Cleveland City Stars will join USL-1 for 09 season

According to Jeff DiVeronica of the Democrat and Chronicle, The Cleveland City Stars, winner of the USL-2 trophy, will join USL-1 this coming 2009 season. Along with the new Austin Aztex, the two teams will replace the Seattle Sounders, who have moved on to Major League Soccer, and the Atlanta Silverbacks who have decided to “sit out” the 09 season. However, in the case of the Silverbacks, many feel they are done for good, particularly with Atlanta vying for one of the new MLS franchises that will be given for the 2011 season.

Jeff DiVeronica covers the Rochester Raging Rhinos and according to his blog he spoke to USL League President, Tim Holt, last Sunday evening, at the conclusion of the USL Annual General Meetings. I’m waiting anxiously to hear the news that comes out of USL concerning the many rumblings we’ve been hearing about the league for a while now. On Thursday’s entry, he did say that Cleveland will join the USL-1 this season. I must point out that this has not been announced on the league web site or Cleveland City Stars web site. League officials seem to be tight lipped and even the MN Thunder are not saying much. I originally had a meeting scheduled with Thunder GM, Djorn Buchholz for after the league meetings, but when contacted after the meetings he told me he was no longer able to say anything concerning the league until the League front office released information to the media.

Allison Andrews, who has attended these league meetings for some years now and reports the events at USL.Fan, told me that the league was very quiet about their activities this year and she was not allowed into some of the meetings that she had been allowed into previously.

If you’ve not been following along at home, Atlanta didn’t announce their pull out until the week before the AGM’s. My best guess is that the league scrambled to move Cleveland up at the last minute. My reason for believing this is that Martin Renni resigned his position as head coach with Cleveland on November 13th, taking the head coaching job at the Carolina RailHawks. Renni, who had a great relationship with the Stars, is one of the better managers in the USL-1 and 2 and has won the “manager of the year” award in league 2 for the last two seasons. He is a real up and coming soccer coach in the U.S., and I have a hard time believing that he would leave Cleveland if he had known that the team was going to be moving up on USL-1.

(Listen to Kartik Krishnaiyer interview Martin Renni – June 08)

I actually have a lengthy post concerning the rumor and rumblings of the USL in the last 9 months that I’m about half done with, but am struggling to try to tie it all together in a story that would make sense to everyone. Hopefully I will have that completed by this weekend. Meanwhile, I am waiting for Jeff DiVeronica’s article that will be posted on Soccernet. I’ve been in contact with Jeff and I’ll let you know as soon as it’s posted.