Sanaldo Freitas de Carvalho

As promised, here is my first player introduction.  What separates the indoor game from the outdoor game is boards to play off of and jam your opponent into, Penalty boxes, a smaller pitch, but most of all SHOTS.  Any given indoor game can easily see sixty shots rifled at the goals.  Because of the barrage of shots each team takes during an indoor game, the team who is willing to defend and willing to put their bodies in front of these goal bound strikes is usually the team that celebrates in the end.  Of course not all players have defending as their first priority, that is why the most important player on the pitch is the team’s last line of defense, their goalkeeper, and the Wichita Wings have sure signed a fantastic one.  Sanaldo Freitas de Carvalho has been playing professionally since he was 17 and has been playing professional indoor soccer since 2003.  The 34 year old it touted as one of the best keepers in the MISL over the last ten years.  You can see all of his MISL statistics and honors by clicking on his name above.

            Everyone within the Wings organization I’ve spoken with has been ecstatic about his experience and his quality.  The one thing that avoided the Wings during their first tenure as a franchise was a league championship.  Sanaldo has a championship to his name along with a championship game MVP honor.  He won his championship with the Baltimore Blast in 2006.  Clearly he has the mentality of a winner and the stamina a keeper needs to maintain solidarity through a long season and a postseason run.  A keeper with Sanaldo’s credentials gives his outfield players a piece of mind.  It allows them to take more chances to score more goals.  It allows players to make a line change comfortably knowing if their keeper is in possession he will have the presence of mind to either hold up play long enough or put the ball out of danger to allot them the appropriate amount of time to recover and get organized.  With our new keeper we know mistakes will be limited.  There is a huge amount of trust that not only the players feel towards him, but the fans can also feel reassured without ever having seen him play a game. 

Season Prediction: The team does not have an incredibly long preseason to train and get to know each other.  So a defensive groove between the players might not be seen until a few games into the season. If a defensive cohesiveness is hard to come by early then expect Sanaldo to be the most talked about Wings player during the first few weeks of the season.  He’ll most likely win plenty of man of the match awards, most of them coming early.  Look for him to be vocal with his new team.  There is plenty of other experienced players on the squad but the keeper sees the entire field at all times.  Expect him to take on a serious leadership role right from the get-go.  He will be one of the top keepers in the MISL again this year, I can assure you that.