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Alen Marcina - Myth & Reality ?


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From the PCSL:

More Alan Marcina article fallout

April 4 - Former PCSL New Westminster Khalsa standout Alan Marcina has been signed by Danish Superliga club Herfølge. We published an English translation of an article about Marcina written by Dane Jannik Hanson for the Herfølge Fan website. The PCSL subsequently received an email purporting to be from Marcina's agent's lawyer in Florida objecting to the article and demanding it be withdrawn. The email claimed the article had already been pulled from the Herfølge Fan website. Jannik Hansen, the author of the Danish article has responded. Apparently Marcina's agent/lawyer has to date not communicated with the author or the Herfølge Fan web site despite having claimed to us to have done so, neither has the original piece about Marcina ever been removed from the Herfølge Fan site.

Here's the original article that has caused the stir:

Alen Marcina – what’s myth and what’s reality?

Author: Jannik Hansen

Herfølge, Denmark

Jannik Hansen, HerfølgeFan (Swiftly translated from the Danish

original article at HerfølgeFan www.herfolge.dk

Following Charles Gbeke’s signing for Herfølge, fellow Canadian Alen Marcina put his pen to paper recently.So, who is he? What are his abilities? Where has he been before? Much of this, we’ve already read in the Danish press. We read he played for Ottawa Wizards, We heard he’d been with PAOK and Club Bruges. We know he also played for FC Schweinfurt in the Bavarian Oberliga (as far as I know, the 4th best level in Germany). We also know, he played in the USA, for Barry University in Florida.

But what does that mean?

Just as I’ve been reasearching Charles Gbeke, I started to investigate Marcina in the same way: postings on message boards and e-mails all sorts of people in and around his former clubs.However, while I got plenty of response from Gbeke’s old clubs, it proved difficult to squeeze anything out of Marcina’s old fans.

But let’s get started!

My first informations on Marcina are from his tme with Barry University. Here, he played for 3-4 years, scored an amazing amount of goals, broke quite a few records and was awarded quite a few titles.If I have understood the system correctly, Florida’s universities play in the Sunshine State Conference (SSC). Marcina was names SSC player of the year and attacking player of the year in 2002. 4 times he has been selected for the SSC first team and also 4 times leading SSC goals- and points. (They love statistics over there, and also count assists!) If the team does well, I believe they then qualify for the national NCAA.

Ted Jones, who used to coach the mens team at Virginia Commonwealth University, tells me, that the NCAA is divided in 3 division. However, they division is all done according to the size of universities and their ability to award scholarships, rather than actual strength of players. Barry played in 2nd division. Marcina’s been in the NCAA division 2 semi finals twice, been selected as all-star-attacker twice- Four times he was selected ann All-American.

For Barry University he was good, we can conclude! He was their captain for 2 years, he scored more goals than any other Barry player (both per season and all-in-all) and he scored more defining goals than any one else in the Barry jersey.

That’ll get you noticed. And Marcina was selected to play in the MLS Combine in 2002, and made it as top scorer. He didn’t get a contract with a MLS club though. In 2002 he played for Khalsa Sports Club (New Westminster, British Columbia) in the Pacific Coast Soccer League (PCSL) - a league Gbeke also used to play in. At Khalsa Marcina played 18 kampe, scoring 14 goals – runner up in goal scoring for the league that season. Richard Howes, webmaster of the PCSL website, tells me Marcina did very well in the PCSL.

Ottawa Wizards in the Canadian Professional Soccer League (CPSL) was to become his next employer, but he didn’t play there for a long time. Only 9 matches, and yet 10 goals. A supporter from a different team, Montreal Impact, saw Marcina play for Wizards: ” Marcina is a very quick player. Excellent around the net with good anticipation. He will score goals.”

To Europe

It was after his time with Wizards, he started “flirting” with European football.And this is where we start getting info from supporters!

If you go back and read Canadian soccer message boards back from 2003, it is evident that Marcinas trials in Europe worried Wizard fans. They simply wanted him to stay.

Marcina tried his luck with 5 Turkish teams: Samsumspor, Istanbulspor, Malatyaspor, Ankaragücü og Adanaspor, all in the Turkish Superlig. Still no contract.

Marcina tried in Sweden. First at Stockholm club Hammarby, according to my Swedish contact later with IFK Norrköping. Hammarby didn’t offer him a contract.

Hammarby fan Mattias Neander says about Marcina ” He wasn’t exactly bad, but it was difficult to say. He was like a really good division 4 player (5th level in Sweden). He couldn’t quite follow the pace, didn’t really had what it took in man-to-man situations. But he had a good shot, and found the right positions. But he was still a bit too small. But he was quite young, I guess? Maybe he’s developed?”

Mattias goes on: ”I would be surprised if Marcina would get a place in the best Danish league. Marcina played half a season with IFK Norrköping, but was a fringe player. And that was in Superettan, the second level in Sweden! But then again, it’s a year ago.”

 

In Belgium he then secured a contract with Club Brügge. Unfortunately I never got any replies from the many messages and emails I sent. However, I found a meassage on a Canadian web site from a bloke calling himself ”The Truth”. He wrote that when Ottawa Wizards asked Club Brügge for 20.000 Canadian dollars in transfer fee, Club Brügge backed out. Something he, ”The Truth”, found strange: ”[it] sounds very fishy because to a 1st division team, who also play in the Champions League, $20,000 Canadian is peanuts. So either he came back telling fairytales or Club Bruges is in the poor house.” Whether this is the truth about Marcina’s Bruges past, I don’t know.

There were also rumours that some of his trials fell through because although it was said he was transfer free when he started the trial, it later showed that he wasn’t. If this was the result of a shady agent or not, is anyone’s guess.

Not the most impressive impression

In any event, Marcina managed to secure a contract with another pretty big club, PAOK, in Greece. I have to say he probably didn’t impress too much. Georg Nikolaidis (chairman of PAOK’s Swiss fan club) first assumed I had contacted people around the wrong club! But later he found a link to a story of PAOK’s signing of Marcina. He was pretty sure that Marcina never played official matches for PAOK. Nikolaidis couldn’t even find him in the listings of reserve players that year. Marcina played one pre-season match.

Consequently, it is pretty limited what we can learn from the Greeks.

During his Greek adventure, he was on loan at ÍA – an Icelandic club from town Akranes, north of Reykjavík. Yet again we find a bit of a curiousity! In the Danish press we’ve read that he played 10 matches, scoring 6 goals during his time there. “Far from it”, tells Vídir Sigurdsson. Vídir, a sports reporter at the newspaper Morgunbladid, continues: ”He played 5 matches, 4 in the league and one in the cup, and scored one goal. He was

in the starting line-up twice, and came on three times as a substitute.”

On Marcina as a player, Vídir writes: “Alen Marcina didn't really impress here in Iceland. He looked a pretty

skilful and decent player but he did not seem to fit in at ÍA.” According to Vídir, ÍA had a poor period at the time, and Marcina could have been a victim of the goal drought the team experienced. It was a bad period for a team that was expected to win titles.

Back in Greece, he experienced what we all fear for anyone getting into Greek football: overdue wages. It is said, he went without pay for 4 months.

He was able to get the contract annulled and Marcina found a place with 1. FC Schweinfurt, in the Bavarian Oberliga. On Marcina at Schweinfurt, local fan Michael Horling says that Marcina only played around 10 matches for the team, and score a couple of goals. He played for the club during a period of economic worries, and most of the attention was on off-pitch events.

As we know, fellow Danish club, Randers FC, didn’t want to sign Marcina either. We’ll have to see what his time with Herfølge will bring. His time with Barry sounds promising, and hopefully he learned a lot in the club he trialed for. But it is pretty much impossible to predict whether he’ll become successful or not. A “secure” investment in a player with experience from a league we know, would probably have made us feel more confident.However, now he is one of ours! The coaches believe in him. We as fans, also have to give him a fair chance, and hope he can help secure the continued Superliga status.

NOTE: Many thanks to Jannik Hansen of Herfolge for providing us with this English translation of an article originally written in Danish for the HerfølgeFan website.

www.herfolge.dk

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Alen Marcina's lawyers object to fan comments on www.pcsl.org

Vancouver, BC

March 24, 2005

Pacific Coast Soccer League

The PCSL has received communication ostensibly from Alen Marcina's agent's lawyer in Broward, Florida objecting to the HerfølgeFan website article about Marcina, an English translation of which we posted on the PCSL website. This was in conjunction with our report on Alen Marcina's signing by Danish Superliga club Herfølge.

The lawyer's assertion amongst other claims is that, "In this article there are posts from fans, not FACTS." Since the author of the article, presumably under pressure from this this same source, has removed the original from the Danish website we have removed the English version from the PCSL website.

It does strike us as odd however, that a law firm would transmit such a formal communication, worded the way it is, via email using a Hotmail return email address rather than corporate letterhead paper via regular mail or at the very least with their own corporate email address.

The PCSL believed this to be favourable publicity for an aspiring young player but we can do without this kind of hassle so the subject article has been deleted from the website.

We have not checked the validity of this email and will not be pursuing it any further, we leave readers to draw their own conclusions.

 

From: Chris Welsh [mailto:welshlawyer@hotmail.com]

Sent: March 24, 2005 3:48 AM

To: info@pcsl.org

Subject: Inquiry for Mr. Marcina Posted on Your Website

Hello My name is Chris Welsh and i work with Mr. Marcinas agent and take care of legal and business issues. It has been reported to me that Marcina has been posted on your website, which we find great. HOwever, I must say that this article is very misleading and it lacks alot of truth. In this article there are posts from fans, not FACTS. Im sure you mean the best for Mr. Marcina but posting something of this nature thats entirely false hinders the players career. I have also contacted the Danish Fan who has written this article and he has agreed to remove the information and conduct an interview with Mr. Marcina for proper and current information. Myself and Kasim appreciate posting information about Marcina to fellow Canadian Fan, but we request proper and truthful statements direct from clubs rather then fans who obviously are speaking Falsely. Again im sure you understand we are all here to help promote this young talent, rather than hinder his career. I believe he is doing great things in europe, and is promoting the PCSL as he was a former player of this league.

Take Care

Chris Welsh

Broward Consulting Lawyers

Florida

And the response from Denmark:

More Alen Marcina article fallout

Vancouver, BC

April 4, 2005

Pacific Coast Soccer League

Former PCSL New Westminster Khalsa standout Alan Marcina has been signed by Danish Superliga club Herfølge. We published an English translation of an article about Marcina written by Dane Jannik Hanson for the Herfølge Fan website. The PCSL subsequently received an email purporting to be from Marcina's agent's lawyer in Florida objecting to the article and demanding it be withdrawn. The email claimed the article had already been pulled from the Herfølge Fan website. Jannik Hansen, the author of the Danish article has responded. Apparently Marcina's agent/lawyer has to date not communicated with the author or the Herfølge Fan web site despite having claimed to us to have done so, neither has the original piece about Marcina ever been removed from the Herfølge Fan site.

The PCSL has had no further communication from Marcina's agent/lawyer, neither have we made any attempt to verify the veracity of the original email we received from them. A web search failed to locate any such law firm.

The following is an email received today from Jannik Hansen:

Hi,

I am the author of the Marcina article!

I just read the statement on the PCSL web site.

The article has NOT been removed from the Herfølge Fan web site! It is just not on the front page any longer. Quite common for news web sites.

Direct link: http://www.herfolge.dk/artikler.asp?id=461

It can be found from front page as well by clicking "Artikelbase" (Article archive), then "Spillerrelaterede artikler" (player related articles). The Marcina article is the first one in that archive at the moment.

All I did was to research his background. I contacted fans, journalists and people at the clubs! Many never replied.

Marcina's agent's lawyer is talking about "facts". Well, I am quoting everyone in the article, not stating that I know any facts!

In many cases, I quote postings on message boards - something I do not conceal!

In cases where I am quoting named people, I will gladly pass on their contact details, if required - and if the sources agree to it!

A direct quote from the e-mail from the lawyer: “I have also contacted the Danish Fan who has written this article and he has agreed to remove the information and conduct an interview with Mr. Marcina for proper and current information.”

This is 100% untrue, I have not been contacted by anyone! What IS true - but what the lawyer could never know, because he's never been in contact with me OR the guys running the web site - is that we DO indeed intend to have an interview with Alen Marcina. Not just to give him a chance to answer the issues raised, but also because at a small club like Herfølge, we like to get to know the players.

If Alen Marcina - or indeed his agent - wanted to they could easily get in touch with the HerfølgeFan crew as they are very well known by everyone at the club. Per Rud, the sports director, talks to the two guys running the web site several times a week. Marcina's room mate, Charles Gbeke, has my mobile phone number.

Mr. Welsh, you are more than welcome to pass this information on the Mr. Marcina.

Alen, you're more than welcome to give me a ring. Or even send me an SMS message - that's cheaper for you, and then I'll contact you!

 

 

Another quote: “Myself and Kasim appreciate posting information about Marcina to fellow Canadian Fan, but we request proper and truthful statements direct from clubs rather then fans who obviously are speaking Falsely.”

Sometimes we FANS, would like to know what other FANS think about players. In fact, that's the whole idea of the article: To bypass clubs and agents who after all have an economical incentive to present their "product" in the best possible light. Which is fair. That's their job! I actually DID contact ÍA, PAOK, Club Brügge and FC Schweinfurt. None of the clubs replied.

From Canadian and US contacts I had nothing but positive reactions about Marcina.

That is very encouraging for us Herfølge Fans. However, very few of us know much about the level of leagues in North America, hence the queries around Europe.

How can people be speaking falsely, when they're expressing opinions?

Regarding the Icelandic journalist's claim that the number of goals and matches played by Marcina were erroneous, what am I supposed to do? This guys is following football for a living! Iceland's a small country. ÍA is one of the best clubs there, expected to win titles in that particular season. I certainly could not overhear that statement from him, now could I? This is exactly the sort of thing we'd give Mr. Marcina a chance to reply to in an interview.

Mr. Marcina's agent is very welcome to contact me and present his replies too. I would have thought it would have been a better way for the agent to reply if he actually answered these questions on the PCSL web site, rather than having his lawyer send this e-mail! That way, readers - across the Atlantic - would get his side of the story.

I am sorry that the PCSL website had to be dragged into this, as all they did was to show interest in a Canadian player, who used to play in their league - and do well, as is clearly mentioned in my article.

I will be trying to contact Alen Marcina tomorrow moring (April 5th) to ask him if he feels offended, and to give him an opportunity to give HIS side of the story.

I am e-mailing this e-mail to the guys running the PCSL web site, to the lawyer Mr. Welsh and to Mogens "Monty" Lauridsen, one of the main guys running the Herfølge Fan web site. I am certain he has not been contacted either, since I'm sure he'd give me a ring straight away to ask me what was going on.

I'm also certain the Danish version is not going off the web site. It will however be supplemented by an interview - if Marcina so decides - as soon as we can get a date settled.

The article was never intended to offend or obstruct, and I fail to see how it could. It was meant as a critical (in it's original meaning) view of one of the signings the club made in an attempt to rescue the club from relegation.

The web site Herfølge Fan is a fans forum, with articles by fans and debate by fans. Noone's ever claimed anything else. I thought that was obvious even from the way it was presented by the PCSL web site. I certainly was very happy with the way they presented my article.

I am sure that once Alen Marcina and I talk, we'll be able to get all this stuff sorted swiftly and unaggressively. Marcina's a Herfølge player now, and as I state at the end of the article, we need to be behind him from now on in. A player's no use to the team, the club or the fans if he feels unwanted. Marcina's one of us.

Best regards,

Jannik Hansen

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