So I’m posting this a little later than I thought I would. Tough cookies.

What I said yesterday about the combine being a great event, warts and all? Well, there are a lot more warts this year than there were the last couple years. The combine used to be a really laid back affair where everyone - coaches, fans, MLS and US Soccer executives, the friends and family of the participants, and on occasion Bruce Arena and his belly – would gather around the field to watch the boys play. And when I say around the field I mean right on the sideline.

All that has apparently changed very much for the worse. There is perhaps no worse place at Home Depot Center to watch a soccer game than the track stadium. For one thing it’s got a track. That’d be alright if they still let you stand next to the field, but I’ll be damned if they didn’t do their darndest to dissuade people from standing there. I had more than one argument with the Home Depot Henchmen about being “too close” to the field during the first half of the first game. I wasn’t the only one. Eventually I think Henchmen realized people were going to congregate wherever the hell they pleased. The phrase “herding cats” comes to mind.

It wasn’t just the fans. The coaches and their entourages by and large also refused to sit in the “official” area on the bleachers behind the benches. I don’t blame them. Those bleachers are far from the field and because they’ve set up shelters over the team benches the view was obstructed. The “official” seating area for media and coaches was virtually abandoned after the first half of play.

A few teams stayed there, but most dispersed around the stadium. Some set up chairs along the sideline. Colorado, New England and Chivas went to the opposite side of the field to the ostensibly “off-limits” bleachers. Peter Nowak, with a very annoyed look on his face, marched down from the “official” bleachers during the first game and plopped himself down on the team bench for a close-up and unobstructed view of the field. Of course, Peter Nowak always looks annoyed with something.

Compared to previous years this combine has been poorly organized and fan-unfriendly. The overwhelming sense this morning was that fans were not particularly welcome there. The seating restrictions were overbearing and unnecessary (really, this is MLS, lighten up already), the atmosphere had none of the intimacy of previous years, and they made precious little effort to provide basic services for the die-hard MLS fans who showed up.

By “basic services” I mean rosters with numbers. In years past MLS has posted the entire combine booklet with pictures, bios and a numbered roster on MLSNet. They’ve also routinely made combine roster sheets available when you walked in the gate to the field. This year they provided absolutely nothing until the first game was three-fourths of the way over. It was a very frustrating experience and as far as I’m concerned it was completely bush-league for MLS not to have the rosters available when you walked in the gate. Even last year’s combine, which was played in torrential rain, seemed better organized than this one. If this had been my first combine experience I’d likely never go back.

(As I’m writing this MLS has yet to post anything online. I have taken the liberty of posting the roster sheet with number assignments at BigSoccer. If you need one here’s the link.)

I can’t say much about the first game because for most of it I lacked a proper roster. I was also walking around the field quite a bit trying to figure out the best vantage point. (It turns out the off-limits bleachers are the best.) And if that weren’t difficulty enough there was a thick haze over the field for much of the first half. Sometimes it was hard to make out the numbers through the glare.

As usual, I refuse to use the names Adidas gave to the teams. I’m going by colors instead.

The first game was between the Light Blues (the LBs) and the Greens. Marvell Wynne was on the LBs and I made it a point to hunker down in the corner to watch him. He did some nice stuff and he did some pretty pedestrian stuff. All in all he played like a guy who knew the combine didn’t matter too much for him. I meant to watch for Jeff Curtin, also on the LBs, but somehow I never took notice of him. Maybe that’s good. Maybe that’s bad. I understand that Jeff Rowland scored the first LB goal, but in the haze I really didn’t see who it was that put it in. Of the three goals today that goal was the best. Competition for that distinction wasn’t hard because the other two goals were pure garbage.

The imaginative and skilled Mehdi Ballouchy was one of the only interesting players on the Greens today. When I finally got hold of a roster I identified Anthony Noriega for whom I’d been told to keep an eye out. He was a calm, controlled, and big (6-4) presence in central defense.

Even by quite low combine standards, the quality of play in the first game was pretty disappointing. The second game was only marginally better. Nathan Sturgis had a decent game for the Dark Blues (DBs). Blake Wagner was horrible. The DB offense had its moments in the second half, but in the first half they were largely shut down by the Red midfield. Josmer Altidore, who looks bigger than his listed 5-10, 175lbs, was the best of that lot.

Overall, however, I thought the Reds played the best game of the day. Willie Sims stood out in the first half. Jeff Carroll looks like a very promising, if slightly built, defensive midfield prospect. He was largely responsible for suffocating the DB offense in the first half. But the player of the day, for my money, was Justin Moose. His goal was pure garbage (and I hope he thanked Bertz and Wahl on the DB defense for the gift), but the rest of his play was – well – it was just different from most everything else on the field. When he was on the field he had a certain degree of control over the game. And it wasn’t just showboating. He was intelligent about what he was doing. He’s also quite fast and composed on the ball, and his initiative, more often than not, paid off in a cross, a chance or a shot. In short, he stood out and was certainly one of the more interesting players out there. Wake Forest has been producing some excellent MLS prospects in recent years (just look at New England’s draft picks last year). Justin Moose seems to be following in their footsteps.

But I’ve gotta be honest here. This is now my third combine. So I know these aren’t the best games. But the combine games two years ago were far, far better than this year’s games. And even the games played in horrific conditions last year seemed to offer more interest and quality than the games I saw on Friday. Is it the players? Maybe they’re not as good as in the past. Is it the coaches? It did seem like the combine players were more organizationally lost than usual. A bit more coaching from the usually very lax combine “coaches” might help diminish the confusion. Whatever the reason, it was hard to come away today with any strong impressions other than “not much out there this time.” So I have my doubts about the depth of this draft.

I hope I’m wrong, but given what I saw today it’s hard to believe this draft will have much immediate impact on starting elevens across the league. There may be a number of long term projects, but only a handful of players today looked like they’d contribute much anytime soon.

Hopefully this combine will follow a different pattern than the ones I’ve previously attended. In the past the best games were on the first day. Then it all went downhill as players decided they’d done enough or decided they’d blown whatever chance they had. We’ll see in the morning if the games get any better.