|
Jose Burciaga (born November 16, 1981 in Duncanville, Texas) is an American soccer player, who currently plays left back for the Kansas City Wizards of Major League Soccer.
Instead of attending college, Burciaga opted to turn professional after finishing high school, signing a Project-40 contract with MLS. Burciaga was selected 12th overall in the 2001 MLS SuperDraft by the Wizards. Although Burciaga had been a star with United States youth national teams, he was not immediately ready for MLS, and so spent much of his first year with the Project-40 team in the A-League; he finished the season with 3 games, 2 of them starts, with the Wizards. While much was expected of him in for 2002, Burciaga was unfortunately unable to fulfill these expectations; Burciaga tore his left knee's ACL in preseason, and missed the entire 2002 season rehabbing the injury. Burciaga came on strong in 2003, earning the left back starting position in preseason, and looked poised to finally come into his own; unfortunately, he tore his right knee's ACL in the fourth game of the season, and so finished the year with only those four starts. After two extremely painful years, Burciaga returned to the Wizards' lineup in 2004, and fortunately was injury-free for the entire year. Given the opportunity he siezed the left back position, and kept it all year long. He finished the season with 21 starts out of 24 games played, and added one goal and one assist.
See also
|
