Blog post on Bill Hamid (and a bit about CD37) http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_...elp-dc-united-turn-things-around-in-2011.html
Last night only cemented my dislike of this trade. Hamid is not ready for prime time. He was tentative coming out. He still has a case of the dropsies. Don't get me wrong I think he will be very good but this is too soon for me.
Yeah, he had his fair share of errors. However, I'll take a bunch of errors from a keeper with a huge amount of upside rather than tolerate them from a supposed veteran who should know better.
i'd wait a bit before passing judgement. he's only been cleared since March 15 to get back to full activity. He's had no pre-season and only a couple weeks of practice, I'm not sure its the best indicator of where he is in terms of his ability to be a starter. If he'd had a full pre-season training and games and was tentative and droping balls i'd be more concerned.
Hamid was/is slated to be one of two keepers -- whether it was/is Perkins or Cronin, he was slated to be the young guy challenging the older, more experienced keeper. Sure, Cronin doesn't have loads of time in MLS, but I think the team expected that Cronin is as good as the 2010 version of Perkins (and the likely 2011 version of Perkins) at a much cheaper price. If he is, it's a good trade. If Cronin is not as good as 2010 Perkins, it wasn't a great deal, but (given Perkins' price tag vs. 2010 perforance) it was worth the gamble, no matter whether Hamid is ready now or not.
I am perfectly fine with the trade. What I don't like is the assumption that Hamid is going to be some kind of savior. I expect him to be a slight upgrade over Onstad and about as good as Cronin. If he is slightly better than Cronin all the better. If he is slightly worse than Cronin it becomes a question of whether he getting Hamid first team minutes makes up the difference. If he is much worse than Cronin I will be glad we got a cheap insurance goalie as back-up.
I agree with all of this - strictly in the immediate term. In the medium-to-long term, however, Hamid has WAY more upside than Cronin. If he continues his progress, he will leave Cronin in the dust. He has already trained informally w/ the national team, and the GK coach said Hamid is already further along than Howard was at this age. Of course, there's no guarantee that he will continue to improve as expected and that's what we're all watching for.
Compared to Perkins first couple of games back in DC, Hamid had an All-Star performance! He hasn't played competitively for nearly 8 months. It will likely take him 4-5 games to get back in the swing of things. At least give Hamid a year to fight Cronin for the position.
And don't get me wrong I see a bright future for Hamid. I have never been impressed with Cronin. To me he is a little better version of Wells. That is not a compliment.
Solid game for Hamid tonight, can't blame him on the goal. I only remember one howler where he went to clear a ball and kicked it straight up in the air where a Galaxy player headed it right back to him.
He spills too many balls for me. He did so at Soccerplex, and even in pre-game warmups last night. To his credit he gets on them like a hawk on a mouse, but still....
I didn't have a problem with Hamid as a shotstopper, but his clearances weren't that great, especially that whiff. Many of the other clearances struggled to get to midfield, which gave the Galaxy a chance at the ball much further up than they should have. Part of this was because of the high pressure, but not all of it.
