NEW YORK, N.Y. – The initial list of 65 college seniors from 45 Division I programs who have been invited to participate in the 2009 adidas MLS Player Combine, announced by the MLS office. The annual player combine will be held at Lockhart Stadium in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Jan. 9-13, 2009. The game schedule for the player combine is also included below.

The coaching and management staffs of all 15 MLS teams will be in attendance to scout talent at the combine, which concludes two days before the 2009 MLS SuperDraft. At last year’s MLS SuperDraft 43 of the 56 players drafted participated in the 2008 adidas MLS Player Combine and 12 combine players were selected in the first round. The 2009 MLS SuperDraft will be held on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009 in St. Louis, Mo.

The list of invitees is highlighted by eight players who are semifinalists for the 2008 Missouri Athletic Club (M.A.C.) Hermann Trophy, NCAA soccer’s equivalent of the Heisman Trophy. The 2008 finalists will be announced on Dec. 12, 2008, and the winner is announced on Jan. 9, 2009.

The initial player list was determined by a select panel of Division I college coaches representing all conferences, who nominated and voted for players in conjunction with MLS coaches. Youth players from the Generation adidas program will join additional collegiate players from NCAA Division II and III schools, NAIA schools and Division I alternates to finalize the 2009 adidas Player Combine. The final player list and team assignments will be announced in the coming weeks. 

The 2009 adidas MLS Player Combine will separate all players into four teams and feature two games per day at Lockhart Stadium on Jan. 10, 11 and 13. Each team will be led by an experienced Division I coach and will be assigned a youth coach, to be named at a later date. Joining Daley and Clark will be Santa Clara Head Coach, Cam Rast, who has been selected to coach Team adidas Tiro, Caleb Porter, a former MLS player and current assistant coach at Indiana, who will coach Team Predator PowerSwerve.
 
MLS PLAYER COMBINE GAME SCHEDULE
All games are open to the public. All times eastern and schedule is subject to change.
Saturday, January 10   
2:30 p.m. Predator PowerSwerve vs. adiTunit (Lockhart Stadium)
4:30 p.m. adiPure vs. adidas Tiro (Lockhart Stadium)

Sunday, January 11     
3:00 p.m. adiTunit vs. adidas Tiro (Lockhart Stadium)
5:00 p.m. Predator PowerSwerve vs adiPure (Lockhart Stadium)

Tuesday, January
9:15 a.m. Predator PowerSwerve vs adidas Tiro (Lockhart Stadium)
11:15 a.m. adiPure vs adiTunit (Lockhart Stadium)       

2009 ADIDAS MLS PLAYER COMBINE LIST BY POSITION
GOALKEEPERS (7): Chris Brown (Boston College); Evan Bush (University of Akron); Steward Ceus (University of Albany); Alec Dufty (University of Evansville); Neal Kitson (St. John’s University); Milos Kocic (Loyola College); Sean Milligan (Dartmouth College)

DEFENDERS (20): Lyle Adams (Wake Forest University); Calum Angus (Saint Louis University); Trevor Banks (Old Dominion University); Darius Barnes (Duke University); Rhett Bernstein (Brown University); Matt Besler (Notre Dame University); Evan Brown (Wake Forest University); Oscar Castillo (University of Connecticut); Chris Clements (University of Tulsa); AJ Delagarza (University of Maryland); Paul Gerstenberger (Boston College); David Hertel (Michigan State University); Wes Knight (College of Charleston); Otto Loewy (Winthrop University); Yohance Marshall (University of South Florida); Ryan Mirsky (Southern Methodist University); Babjide Ogunbiyi (Santa Clara University); Kyle Russell (Coastal Carolina University); Seth Sinovic (Creighton University); Jack Traynor (Notre Dame University)

MIDFIELDERS/FORWARDS (39): Kwame Adjeman-Pamboe (George Mason University); Quincy Amarikwa (University of California-Davis); Brandon Barklage (Saint Louis University); Josh Boateng (Liberty University); Graciano Brito (Quinnipiac University); Pav Castenada (Duke University); Aaron Clapham (University of Louisville); Raphael Cox (University of Washington); Sam Cronin (Wake Forest University); Dylan Curtis (University of California-Davis); Doug DeMartin (Michigan State University); Jokul Elisabetarson (University of North Carolina-Greensboro); Michael Fucito (Harvard University); Andrei Gotsmanov (Creighton University); Mike Grella (Duke University); Alex Grendi (University of Pennsylvania); Juan Guerra (Florida International University); Jeffrey Harwell (Southern Methodist University); Bryan Irwin (University of Portland); Richard Jata (Campbell University); George John (University of Washington); Keum Sung Kim (Loyola University); Michael Lahoud (Wake Forest University); Ryan Maduro (Providence College); Patrick Murray (Furman University); Kyle Patterson (Saint Louis University); Nick Perra (University of California-Santa Barbara); Chris Pontius (University of California-Santa Barbara); Matt Poole (University of Virginia); Akeem Priestley (University of Connecticut); Daniel Revivo (Winthrop University); Tosaint Ricketts (University of Wisconsin-Green Bay); Brad Ring (Indiana University); Chris Salvaggionne (University of North Carolina-Charlotte); Jordan Seabrook (University of South Florida); Marcus Tracy (Wake Forest University); Nick Zimmerman (James Madison University); Graham Zusi (University of Maryland)