement from game day 1. We’re going to give the Man of the Match honors to Jose Roblez. A number of guys could’ve gotten the nod, but we felt that without our old standby Glover in the middle, Roblez (and Heredia too) did a great job controlling things. Beattie and Moore also provided some scintillating moments. Fun to watch.

Our final comparison: The Silverback’s facility was really nice. A nifty stadium of 4,000 or so with a nice bridge around the whole thing that could no doubt hold close to another 1,000 in standing-room-only situations. There were decent concessions (some tacos along side hot dogs and chips) and — believe it or not — $2.50 beer! In cans, but still not too shabby. The stadium was surrounded by 3 or 4 turf fields that were being used for league play — a bit of a downer as balls kept flying onto our field or hitting spectators… Not a good set up.

By the end of the game there were maybe 200-300 people there. Meanwhile, last week at home we had a low turnout of about 2,000. How about them apples?

Standings-wise: Atlanta played Jacksonville yesterday and came from a 1-0 deficit to win 3-1. So it looks like we are tied with Atlanta at the top of the conference with one win, one tie, four points and a goal differential of +2. Mirror images of each other. The Georgia Revolution beat Jacksonville on Friday 2-1, and would be in second with 3 points along side Knoxville and Rocket City who took turns beating each other on the road. Jacksonville has no wins yet, but also no home games. They might be pretty tough once they get people down to their neck of the woods.

We’ll post a longer match review later today or tomorrow, but in general we were pleased with the night last night. In the first 20 mins of the game it was clear that some of the CFC guys had not been playing together at all yet this season, as Jacksonville United seemed to take control and have the better chances.

But then our guys seemed to gel a bit better toward the end of the half (and got the goal). Chris Ochieng definitely looked rusty — coming off his horrible injury last year and probably not much play time last fall at Milligan. Nick Chase, Mark Beattie, Jose Robles and James Moore looked sharp and promising. We’ll elaborate on the team later…

It was nice to get the win and the crowd, while much smaller than we’re used to, was a decent size — much larger than the announced 1,175 — we counted around 2,000 – 2,500… No doubt smaller due to the fact that we’re starting three weeks earlier than last season (and without a giant international exhibition game!), and school is still in session and we had horrible tornado damage last week… Hopefully attendance will pick back up soon.

Lastly, Jacksonville United has some stuff to work on, but they should be proud of their performance overall. They have a good core to work with and were no doubt affected by the long travel time to get here. We’ll have to watch out for them when we travel down to their neck of the woods…

More to come!

Apologies for the lapse in posting my footie faithful! We here at the ‘hooligan were set back by no power or internet last week (though we should’ve posted a game report before the storms hit, we know)! So here we go:

In spite of the beautiful weather, it seemed that the storms (and maybe the presumed talent level of the opponent?) kept all but the most faithful fans away — only about 500 (by our reckoning) came out to see the 7-0 thumping. Dalton really only had about 2 good offensive opportunities the entire match and our backup goalie from last year (Thomas Hunter) squelched those quite easily.

While word on the street is that not many of our starters were at the match, we have to say the 2nd (and 3rd?) string guys looked pretty sharp. Granted, the opposition may have inflated our perception of the team’s skills, but we seemed to have some good speed in the attacking third along with some nice finishes (Irvin Espinal’s first blast was a superb shot — coming off a dazzling series of passes too).

Espinal, Heredia, Glover and Courtney performed solidly. Beattie (a player from the 2009 team) looked quite crisp too… A couple of the newcomers  — 17 and 5 in particular (names weren’t correct on the gameday program) — looked promising. We were most impressed by Espinal and Beattie… last season Espinal looked like he’d been relaxing in the offseason and took a while to get his form back. This year he apparently played at Shorter College in the fall and he looked quick and sharp. We like it!

So, Chattahooligan faithful, let’s beat the bushes and get a great turnout for our season opener in NPSL play! We don’t know what the skill level is of this Jacksonville United team, but we can probably expect that they have played together as a younger select team for quite some time and their chemistry should be pretty good. Meanwhile, we will be adding alot of new players into the mix for the first time — having to make chemistry right there on the field.

We’ve heard there are players from some NCAA Div I schools — guys from Memphis, SMU and maybe College of Charleston — who might be able to elevate the play of our talent from last year: Ochieng, Glover, Espinal, Stewart and the like. Sadly, we discovered on Saturday that the talented Luis Salazar cannot join us again this year due to a job offer in a far off state… And the wonderful Richie Masters has reportedly hung up the goalie gloves — Richard, you will be missed! You took us far and dazzled us with many a great save… All the best to you and Luis in your future endeavors!

Now let’s go ‘Nooga Nation! Let’s support our boys this Saturday!