News: Welcome Brek: Potter (Brek Shea at Stoke/ On loan to Birmingham)

Reports now coming out saying Shea was seen today at FCD training:

Daniel Robertson ‏@DRobertsonFCD
Brek Shea is at FC Dallas training. I see him with my own two eyes. I did not expect that.

This is making for an especially silly "silly season".

 

Ok now im really confused.

Maybe he doesn't want to go to Stoke

 

But i would imagine he would already have flown over to at least get prepared for the trial

 

Exactly. The idea it was going to be a full week, literally, I think was an exaggeration. He'll be checked out for fitness, basic fitness would be my guess, and have the standard medical.

It was the first day of training today for FCD. Brek probably wanted a bit of a warmup, and the reports are he was running and cutting "without a hitch", which would be good news.

 

Maybe it was this guy

 

Ever tried to play soccer jet lagged? It sucks.

 

Jet lag cannot be fixed by a good diet and well-trained muscles. It occurs because of a mismatch between the body clock and local photoperiod i.e., local time. When a jet drops a player hours away from his home time and he is asked to play at a body time that is out of synch with local time, almost every body function works relatively poorly. The worst body time is between 1 and 4 in the AM. If a game is played then, at a time when their body temperatures are at their lowest, players will suffer from slower reaction times and earlier game fatigue, among many other deficits. The deficits won't necessarily be huge. They will be measurable with the right tests, but not likely noticeable to a fan. Nevertheless, even a slight slowing of reaction time, for example, can have an enormous negative effect on a player's contribution to the success of the game. Four-six days are required to re-synchronize the body with the new time, although there are large individual differences and the rate also depends the direction of flight, east or west. There is no accepted method for eliminating, or speeding recovery from, jet lag.

 

So, Daniel couldn't follow-up with some more 411 on what's going on?

 

Many of our Euro based Nats (Dolo, Boca, Dempsey, etc) have made trans atlantic flights multiple times over the years for a USMNT game, then fly back for a club game just 3 days later. FIFA switching to the Fri/Tues int'l date format recently helps the situation some. Although I'm not sure to group Michael Bradley in with those players because he's a cyborg.

Plus, if Brek is flying over, it's not like he's immediately going to be playing an EPL game or maybe not even a hard training session.

 

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=1308440&cc=5901

 

NSC: Shea deal nixed by MLS

 

I don't know why they think he's still worth so much when he just had a mediocre-to-bad season and has lost all but one of his European suitors

 

Is 4M pounds a reasonable amount for Brek? Who knows, but bravo to MLS for digging in their heels on this one. 2M pounds was a real steal for Stoke, and MLS continues to show that it won't be robbed. If Stoke really want the guy, they've got to pay. While that might hinder this deal and others, it is also a signal to foreign leagues that MLS is not a place to get players at bargain basement prices.

 

I guess this isn't really a bad thing. Brek's stock will just continue to rise as he keeps playing well and getting more caps.

 

It depends on how you wish to look at things. When you consider Michu cost Swansea £2m, £4m for Shea looks ridiculous. When you consider Andy Carroll cost £35m, any deal looks a bargain.

In what may or may not be a relevant comparison, Leicester have just signed Chris Wood (21 years old) from West Brom for £1m and he has 17 goals in 22 games in the Championship, a standard of football some want to compare MLS to.

In my opinion, and it is only my opinion, if you subscribe to the notion that MLS standing firm on transfer fees is all well and good and ensures they get a price they deem fair rather than clubs, you then cannot lean on the notion of 'anti American bias' if Stoke now go out and sign a Kieran Richardson or similar in place of taking a punt on Shea.

 

Well MLS does not want to lose it better young stars but if FCD agreed to selling MLS should not be allowed to stop the move. Overall any moves clubs make to sell players should not be stopped mainly because they agreed to the deal. That's got to be changed since MLS get most of the cash from the sell anyways. Let him go MLS...

 

Is doing things like this supposed to promote the MLS to budding talents?

 

From MLS's perspective why move a promising young talent with more than a year left on his contract after a poor injury plagued year unless the offer is huge. You can probably get a similar amount for him next year plus he stays in the league for another year. Also if he has an all-star worthy season you could potentially get even more.

I am assuming he has more than one year left otherwise it wouldn't make much sense.

 

Brek must be kicking himself for having re-signed with FC Dallas in 2011.

http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/soccer/post/_/id/11894/brek-shea-re-signs-with-fcd-through-2015

 

Wow...I can see MLS trying to get more money for Brek. I mean, adidas used him in commercials last year, for example. But DOUBLE??? That's just crazy.

 

Can someone explain to me why MLS teams even negotiate? Shouldn't the league be negotiating from the start while consulting with the MLS team?