Gale Agbossoumonde Profile

To me Gale's a typical example of an American youth player that people make excuse after excuse for. [Freddy Adu being the best example of this.] Gale's problems now are 99% a result of Gale not putting in the work, Gale not having the work ethic, and Gale frankly not being good enough. It was GALE'S CHOICE to go with Traffic!!! We all know the deal with 3rd party ownership. It severely limits your opportunities because most clubs in Europe don't want to deal with that mess. (in fact, I think that after that Tevez-Mascherano mess, it's not allowed in England at all) Then people will make the excuse of "Gale's a kid and didn't know that." Nonsense.

Gale had an offer on the table from MLS this past year..................and still chose to play for the Carolina Railhawks, a midtable NASL team. Somebody explain that to me. Who decides to play for Coventry when an offer is on the table with Fulham? We all know what's going to happen. He's going to end up in MLS next year anyway. (or a league worse than MLS) So it was yet another year of self-imposed purgatory.

There's one thing that doesn't add up in the "Traffic screwed Gale" narrative. What's the incentive for Traffic? They were paying him a hefty salary and in the end they must have lost a ton of money on him.

Instead, we have to consider the possibility that teams just weren't that interested in Gale. We know of several teams who passed for various reasons and like with many players I suspect there were other unreported trials that didn't amount to anything.

It's more convenient to believe that Gale was screwed over because that storyline allows us to continue to believe that he's a great prospect, just an unlucky one. Considering other narratives forces us to confront the ugly possibility that, perhaps, teams aren't as interested in this player as we'd like to think they are.

I think the idea would more be that Traffic is incompetent. So Gale's failures might be overdetermined.

I agree 100% with everything you said. I was just trying to fill in some of the narrative that I believe is part of the story. He has some talent because MLS wanted him, Braga wanted him, and that French team (2nd Division I think) wanted him. You are right about his choices and I am not making excuses but rather trying to tell another part of his story.

Time will tell.

I don't understand. Are you saying Gale might still turn out?

I think most objective observers would say they had reasonable hopes that Gale would be performing at a higher level at this point in his career than he has managed to this point.

Watching him with the 2009 U20s (when he still qualified by age for the U17s) I thought he had a chance -- based on his physical qualities, his ball skills and his read on the game at that age -- to be a rare defensive "prodigy" by American standards, which I would call nearing the MNT level by his early 20s. (I thought this about one guy older than him, and was wrong; I thought it about another guy who is younger, and the jury's still out... but what do I know?)

Obviously, we are not there yet. But he hasn't turned 21 yet, he is still 6 ft. 2 in., and he's in his fourth professional season. For an American defender, that ain't bad. Here's hoping he still wants great things for himself and is willing to put in the work to accomplish them.

I'm not particularly optimistic.

I depends on your definition of success.

Could Gale still become an MLS-caliber player?

Sure...........I have no doubt that if he was available, plenty of MLS clubs would grab him for the right price. Then it would be up to him to prove he belongs.

He's certainly not going to get paid in MLS now what he was offered on two previous occasions. [GenAd money]

Next year we'll probably hear that MLS offered him $40k or something (Stuart Holden was at $35k). Gale will say like "that's insulting" and go play for a 2nd division team in Denmark.

I don't know Gale well enough to know what he'll say.

That's what he said on the two previous occassions MLS made him a contract offer.

I guess I'm just hopeful he is learning from all this.

Hopefully...................I think in the past he just didn't know what he wanted.

This ESPN article tells the story:
http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/news/_/id/5764564/anguish-gale-agbossoumonde

In the spring of 2009, Agbossoumonde, just a few months before representing the U.S. at the U-20 World Cup, had graduated from the IMG Academy and went to Spain for a series of trials. Atletico Madrid had become curious after its youth team scrimmaged the U-20s and had learned that Agbossoumonde had no club. But after trials with Sevilla, Real Valladolid and Atletico, Agbossoumonde went home, shunning offers from all three.


"I didn't want to stay at Atletico," said Agbossoumonde over the phone. "I wasn't ready, maybe I was childish -- I don't know. At the time, I wasn't really sure I wanted to go to Europe. So I told all the teams I was going to go to MLS."

Agbossoumonde planned to spend a few years in Major League Soccer before exploring options in Europe again. But when the league's offer came in, he felt lowballed. "When the MLS offered me the contract, I was like, 'Come on, are you really serious?'" The low six-figure Generation Adidas contract, designed to bring in outstanding prospects by exempting them from the salary cap and offering the rare guarantee on its duration, felt like an insult. (Gonzalez's and Opara's contracts with MLS are each good for base salaries of $80,000 with add-ons that nearly double that figure. Ream makes $40,000.)

He passed up the chance to sign on in Spain because he says he didn't want to go to Europe. Then MLS made a 6 figure offer (a larger base salary than guys like Omar Gonzalez, Tim Ream, Geoff Cameron, and George John made at the time)..........and he said it felt like an insult. Anybody paying a remote amount of attention would know exactly how much a GenAd contract in MLS was. It just didn't make sense.

That precipitated the Traffic vagabondia. And this is the most confusing part of the whole story............

On Aug. 6, 2009, Agbossoumonde signed a contract with Traffic through the end of 2010 with an option that allows Traffic to unilaterally extend the contract by two more years. He didn't realize he had signed on for so long. "I thought it was a one-year thing. I should have paid more attention," Agbossoumonde said.

People can blame Traffic all they want for Gale's woes. I certainly believe they're part of the problem. I'm against this kind of 3rd party ownership. But when you read these articles..................it reads like Gale and his representation (which I guess was Aaron Maines) were just asleep at the wheel. How could you not know how long the contract was for that you were signing?

Maybe I'm being too harsh about the whole thing, but it just seems to me a story of an overhyped kid (just read the intro to that ESPN piece) who started to believe the hype, didn't do the work necessary to get signed anywhere, didn't pay a remote amount of attention to his career choices, and has slipped into irrelevance.

Very true. Soccer is not a sport where you can get by on athleticism alone. Its a completely different animal then a sport like basketball where simply being a specialist (shot-blocker, rebounder, etc) can you get by at the highest level. Think Serge Ibaka. Soccer simply takes so much hard work and determination to make it to such high levels.

I'm with you Clint it's troubling that Gale and his non-Traffic agent didn't know about the length of the deal. My dad is a lawyer and we were raised to always read whatever you had to sign before signing it. No matter what it was you read it before signing your name. It's just common sense!

In England every agent is required to use a standard representation contract. It's actually quite detailed. Agent's can customize it to a certain extent but some parts are required to be in the contract. One part is a statement saying the player was given the opportunity to take the contract to a lawyer and have it reviewed before signing it. It is encouraged that every player has it reviewed. The player signs a piece of paper saying he either had it reviewed or not and that becomes a permanent part of the contract that is given to the FA.

I know most representation contracts can be "wordy" but the contract should have openly stated how long the representation deal was for.

I'm interested to see if anything changes once his Traffic contract has expired.

I just don't believe the story.

Mentality and work ethic are the two most important assets for a professional athlete and Gale has lacked both so far in his career.

I guess I don't see him being over-hyped when Athletico, Sevilla, and Valladoid offered him a contract. They saw something. Currently, I don't think he has any hype to him.

I think he was/is inmature and made a series of terrible decisions (Not signing in Europe, not signing MLS, signing a contract he didn't know the length, showing up late to practices consistently). For me enough teams have been interested in him for his talent but between the ears is where he seems to have always struggled.

Signs with MLS, is it to late for the boss?

Three years ago I'd have really cared.

Then again, it's a little late to be discussing him and Zardes on this forum. At least Boss actually played for YNT's, though.

I'm thanking God the Sounders didn't get stuck with him. Should be fun watching TFC use him and pass on Zimmerman or Farrell and have them be much better players.

To me, his failings - the majority anyway - seemed to be between his ears. Falling down the prospect ladder to having to play USL ball (think that's right) may have been an eyeopener for him. Hopefully he's now headed in the right direction. Too early to write him off.

At the same time, I wouldn't be nearly as excited as Ives thinks TFC should be. Far from certain that he'll be a contributor at the MLS level.