Midseason Player Grades

After Thursday night's game against New York, the Wizards are now half way through their season. Through 15 games, the Wizards are 5-5-5 and tied for 6th place in the Eastern Conference. Overall, it hasn't been a great start to the season, after starting off with a 4 game home stand, the Wizards went on a two month road trip of 6 games. Click to continue reading...

The end of June only means one thing, the summer transfer window is near it's due date for reopening for all clubs. After today MLS contracts go guaranteed for the year, so don't be shocked to see a few more names be dropped along with DC's Franco Niell and KC's Eloy Colombano. MLS clubs are turning [. Click to continue reading...

It's been a relatively quiet week. Big game ahead this weekend, although I find myself repeating that now. Every game that is dropped means further points out of the playoffs. Again, repeating myself in saying that there is still much time left in the season. Lots of games to be played, so there is no reason for desperation.

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Eloy Colombano has officially been released by the Wizards by "mutual agreement" according to the KC Star. The rumor had been out since earlier today, but it's not official. Colombano says in the article that his being away from home and his lack of playing time led to the mutual release. He got married this past offseason and has a new son. Click to continue reading...

While the first team played in Salt Lake this past weekend, the Wizards Junior teams competed in the Kansas State Cup competition. Three of the Wizards four teams won the state cup title. The Wizards U-19 team had the easiest path, with only a three team group, the Juniors only had to win one match, which they did easily winning 9-0 over KC Comets Select. Click to continue reading...

It seems that every time it rains before a Reserve match, the skies clear just in time for the game. The same was true again in the Kansas City derby, of sorts. The Wizards prevailed 5-1 through goals from Trujillo (2), Colombano, Victorine and Kraus. The Brass scored the first goal of the season against the KCW Reserves in an exhibition. Click to continue reading...

Sorry so blurry, the Moto Q camera phone on 6X zoom isn't the highest res ever. Coach talking to media, Jimmy signing autographs and Jimmy holding the trophy.


Ok, the running commentary is done. Some other notes. Jimmy Conrad's post-game speech to the crowd upon taking the trophy from an event organizer included the following:

"Thanks for coming out. Click to continue reading...

Yesterday, our reserve team topped New York's 2-1 on a late goal from recently signed Nelson Pizarro. We are now 3-0-2 in MLS Reserve Division play, tops in the league.

Eloy Colombano opened the scoring in the 38th minute, taking a pass from Aaron Hohlbein near the top of the 18 and curling a right-footed shot into the top corner at the back post for his second Reserve Division goal of the year. Click to continue reading...

The Wizards reserves remained unbeaten with a 2-1 win in New York today. Goals by Eloy Colombano and Nelson Pizarro gave the Wizards the goals they needed. Colombano received a cutting ball from Aaron Hohlbein. New York tied the game on a penalty kick by John Wolyniec. Three minutes from time, Nelson Pizarro scored his second goal of the reserve league season off of an assist from Kurt Morsink to give the Wizards the win. Click to continue reading...

Not so surprising if ou've watched the game, but the story here is how careless the Wizards were with the ball - that and a fantastic free kick by Amado Guevara. After watching the game from the weekend, here's a few things stuck out to me:

• The Wizards shot themselves in the foot a number of times with sloppy turnovers, especially in the first half.

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Not so surprising if ou've watched the game, but the story here is how careless the Wizards were with the ball - that and a fantastic free kick by Amado Guevara. After watching the game from the weekend, here's a few things stuck out to me:

The Wizards shot themselves in ...

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It was a clean sweep in Chicago this weekend for the Wizards. After the first team beat the Fire 1-0, the reserves took the field for their match. After falling behind 1-0 in the first half, scored 3 without reply in the second half to win 3-1. Patrick Nyarko opened the scoring for Chicago by blocking a clearance by Eric Kronberg. Click to continue reading...

The KCW Reserves won 3-1 yesterday following the first-team match for a clean sweep on the day. Patrick Nyarko scored in the first half for Chicago, but the Wizacd three after the break to earn a 3-1 victory. Second-half goals came from Ivan Trujillo, Eloy Colombano and guest player/former open tryout participant Nelson Pizarro. Click to continue reading...

Due to other commitments today, I was unable to make the reserve game this morning out at Swope Park. I did have a friend text me during the game though. The reserves defeated the University of Memphis 3-0 this morning. The only goal scorer I got right now is that the third goal was scored by Eloy Colombano. Click to continue reading...

Isn't it a happy one? Not only did we beat D.C. United 2-0 Saturday, but the reserves captured a 4-0 victory over Drake Sunday afternoon. What some people don't yet know, is that the KCW Juniors U-16 squad put a 4-1 whooping on a team from St. Louis Soccer Club Sunday on Field 3, the new turf field at the Swope Park Training Center. Click to continue reading...

After the Wizards first team beat 2-0 last night, the reserves doubled up their first team counterparts, defeating Drake University today 4-0 out at the Swope Park training facility.

Drake hung in the game in the first half, cutting off a lot of space for the Wizards attackers and limiting their chances. Click to continue reading...

The final two rounds of the Wizards fantasy draft are now complete. In the next few days I'll have lineups and a write up from each of the draft participants talking about their team and lineup. Once that's posted, I will have the poll posted for voting.

Here are the previous rounds.
1 & 2
3 & 4
5 & 6
7 & 8
9 & 10
11 & 12
13 & 14

15(1). Click to continue reading...

To cap it off, now it's the time for those who find the net. The forwards. The big question that faces the Wizards (as I may have mentioned in the past) has to be how they will fare without Eddie Johnson.

Part Three: Forwards

Scott Sealy: Target man from Trinidad & Tobago. ...

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The Wizards were supposed to play River Plate today, but for some reason they backed out at the last minute. Instead, the Wizards played Deportivo Moron. Moron plays in what amounts to the Argentine third division. The Wizards won 5-1, with two goals coming from new signing Ivan Trujillo. His first was a tap in, in the 8th minute. Click to continue reading...

River Plate backed out at the last minute, so we played Deportivo Moron instead. I know how that reads in English, but remember they're in a Spanish-speaking country. We dispensed them with little difficulty, winning 5-1 on goals by Trujillo (2), Marinelli, Jewsbury and Colombano. Lineups, details and a photo below. Click to continue reading...

The Wizards came from behind for their second win of their Argentina trip today against Velez Sarsfield, coming from behind to win 3-2. The Wizards fell behind in the 13th minute, but equalized on a goal by Ryan Pore in the 21st off of an assist by Carlos Marinelli. They fell behind again in the 38th minute. Click to continue reading...

We captured a win for the second straight day, beating Velez Sarsfield 3-2 today in rainy/chilly Argentina. We trailed at half 2-1, then scored in the 84th and 87th to capture the victory. Lineups and details below. Trujillo is with the club now but is sleeping after a long flight. Glad to hear he's joined up with the boys! Click to continue reading...

Hey everyone, the lads completed their first Argentina training session this morning. According to weather.com, the current temperature is 79 degrees, and it feels like 82. It will be mostly cloudy today. Must be rough on them. Practice went "well," nothing crazy to report.

Two of our opponents have been locked down thus far, but as always, pre-season matches are subject to change. Click to continue reading...

Two Wizards missed the last week of training with the Wizards due to their commitments with different levels of the US National Team.

Jimmy Conrad had been in LA at the Home Depot Center training with the US Men's National team in preparations for their game Wednesday against Mexico. Today the 22 man roster came out for the game, unfortunately, Conrad was not named to the 22 man roster. Click to continue reading...

Earlier today I looked at the forwards situation for the Wizards at the moment. Now I'm going to look at the midfield situation.

The Wizards have more depth at this position then they have at forward. The rumor going around is that the Wizards will be employing a 3-5-2 this year. Carlos Marinelli is the favorite to start at the central attacking midfield position. Click to continue reading...

Thanks to Sam Pierron, I have the list of protected players by the Kansas City Wizards, for Wednesday's expansion draft. The list that I created was not very far off the list that the Wizards ended up going with. Here's the list of protected players, those bolded were ones that I did not protect in my list.

Davy Arnaud
Jimmy Conrad
Nick Garcia
Michael Harrington
Jack Jewsbury
Eddie Johnson
Carlos Marinelli
Kurt Morsink
Scott Sealy
Sasha Victorine
Kerry Zavagnin

Those two replace Eloy Colombano and Kevin Hartman. Click to continue reading...

Last week the Wizards scored twice in second half stoppage time to get the full 3 points off Columbus. This week, the Wizards were on the other end of that result. Tied with Chivas at 1-1 in second half stoppage time, Ante Razov curled in a great shot from outside the box to give Chivas their first win against the Wizards, 2-1.

The way the Wizards played last night, this was a rough result. Click to continue reading...

That is the sound of any hopes the Wizards had of winning MLS Cup going out the window. It's also likely the sound of the Wizards hopes of ending their two year playoff drought leaving as well.

A 3-1 loss to Real Salt Lake. REAL SALT LAKE!!!

A goal inside the first minute by RSL set the tone for the game. Even though the Wizards were able to dominate possession for the most part after that, the Wizards weren't able to get any chances that really threatened the Salt Lake goal. Click to continue reading...

The Wizards seemed to mail in another game last night against the Revolution, as they fell to them for second game in a row. Again the Wizards didn't seem to play with much heart and were completely shut down offensively. The Wizards could only manage 6 shots, and only 1 shot on goal. The lack of testing Matt Reis is troublesome as the Wizards offense has started to sputter. Click to continue reading...

Keeping score during the Beckham Challenge (intro/results)kind of turned me on the idea of taking notes during the games I watch. I tried it again during New England's narrow (and dull) win over the Kansas City Wizards - one of several games that tweaked the meaning of the week's power rankings. I'll reproduce those [...] Click to continue reading...

It has been officially announced today, the Wizards have announced the signing of Argentine forward/midfielder, Eloy Colombano. According to the article, Colombano will be wearing number 16. It will be interesting to see what he brings to the Wizards. Hopefully he turns out to be a signing this season like Juan Toja or Luciano Emilio and not like Luis Tejada Click to continue reading...

- The Kansas City Star reports that the Kansas City Wizards added to Major League Soccer's (MLS) Argie contingent with the signing of Eloy Colombano. WVHooligan has some thoughts. My thoughts: I'm more worried about these guys' defense; I mean, they've got Yura Movsisyan. And what does this/could this mean for Carlos Marinelli? - The Screaming [. Click to continue reading...

A few days after I posed the question of what was going on with the Wizards and Eloy Colombano, I find out today that his signing is expected to be announced later today. It's taken them a while to get this done, but Colombano will apparently be ready to play next Sunday when the Wizards take on New England. Colombano will be classified as a Youth International under MLS rules. Click to continue reading...

Wizards news has been slow the past few days, so I've been looking more at what other teams are doing. Reading an article about Real Salt Lake having 3 Argentine's in camp on trial and the possibility of signing those 3 got me thinking about KC's work on getting another Argentine to join the Wizards. There's been nothing in the news lately about the standing of Eloy Colombano, the last we heard was was when Robb Heineman posted on bigsoccer saying they were working on a work permit. Click to continue reading...

The whole thing about the Cauldron tickets has had me not spending as much time on other topics. Anyways, here's a few Wizards related notes from the past few days, "In Case You Missed It."

Eloy Colombano update. It's been quiet on this front, not much news has been reported lately, and he hasn't been seen since this picture was taken at the Toronto FC match July 1 by Yellow Card Journalism photographer, Wade Jackson. Click to continue reading...