Do the Pats have a GM?

Do they have a coach?

Do they have a team?

Do they have a front office?

I have not been here in a very long time but it seems neither has anyone else.

This team seems to be one of the last to open its front office and have tryouts each year...and usually gives players about 24 hour notice which isn't too bad if you live in EP and don't have a life otherwise.

Last I heard was that there was a question of whether or not there was going to be a team or, at best, was it going to be a D3 team.

Chewy, you still around?

El Paso has a team. El Paso will play in 2003.

The new coach has not been named yet. A GM is not named and may not. Diana Cervantes is running things now under her daddy's eyes. Doing a good job too. The front office is changing dramatically. More people.

Players have been in contact with the team. Most will be back for next year. a few new faces as well. Omar Mora is doing extremely well in Mexico, but may not be back until June or not at all. Mike Griego is still stuggling to recover from a knee injury before the season started. and the Brazilians will be back.

The new schedule will help the team save money. It will be a neat suprise for all.

El Paso has great potential to succeed and push for a chamionship if a quality coach is brought in.

To Mr. Cervantes, my best wishes and gell well soon. He dislocated his elbow yesterday playing at Dudley.

No word on where they will play yet. It could be the Sunbowl. Negotiations are still in the works.

Are we going to see any changes in strategy at EP? Is the team going to try and field a group of players that can realistically compete with the makeup of the rest of the league? Or, are they going their own way despite the fact it has gone nowhere these past few years?

I feel they fielded players that could contend last year. They just started to jell and get going when the organization changed the coach, again. that was the problem last year. The coach ruined the team. He couldn't coach his way out of a paper bag. He completely took the team out of any opportunity to finish higher and advance in the playoffs.

Bottom line, the right leadership here can and will make a very successful team. Without it it will be the same old patriots.

I hope and pray I am proved wrong, but I feel we are in for more of the same. I wonder who they will bring in as coach? (What coach would want to come in considering the Pats past?) They should just give the job to Chuy Enriquez.

Does anyone know if Dominic Schell is working in the front office? I thought I heard somewhere that he was going to be working there.

Aaahhhhhh! That was a nice winter's nap. We're all just starting to wake up here, but it's hard with temperatures in the high 60's.

No, Dominic Schell is not working in the front office. Don't know if he'll be back or not -- he seemed to like it here and I believe the team liked him, too.

Should be word within a week as to whether or not the Patriots will play at the Sun Bowl. Hope it happens as UTEP's special events staff has many contacts and better financing to help promote events at their place, which will include the Pats if they can work a deal.

I agree with Dociceit, Diana's doing a great job keeping the biz running. No coach yet, but most of last year's squad will indeed be back. Good to see a receptionist in the office during the off-season, too.

This will be a key season for the Patriots if they get into the Sun Bowl. If they get into the big stadium, Enrique Cervantes wants to see improvement in the crowds this season or he may well drop the team to third division in 2004. If the Pats (and UTEP) can get the crowds, it'll open up more opportunities for the team in succeeding seasons. In other words, for better or worse, look for the Patriots to play things close to the vest in terms of coach and team once again.

without some expenditures in promotion/advertising, can anyone really expect an increase in attendance at the Sun Bowl?


Is it better situated in town?

Just a nicer place that will attract a crowd?

What is the competition like from acrross the border? Are there not at least two teams over there?


Or will the shear size make any crowd look pitiful?

Part of the fun is being there with a crowd of fellow fanatics (except I could do without it but am realistic enough to know you need crowds to pay for the team etc.).

I'd argue the point made where someone said EP "could contend". We had a couple of discussions on lack of professionalism and plain fact that the rest of the league is generally much bigger and (I think they said) much faster.

Yes, "Small" players can be effective but usually in conjuction with some bigger players on the team. The ol' "David vs Goliath" thing gets old.

The rest of the league is going with size often matched with speed.

Will El Paso contend? After talking with Mr. Cervantes I don't know. Most of the team will be back. He is going to keep things mostly local, (El Paso, Las Cruces, Juarez players). The team does have a good releationship with the Juarez Cobras. I expect a couple of players coming from there after their season is over.

Talking with Dominic When he was in town last weekend he feels he will be back. He likes it here and has a girlfriend in town. He has a few players he has played with in the past that he is trying to bring in.

The coach, who knows, it could be anyone from me to you to mickey mouse. That we wont know until March. Mr. C is concetrating on his soccer acadamy at the moment. He has about 180 kids there. His brother Hector and Jesus Enriquez are running that venture. I do hope for the organizations sake they do not have Jesus be the coach. I have my personal reasons and wont state them here, but he is NOT the man for the job.

I do belileve that if this team is to compete and contend it needs a coach that will bring some discipline and professionalism to the team. Too many of the younger guys have no idea what it is to be a pro. And this team has always had problems with discipline on and off the field. Maybe I should say professionalism instead of discipline because if you are a professional you don't have to worry about discipline. But look at teh number of cards and ejections for the Pats. You can see that they are ALWAYS at the top of the league in that catagory.

I just gotta believe. this team and city has so much potential for soccer. It would be a shame to see it drop down to D3. But, at this time the city and sponsors are burned out on minor league teams.

I'm rambling now. We'll see what happens. I'm hopeful, but tired of losing.

I got the feeling that Dominic was a good influence on the team last year, bringing some "professionalism" into town. I was also under the impression, which might have been totally mistaken, that maybe some people in the office might actually think enough of him to listen to what he has to say. I hope so.

He did bring some professionalism to the club. But, since when has EP done the logical thing?!

of course I have ulterior motives for his being influencial, however, with the mindset of the owner why would any player spend literally hundreds of dollars to come to a PATS tryout to find that they didn't "fit in"?

We've gone round and round on the professionalism issue, as well as on the Pats philosophy on the players they bring in.

I do hope Dominic comes back and brings some friends. A guy like that with contacts in American soccer can be very helpful. If someone like Dominic -- an MLS veteran, former collegian, accepted member of the "soccer community", etc. -- likes El Paso, others will be attracted to check it out.

one can only pray

It'll take more than prayers. I want Dom back. He is a big part of this team and if the new coach and Mr. C can give an honest look at his friends then things can happen. I agree with the above statement about Dom, but you and I do not have a say in these matters. Pray Baby, Pray.....

First, let me just say I am still shocked about what happened yesterday at Montwood. Never thought I see something like that here in EP.

Anyways, heres a question to the people in the know, will we see a more visible and aggrasive advertising campaign to try to get El Pasoans to the Sun Bowl (or wherever we play at)?

there are a lot of if's here. If they go to the Sun Bowl will UTEP's people be involved which would increse some of that. I would think so anyways. I do understand that they have more people in the front office doing things and working on sponsor as I write this. Luara Rayborn is working hard on that end.

Let's face it. With the Pats anything is possible. and if it doesn't make sense then they will probably do it LOL anyway I gotta believe with Mitch gone things will be done differently.

Whats up everybody, I'm new to the discussion but wanted to show that there are Patriots supporters in Las Cruces too. I have to agree with what everybody here has been saying, the Patriots always seem to have the skill to win games but they lack team play. Of the 8 or 9 games I saw this past season they looked great for about half the game and then just dissappeared. They would start making bonehead plays, bad decisions and just throw the games away. Maybe they should work on their fitness... Also, I know it is hard to get a lot of talent to come out for little money, but that is only part of the problem. They need a coach who will take what players he has and turn them into a team, instead of a bunch of guys out there all trying to do their own thing. That, and they need to stop worrying so much about playing the "Latin" style of "oh God that was a foul, ah my leg is broken...what do you mean play on, crap" and just play. If they concentrated half as hard on working for and supporting each other on the field as they do on the refs, the calls, whatever, with the talent they have, they could go far. The nice thing about soccer is you don't have to have the biggest or fastest guys, you need to have intelligent players willing to work hard for each other, and that has just not happened...at least not for a full 90 minutes.

PS What happened in Montwood yesterday?

Glad to hear from a soccer fan who travels a bit and supports the team quite well. Ah, Las Cruces, the land of a thousand motels. I was always amazed about that town each time I went through on way to CA and back.

Sadly, part of the "Latin game" is the attitude of "team play?" who needs that? Just heard about something on that in the past couple of days in relation to THE hottest soccer prospect in U.S. at the moment, some kid who is 13/14 years old and might go to MLS (I think he's on the U-17 team now). Heard it on the soccer radio show from Milwaukee the other night. Apparently, the kid needs to learn how to play with a team.

I'm sure he's been asked to do it all on his former club teams and many "hot shot" players come from that. They were the "hot" player on their team and won all their games for them. When they reach the higher levels they can't see/learn/understand that the game is different and that team play is THE thing. It is too easy at the top levels to take one hot player out.

You know, I don't know that I would even say hot shots, it just seems that sometimes there is a fundamental lack of understanding about the roles that each player is supposed to play on the team and what their responsibilities are and are not when on the field. Like I said before, I think they have the talent, they just don't really seem to have a team concept or someone stepping up and leading that everyone else is willing or able to follow. Most of the time El Paso ends up beating itself and it is unfortunate because there are a lot of people who want to support them but it is hard to stay excited when the same thing happens over and over game after game.

Welcome Mattylp

I have to say that last season I thought the Patriots' defense stepped it up a notch. Matty, your fellow Las Crucen, Freddy Juarez, has always been a good stopper, but a big difference was the addition of the two Brazilians, dos Santos and Terra. However, as the season wore on and the conditioning -- both mental and physical -- flagged, the same old bugaboos bit the Pats again.

Even dos Santos fell prey to the dreaded book-itis, head-butting a player in the next-to-last regular season match and drawing a three-game suspension that kept him out of the last match and the two playoff matches. His was a huge absence.

Guys, do you think it's coaching? You can't say the Pats haven't tried different -- ah -- "philosophies" over the years. Seems to be a new "philosophy" just about every season. You'd think by now one of 'em would stick.

Also, Chuy -- do you still have that Patriots shield you invented last year? That was cool and I copied it onto a former CPU for my desktop background. Thanks.

How I came up with the shields found here . (2nd post down)

Thanks so much! It's nice to have that back on the display. It's very well done.

Chuy, that patch is cool. YOu need to forward that on to Diana. Maybe they could use it.

Well, Let's see. Matty, you make some good points. Last year the Pats fell to OVER training. The new conditioning coach that came in 1/2 way through the season started them off like it was pre season. We had more injuries from that in a 3 week period than we had in 3 years! Memo pulled a calf muscle in pregame, Terra had an abdominal strain, Dos santos was fighting a groin injury, Dom was down to 2% body fat and had leg probs, Name a player and he had something goin on from over training.

Coaching, Yeah that's the key. So is a leader. In the nine years I've been around the team there has only been one leader, and he was here in 94/95 when the team was D3 and winning. It seems nobody wants to step up and when someone tries the others shut him down. Mr. C brought in the best coaching staff of the pats history last year in Tita and Luis. But, a prob came up and Tita left. Tita had the team together and playing well. Miguel's early success was a direct result of that. the cards were down discipline was up. Things were moving in the right direction then Tita was gone over night. It's not about different philosophies with the pats, it's having a coach the players respect and trust. One that has the balls to tell the guys you break the rules you're gone.

Basically, Matty the pats have always played the same systems on the field, with the exception on the Petersen year. These guys know how to play together, have for years. They need a leader and a coach. Yeah a couple of players in key spots wouldn't hurt either. They need a forward with 4.5 speed and a center/attacking midfielder to control the game and lead. Basically that's it. They have several role playing guys there. Lomeli, Paully, Abarca, Waldrum, Ahmed. Each of these guys is good for certain situations, but not for entire games. I like Ben Waldrum. The kid has a future in the A-league. He needs PT. Ahmed is one of those hot shots that was talked about above. He needs a lot of work to be a professional and a team player.

The potential is there.

You definately seem to know more about the team situation than I do dociceit. I only made my observations from what I saw towards the end of the season. I was unaware of the injury problems. Hopefully, the patriots will start fitness training right away and stay with it throughout the season. I play for the NMSU club team and we are supposed to be playing them in a round robin tournament at the end of this month. Who knows what kind of a team they will field. Last time we played them here in Cruces they only sent about half of their starters, I'll let you know how they look this time. On the one hand I hope they are not really ready to play but then of course on the other I hope they are ready for their season.

Hopefully they can step it up and show well this season.

Dociceit, you seem to have a good bond with the players and it's nice to have a solid perspective from behind the scenes, especially on the over-training. I know that the gentleman who started the season with Tita had these guys in great shape, but toward the end of the season they were suddenly struggling physically. I had no idea somebody else came in and was overdoing it.

But it seemed to me that, while it was obvious Murillo had a pretty good nucleus already formed when the Pats went on that hot streak, there were some fundamental changes in philosophy that helped, too. Namely: not being afraid to take the ball up the middle instead of what seemed like a ridiculous attempt at the long ball game against teams whose defenders stood on average a foot taller than our forwards and were just as mobile.

The Patriots philosophy has always been more Latin, and the Latin game relies quite a bit on ball possession. After Tita left it seems the team emphasized this a great deal more. When you have solid ball-handlers like da Gama on the left with Abarca in the middle and dos Santos backing them up, why even try the long ball?

I agree with your original premise, though. These guys were tired both physically and mentally down the stretch and ended up losing their heads as a result.

Often coaches will use a system that does not utilize the attributes of the players he has. I feel this is one of the natural blind spots of most coaches. One should figure out the players' strong points and then use a system that takes the best advantage of them.

The best quality of the great coaches is being able to adapt to conditions. The best coach I ever saw do this was my son's high school coach, a native of Italy. He won three state championships with a squad that, at best, had four or five "real" soccer players...and that's giving two or three players a lot of credit.

They won championships against some of the toughest private school teams in Texas, including Bishop Lynch of Dallas (2x).

It's pretty easy to win with a stacked team. I saw McArthur High in S.A. do that in early 90s.

The H.S. coach had little or nothing to do with it. The team was about 100% club players from the two best club teams in S.A. They just "did their own thing" and won the public school state championship. Proof? Coach transferred to another school the next year and never got close to a championship.

With me caught up with my homework on the eve of what could be my first day at my new job or just an interview (Hopefuly it will be my first day, so I can finally leave my sh!tty job at my current job - a grocery store), I am going to start updating stuff around here.

This thread is a good start to the season. So people do me a favor, start spreading the word about this board, it'd be cool to have more El Pasoans on here. I think I might even e-mail the Patriots to see if they could add a link to the (still awful) website. (Then again it is better tan before)

You know, that is something else that has been bothering me. What is up with that website? That is something I have a bit of expereience in so I emailed them using the link on their page offering to fix it up for them for free and got absolutely no response. Come on people, help the fans to support the team.

I doubt if anyone has checked the web site or its emails in a year. I know they wouldn't pay someone to fix it and I am or would not be surprised if they turned someone down who offered to do it for free. Just something I'd expect.

This is just great! I love all this talk here on the EP page. Let's hope it carries over to the season.

I'll talk with Diana about the web page. It is the worst in .... well the world It is even worse than when JY was doing it. It would really be nice to have consistant updates and have good match reports for us to see.

I don't know where I will stand with the team this year yet, but hopefully I can keep up with the inside info and let y'all in on it.

Got some great news about the stadium but I reckon I'll need to hold off on it for a while. IT hasn't been signed, sealed and delivered yet.

The only thing I can say it is truely great news. Also, I hope El Paso gets out and suppports the team. The future of the Pats in the A-League depends on it!!!!

It's great just hearing you say it's great news, Dociceit. I think everyone knows what you're talking about even without you saying it.

All I can say is, it'll be nice to know the Patriots will have their day in the "Sun".

Anyone up for some "Bowl"-ing?

and they still don't have a GM?

Nope not yet.