Yeah, I know. I fully expect Boskovic & Dudar to be gone, too. If they weren't very good, they shouldn't have paid high salaries for them. If they were as good as their salaries indicated, they should have been played more.
Lucky for you, I have this handy rage container! My wife also sews indignation fanny packs, if anyone on the board is feeling particularly righteous...
Stupid ... feels like we're always starting over with our big international signings. We do well with the academy, the draft and recycling MLS rejects ... but we simply can not find the right players in the international market. With Kasper's recent record I don't see any reason to hope that the next wave of signings would be any better. And frankly where is Olsen in all this? Didn't he scout Dudar? Didn't he OK the re signing of Boskovic? Did he not know what he was getting with Salihi? This is pathetic. We'd be better off going the route of San Jose or Houston and focus on domestic players with a sprinkling of CONCACAF internationals. We're not capable of having any success scouting outside of our continent.
Read Payne/Kasper comments with Goff, because this is basically what they said they are looking at right now.
It's like we started out in the off-season last year looking to play attractive soccer, but then benched the "attractive soccer" guys to play uglyball to grind out wins. I can't fault that too much; it gave us a rather imposing record at RFK, and got us to the ECF. But to now offload guys who provided for offensive production on a squad otherwise lacking it...I dunno, I'm curious to see how they want the team to look, so I guess we'll find out in the next couple of months. I hate to lose those two, because with a couple of strong midfield additions to complement them, it'd be a great squad, I think.
Yes, the draft is where you find crappy players like Pontius, De Leon, Kitchen, Korb, etc. a complete waste of time.
D.C. United declines options on four players http://www.dcunited.com/news/2012/12/dc-united-declines-options-on-four-players a lot more information from Goff here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs.../12/03/d-c-united-make-four-roster-decisions/ I guess they finished up those end of season evaluations.
Not sure if it's been noted, but according to MLS' stats, 15 different DC players scored this year, and 16 different players had assists.
Not really a big deal. I think you'd be surprised at how many teams had pretty much the same figures (with worse teams having more diversity than us).
For emphasis, FC Dallas had 17 people with 1 goal or more and 11 people with 1 or most assist and they were a bad team.
I posted a brilliant essay on this very subject a year ago on the blackandredunited site. If you don't count Jakovic, then our last good international signing was Emilio. That was a long time ago. Our five-year drought is directly a result of our miserable track record in international scouting and recruitment. Seems like we almost had a gem in Bernardez, if the mls-rumors site was to be believed, but SJE beat us to him. If we don't get more production from foreign scouting, we will not break back into the real elite level. Our college scouting is the exact opposite. Especially when you consider how many picks we traded away, the team's success in the last 5-6 years is nothing short of amazing. Possibly the best in the league. That's why it continues to be so disappointing to see the team trade waay picks thoughtlessly. The ridiculous trade to bring back Fred 2 months after we could have had his rights free and clear is the most egregious example, but I'd love to have Jack Mac in the side, in years to come. My only quibble is with your saying we do well with the Academy. It only looks that way in comparison to the rest of the league. Two regulars and two reserves who didn't play this year -- that's not good enough. It's a numbers thing -- I wrote about this for BR&U, too. You get 8 internationals. If you do well in the draft, you get on average two players who contribute for 5 or 6 years. To fill out a 25-30 man roster, you're gonna have to add at least one and preferably 2 Academy players each year. The next crop seems promising, but they're probably several years away. Robinson, Martin, Rudy, Dainkeh and Eticha are not ready to contribute to the senior team...not to mention the younger players like the Najar brothers, the other Robinson, Niedermeyer, maybe even the Harkes kid, or Amman's kid -- all still a bunch of years away. We'll need at least 4 of those kids to pan out. If they do, then we can agree we're doing well with the Academy.