After leaving the US and missing the Chile Friendly as one of the handful of players in the January Camp not to make the team, Eugene Starikov went back to Russia. He had been signed by Russian power Zenit St. Petersburg but loaned out to the lower lying Tom Tomsk. He began the pre-season with Zenit, and had scored the game-winning goal in the opening game of Marbella Cup for Zenit in their 2-1 victory over Bulgarian club Lokomotiv Plovdiv. Starikov has since singed a 2 year contract with Zenit and a new 1.5 year loan with Tom Tomsk. Although Starikov might not exactly be a key to success for the US given that the next generation of US strikers looks potentially much deeper then the current one (starting with Agudelo/Bunbury/Starikov and going down through the youth teams), but at the current moment the US is so striker starved that if he can show enough quality to get back to Zenit and start getting time there he would be nearly a lock to get a nod for the national team. Of course this is all considering he doesn’t decide to play for the Ukraine first, which is still on the table as an option
bpmangan
mattsant16
Pat
