Justin Meram on Ives Galarcep Draft Board

Submitted by CincyWolverine on

This is for all those following Michigan's recent soccer success. I perused the boards earlier today and I didn't see any mention of this. For those of you who don't know, and I'm not sure a lot of people do, Ives runs a US soccer blog that has a lot of followers.

http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_by_ives/2010/12/sbi-mls-draft-big-board-version-20.html#more

 

22. JUSTIN MERAM, Michigan, Forward

A fearless forward who has shown a great ability to go at and beat defenders, Meram's stock has risen faster in the past month than any player in the nation.

JTGoBlue

December 9th, 2010 at 10:05 PM ^

..of the content. I find it works out really well...one can open the threads they are interested in, or want to comment on, and NOT open the threads they may not be interested in...so if someone inadvertantly posts a duplicate (subject) or about something I'm tired of reading about, I just move on to the next one...really works! 

hailtothevictors08

December 8th, 2010 at 4:46 PM ^

Akron is an absolute soccer powerhouse (how i have no clue) and this chart is just amazing ... can you imagine if a football team had 5 out of the nations top 8 pro prospects ... this team's whole defense got a run with one of the us jr teams ... either way though, one game, its soccer, anything can happen, go blue

ikestoys

December 8th, 2010 at 5:51 PM ^

It's important to note that soccer is very different from the NFL in that the collegiate game is not essentially a minor league system. Take a look at the USMNT's roster and you'll see that most players either spent a year or two in college or none at all.

Akron doesn't have 8 of the top 10 pro prospects in the nation, even if you take Ive's list as gold (and he's pretty good imo). Top tier prospects like Andy Najar and Spector play for academies either in the US or abroad until they're ready. Akron has 8 of the top 10 collegiate prospects, which is still pretty crazy if you ask me, but the difference is important.

College soccer is looked down on by the MLS and other leagues, and for good reason. The NCAA has more than a few rules that really hurts the quality of the game because they allow teams to de-emphasize skill in favor of running up and down the field. As US Soccer improves, less and less top tier kids are going to go the college route, and this will be great for the USMNT.

rcrichlo

December 8th, 2010 at 7:03 PM ^

He is getting called to u20s national team after the cup. He makes a name for himself their he could play in the u20 world cup then maybe the olympics..

Would be pretty cool to see a wolverine on the national team.

jgunnip

December 8th, 2010 at 7:49 PM ^

While he was the leading freshman goal scorer in the nation I'm pretty he he wasn't #1 overall. Hertzog from Penn State had 20 I believe. Still, he was Gatorade high school player of the year last year and he's obviously lived up to the hype and more.

He scored the lone goal against Akron earlier in the year, hopefully he can get another or two Friday.