The Aztexan

Regular season USL-1 play has now concluded for 2009. The playoffs start tomorrow (Thursday). Sure it would have been nice to see Austin there; but I guess it just wasn't meant to be. We might as well get a head start on looking back.

Both of the league's expansion teams, the Austin Aztex and the Cleveland City Stars, fared poorly in their inaugural seasons, winding up at the bottom of the final standings:

P	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Portland Timbers	30	16	10	4	45	19	+26	58
2	Carolina RailHawks FC	30	16	7	7	43	19	+24	55
3	Puerto Rico Islanders	30	15	8	7	44	31	+13	53
4	Charleston Battery	30	14	11	5	33	21	+12	53
5	Montreal Impact	30	12	7	11	32	31	+1	43
6	Rochester Rhinos	30	11	10	9	34	32	+2	43
7	Vancouver Whitecaps FC	30	11	9	10	42	36	+6	42
8	Minnesota Thunder	30	7	10	13	39	44	-5	31
9	Miami FC	30	8	5	17	26	52	-26	29
10	Austin Aztex FC	30	5	8	17	28	51	-23	21*
11	Cleveland City Stars	30	4	19	7	22	52	-30	19

As you can see, the Aztex escaped the very last spot, if barely. That 2-point deduction they earned from the league in July (for playing Callahan despite his 5 yellows) didn't wind up making any real difference.

I noted a couple of weeks ago that Austin and Cleveland were both in danger of posting one of the worst seasons in modern USL-1 history. Both squads escaped that fate by picking up 3 points since then (amazingly enough, both wins at the expense of the regular-season champion Portland Timbers).

These standings don't tell the whole story of the Aztex's 2009 season, however. Note that their goal differential is better than Miami FC's, despite the Aztex being 8 points lower in the standings. A few of Austin's losses were big ones, with a margin of 3 or 4, but most were much closer: 8 losses by one goal, and 5 losses by two.

And how about all those hits to the roster, due to injuries, travel issues, etc.? It seemed like the group of guys taking the field in red & white was never the same from week to week. Some key player or other was always missing, and some new loaner player was trying to fill the gap.

For example, take a look at the number of games & minutes played for these selected players, some of the team's key difference-makers.

Player	Games   (30 max)	Minutes (2,700 max)
Yordany Alvarez	14	1,229
Eddie Johnson	22	1,873
Sullivan Silva	24	1,654
Gifton Noel-Williams	16	1,024
Miguel Gallardo	14	1,215

Three of them were only able to play in half the games, and though the other 2 had more appearances, their minutes were still less than 70% of the maximum possible. It's a crude measure, and of course the team is more than these five guys, but this clearly shows a squad that was not at full strength.

That's a glimpse at the on-field performance; how about a peak at other measures? One significant feather in the organization's cap is the Community Relations award they were awarded by the Austin Chamber of Commerce.

The Aztex received the award based on its numerous contributions to the community this past year including the AISD Fitness Program where Aztex players worked to improve the cardiovascular fitness of 6th grade students at each of AISD's 18 middle schools. Results from the program alone were impressive as AISD reported an 11 percent increase in fitness across the schools compared with only two percent last year.

In addition to working with organizations like Any Baby Can, Austin CAN! Academy, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and Lift Up America, the Aztex raised more than $10,000 in donations throughout the year.

Another landmark this year was the first annual Copa Aztex, which showcased top-level Mexican soccer in Austin and helped promote the team and the local game to Mexican fans. (Don't forget a similar opportunity is coming up on Oct. 7, when the Aztex will host Monterrey's Rayados at the Round Rock ISD stadium in North Austin.) There was some dispute with the Copa Aztex attendance numbers reported by the University of Texas. Officially announced at just over 7,000, many felt that the crowd numbered closer to 10,000.

Speaking of attendance, here's how the numbers looked for the regular season games. We didn't see the 10K-plus that established — and MLS-bound — teams like Portland and Montreal had, but getting an average just shy of 3,000 seems like a pretty solid start to me. (kenn.com has 2009 attendance numbers for the whole league).

04/18/09	Minnesota Thunder	4,891
04/21/09	Vancouver Whitecaps	1,549
04/25/09	Cleveland City Stars	3,248
05/08/09	Puerto Rico Islanders	5,216
05/24/09	Carolina Railhawks	2,388
05/29/09	Puerto Rico Islanders	2,019
06/05/09	Charleston Battery	2,246
06/07/09	Charleston Battery	2,891
06/19/09	Carolina Railhawks	2,629
06/21/09	Rochester Rhinos	3,114
07/11/09	Portland Timbers	3,114
07/25/09	Montreal Impact	2,786
08/16/09	Minnesota Thunder	3,470
08/29/09	Miami FC Blues	2,611
09/07/09	Portland Timbers	2,439
average:		2,974

Labels: community, players, USL-1

You may have seen ads for Nothing But Nets, the charity supported by MLS (and NBA, VH-1 and WNBA, among others). The purpose of the group is pretty simple: buy insecticide-treated bed netting to distribute to malaria-stricken areas of the world. That netting, draped around their beds, protects people in those areas from mosquito bites and, more importantly, from the malaria they transmit.

I'd heard of this before, myself. But it wasn't until I read this amazing National Geographic article: Malaria - Stopping A Global Killer, that I really realized what a monster malaria is. Virtually nonexistent in the U.S., in some parts of the world it's a terrifying part of daily life.

A nationwide health survey in 2005 [in Zambia] concluded that for every thousand children under age five living in the North-Western Province, there were 1,353 cases of malaria. An annual rate of more than 100 percent seems impossible, a typo. It is not. What it means is that many children are infected with malaria more than once a year.

...Few infectious agents can overwhelm the body as swiftly as [malaria parasites Plasmodium] falciparum. An African youth can be happily playing soccer in the morning and dead of falciparum malaria that night.

There are a lot of problems in the world, and a lot of worthy organizations working to help. But when I read that story, I knew the cause I wanted to help fight for. I challenge you to read it and not be moved to help, too.

But don't just take it from me, take it from former Houston Dynamo, current Toronto FC star Dwayne De Rosario, in this short video:



It's easy to help, and it's not expensive. A bed net costs $10, which includes delivery to Africa. Ten bucks! That's the cost of two pints of Guinness at the Nomad (not including tip). Meanwhile, that $10 could literally save a kid's life somewhere in Zimbabwe, or Mali, or Chad.

And if you donate now, you'll have a chance to win 2 tickets — including airfare & hotel — to this year's MLS All-Star Game in Salt Lake City in July. Leading up to World Malaria Day on April 25th, 4 MLS teams are participating in the "Nothing But Nets Challenge", a contest to see whose fans can raise the most money for this cause. The teams, and links to their Nothing But Nets Challenge pages, are: LA Galaxy, Chicago Fire, DC United and Seattle Sounders. Donate through one of those pages, and if that team wins the contest, they could draw your name to win the All-Star Game trip. (Hint: Seattle's the team to go with. As of this writing they've raised over $10,000, far ahead of the next highest team, DC United with $1,600.)

Go ahead, don't wait, do it right now. Send a net. Save a life.

Labels: community, MLS

Don't forget, the Aztex team will be participating in the Start! Heart Walk, a non-competitive 5K walk benefitting the American Heart Association. The walk begins at 8:00 AM on Saturday, October 18 in front of the Capitol building.

You can help the Aztex help this good cause by sponsoring a team member or joining a team yourself.

Labels: community