Los Angeles Blues News Release -- www.labluesprosoccer.com
Monday, February 6, 2012
FULLERTON, Calif. – The Los Angeles Blues are excited to announce that five participants from the club’s open tryouts will be joining first-team training this week. Michal Petrus, Dominik Jakubek, Novak Vuk Janicic, Darryl Anderson, pictured, and Darryl Odom all turned in strong performances over the weekend of January 21-22 and have accepted invitations from the Blues coaching staff to participate in Tuesday’s and Thursday’s sessions.
“We saw something in each of the five that warrants giving them another look in a more competitive, more challenging environment,” Head Coach Charlie Naimo said. “The energy they brought to our open tryouts was exceptional, and the question now is whether they can step up their game and hold their own against a different caliber of players. We look forward to having these guys back and to the opportunity to assess them in an even more comprehensive way.”
The group that will try to impress on the natural grass field at Fullerton College has a strong international flair to it, with three of the five players originally hailing from Europe. One of them is Michal Petrus, a 25-year-old central midfielder with playing experience for the Slovakian U-16 and U-18 national teams as well as in is his country’s second-highest division.
“I’ve never participated in any tryouts outside of Slovakia,” he said. “Being invited into the Blues camp is a tremendous challenge, and I look at it as the greatest opportunity of my life so far. I’ll definitely train as hard as I can and hope to be able to perform to the best of my abilities.”
Petrus will be joined by 32-year-old Polish goalkeeper and Chico, Calif., resident Dominik Jakubek and by 23-year-old Serbian forward and former Owens College standout Novak Vuk Janicic, who traveled to Fullerton for the open tryouts from Northwood, Ohio.
The quintet is completed by two 24-year-old Californians in striker Darryl Anderson of San Diego and right back Darryl Odom of Palmdale. The former has played college soccer at the Rochester Institute of Technology, while the latter has worn the jerseys of Cloud County Community College, Western Illinois University and the PDL’s Des Moines Menace.
“I was really nervous before the tryouts, but once the scrimmage started I was more focused than I had ever been in a match,” Anderson said. “It felt like I was in a championship game and could not afford to make any mistakes. It was probably my best performance ever.
“My number one goal is to make the team and help the Blues win a championship. I’ll leave it all on the field and hold nothing back this week, because I only have two training sessions to show the coaches just how much I want this.”
To Odom, sharing the field with so many fellow athletes who all shared the same dream was an experience in and of itself.
“Knowing that everyone out there wanted nothing more than to make the team felt amazing and it’s something I’ll never forget,” he said. “All I can do now is continue to work hard and be open-minded, committed, determined and hungry for success. I really just want to give an accurate impression of what I’m capable of on the field.”