{"id":30323,"date":"2015-01-07T11:02:03","date_gmt":"2015-01-07T16:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=30323"},"modified":"2015-01-07T11:04:57","modified_gmt":"2015-01-07T16:04:57","slug":"a-chance-to-shine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=30323","title":{"rendered":"A Chance to Shine"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Providence College<\/p><\/div>\n

As a forward, Fabio Machado is used to seeing his name on the scoresheet. But going into his senior season at Providence College, the 21-year-old was determined to put his name on a different kind of list.<\/p>\n

After playing a starring role in the Friars\u2019 Cinderella season, Machado\u2019s hard work paid off when he\u00a0was listed among the\u00a050 college seniors invited to\u00a0the 2015 MLS Player Combine, which will run from Thursday through next Tuesday in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first week after, I was kind of like, \u2018Wow, I can\u2019t believe that I made it,\u2019\u201d Machado said via telephone. \u201cI accomplished the goal I wanted when my senior year came \u2013 that\u2019s what I wanted to do: Get a chance to go down there, and prove what I can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

How Machado made the cut for the Combine isn\u2019t hard to see. During his senior year, he was the catalyst of the Friars attack, scoring six goals and adding a team-high eight assists in a perennially-competitive BIG EAST conference.<\/p>\n

And if timing is everything, no one was more clutch for the 3rd-ranked Friars than Machado. Five of his strikes were game-winners, the last of which beat Michigan State in the Elite 8 to send Providence to its first College Cup appearance in school history.<\/p>\n

After the magical run ended in overtime against UCLA in the semifinal, the Leominster, Mass. native took the opportunity to take a short rest. Between his senior year and a summertime stint with the Real Boston Rams, where he scored seven goals and added two assists in 11 games, Machado essentially played non-stop since early-May.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t long before Machado was back in the gym. After seeing his name on the Combine list, the Friar forward was doing all he could prepare for the biggest tryout of his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just kind of got back to work with running and lifting and getting some extra practice,\u201d Machado said. \u201cI actually got some practice with the Rams the other day just to get a practice in, so it\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Machado\u2019s invite to the Combine is certainly deserved, some believe he shouldn\u2019t even be in a position of having to prove himself all over again.<\/p>\n

As a former Revolution Academy product, the could presumably list him as “Homegrown Protected,” much like they did with Scott Caldwell after the 2012 NCAA season. The tag would allow the Revolution the first crack at signing Machado.<\/p>\n

However, Machado said that he is unsure of his standing with the Revolution organization, which did not immediately respond to a request for clarification from NESoccerToday.com<\/em>. His two seasons with the Rams, who are the Revolution’s PDL affiliate, suggests that the MLS side wanted to keep an eye on his progress. During his last conversation with the Academy staff, Machado said he was offered encouragement as he prepared for the Combine, but not much else.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t even know if that\u2019s the decision they made,\u201d Machado said in reference to his Homegrown status. \u201cBut I\u2019m not disappointed. Everyone has their opinion on what they think is best for the team, so no, I\u2019m not disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n

With his focus on Ft. Lauderdale \u2013 where could be reunited with former Academy coach Bryan Scales, who\u2019ll guide one of the four squads assembled for the Combine \u2013 Machado is looking to showcase what he believes is his greatest asset.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy creativity with the ball,\u201d Machado said. \u201cI think I can not only score goals, but I can set up a lot of players for scoring opportunities. That\u2019s been (a bigger) part of my game as I\u2019ve gotten older.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pundits are predicting that Machado will be selected sometime in the third round of next Thursday\u2019s SuperDraft. While the Revolution, who currently hold the 33rd, 47th and 61st overall picks, certainly know about their Academy product well, Machado said he will be happy to go wherever he is wanted.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The Revolution) might have passed on me for the homegrown status, but that won\u2019t stop me,\u201d Machado said. \u201cNow, I have a chance to prove to other teams that might take a chance on me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Revs Academy forward Fabio Machado is eyeing the opportunity to showcase his skills at the MLS Combine. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[896],"tags":[891,892],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Fabio-1.png?fit=600%2C416","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30323"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30323"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30336,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30323\/revisions\/30336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}