Sebastian Rozental

I'm really at a loss with him. He has spectacular moments, and others that make you shake your head.

I might be missing something (I certainly didn't hear him make the comments), but according to the Dispatch, it doesn't sound as bad to me as it did to others

 

It's been mentioned before I said it, probably by zak, but I really think there was a huge breakdown or something after the 5-1 loss to DC that led Sigi to sour on Rozental. Before that game, Sigi was high on him and said that once he his fitness he can be very impressive in this league. There was even talk of playing him up top at some points. Sigi obviously wanted him on the field and would shift around the lineup to find him a spot.

If you remember after that game some DC fans were talking about how Rozental was animated after the game pointing here and there and shouting etc.

After that game is when you saw Rozental hit the bench.

No Crew beat writers or anyone else picked up on that incident apparently. But, we were told by Sigi afterwards that he just needed something more from Seb, and that being a professional Seb understood that.

As Seb's abscence from the lineup became longer and longer we were told it was now a fitness issue, and that the game may be too fast for him. A bit of a change in tune from Sigi.

He starts no league games, but starts an Open Cup game. We score more than 2 goals for the only time this season and Seb has three assists. It seems he has made an impact and Sigi would be wise to see what he could do in league. But he immediately showed up on the injury report afterwards. So much for that.

He's come in for 10 minutes here and there, and looks like he is a player that can make an impact. During these times commentators and press from other teams seem to notice his quality and are not shy in expressing it.

Still, nothing new from Sigi.

Last night he gets a start on national tv, looks to be a very dangerous player and is drawing rave reviews from everyone, except Sigi.

So really, what led to the sea change during that DC game? It's a game I for one would love to forget but there were more than a handful of players who had far less impressive games than Seb. Consistent starters Ezra and Lietch among them.

I just don't get it. It had to be something. Whatever it was, it's time to put it aside. As ridiculous as this sounds we can still finish second in conference, and we can still very easily make the Eastern Conference final, anything can happen there. And I for one think Seb gives us our best chance. And I am far from alone.

 

Bill, thanks for starting this thread. All of our Sebastian Rozental discussion had been disperesed throughout different game threads. Now we have one place to concentrate our collective bewilderment about how the most intelligent (healthy) soccer player we have sits on the bench while his replacements fail to deliver socring opportunities.

Maybe for Sigi's sake the thread should be named: "Sebastian Rozental, Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Chunky Chilean"

 

I just don't see it. Yes he has skill but he plays lazy out there too much. He'll give the ball away and not play defense, a definate no-no.

He's the most expensive player we have available and I don't see him bringing much to the table. Some of the rave reviews come from guys that love a foreigner no matter what he does. I'm certainly no expert but I do think you have to show more than skill out there. We weren't scoring goals, we were giving the ball away too easily and we were losing games. Seb goes to the bench and we try something else in the rebuilding process.

People have stated that they'd like to see him in the Valderama model where he just gets the ball and passes, the league has come a long way since the 1998 and that kind of 1 way player just does not work anymore.

I would love to see a classic #10 emerge form the 4 or so guys we've tried at the AM spot but I don't expect it to be Seb. I was hoping it would be Gaven but that looks less and less likey as the weeks go by. I think Vasquez has the attitude but the skill and smarts seem to disappear from his game. Maybe Danny can step up as he gains health/fitness.

 

I'll put my fanboy $.02 in. I see that if we trade Seb, he will come back and get us. It's that simple. The guy proved his class with that quote in the paper today. He proves his skill whenever he's in a game. He's the perfect player for a team environment. If Sigi trades him, it will come back to haunt us, plain and simple.

 

I'm eager to hear this podcast, please include Seb's remarks to the press.

 

For someone who doesn't contribute anything of value, I sure am mentioned a lot.

Either way, it's as I said before....Sigi in February didn't say to himself "You know I'm going to go out and get this team an AM, however, I'm going to protect him until August, wherein he can come in and effect the stretch run." If that were the case, both McCullers and Sigi should be run out of town for such comedy. You don't have someone at that position on your salary chart to only play a couple months.

Secondarily, Seb is the square peg that is trying to be fit into the round hole. Lets examine this, Seb typically gets the ball and generally tries to pass into space, generally down the channels. This in STARK contrast to Vasquez, who is starting over Seb, who takes guys on, doesn't necessarily make "saavy" passes, but seems to have a much higher workrate. It seems to me (see jacob thomas) that Crew are trying to field a team of these types of players on offense, not to terribly talented, not necessarily chess player type strategy guys, guys like vasquez, Thomas, Ngwenya, Kamara, that run at people, and take people on. Seb doesn't fit into that sort of scheme, because frankly, we don't have the wingers to cross in off the channels, and don't have the horses to get under said crosses. That is the only logical conclusion that I can come to, Seb doesn't play enough direct, take guys on soccer to impress Sigi.

That said, Gaven isn't that type of player either, is it ironic that he's not looked all that impressive either?

 

Since before the season began Sigi has talked about needing leadership on the team. I cannot remember how many times I have heard either he or players talk about the need for it. Sigi now says that the fact he saw no leaders from last years team was a driving catalyst for his dismanteling it.

If Sebastian did blow up after the DC game and start to call players out that probably hurt him a great deal in Sigi's leadership standings and got his butt buried deep in the doghouse.

We also have no idea what is going on off the field. Sigi has made statements that he feels team leadership doesn't end off the field or around the team environments. He considers it to extend to the older players and team veterans having dinner and hanging out with the younger and newer players. Showing them around town, helping them to adjust, etc.

While Seb is new here he is a grizzled veteran and could teach the young guys a great deal. I'm thinking that Sigi doesn't see that happening and certainly doesn't see it happening by berating guys as they come off the field.

Seb seems to be making ground in this area with the "I'm not here for me, I'm here for the team" comments.

Second, could be that Sigi feels he was taken on the initial deal and he is still not to pleased about that. I'm thinking that Sigi wants consistent top shelf performance for top shelf pay. Now what that standard is to Sigi who knows but it would seem to be more than what Seb is showing now.

One thing we have learned is that once you go into Sigi's doghouse it's a big chore to get out. But unlike GA (and sometimes Fitz) a player can get out. That's good.

Seb's one touch game last night changed the team completely. We became a great deal more dangerous with him out there. Once he, Thomas and Burch figure each other out this team could be remarkable. Seb had a flick on to Burch last night that was absolute art and he was finding Thomas with regularity.

 

Are you sure you're watching the same guy? I kept track of him last night and he kept demanding the ball, he keeps possession more often than not, and makes the intelligent, well paced pass to a teammate. The goal was beautiful, the pass to Ward that ended with Ezra's shot was beautiful, the pass to Garey was beautiful. Sometimes you need to SLOW things down when there is no angle to make the pass or when the guy receiving the pass finds himself 1v2 or 1v3. He's the smartest (in a soccer sense) player we have out there and will combine wonderful with Burch, Gaven, Szetela, Coiner and Thomas (and even Vasquez although their responsibilities overlap too much). I wouldn't mind seeing the starting five on top from the last two MLS matches with Roz starting for Vasquez.

Gaven - Coiner
Burch - Roz - Thomas

Put Szetela and Moss/Retiz behind Roz on a 3-5-2 or Szetela in a 4-4-2 and we have a solid starting MF/FW combo out there. Each of them has plenty of backup available where we won't see as big a drop anymore like we had the first part of the season.

And, Roz does his bit on defense by pressuring the defenders when they have possession. Is he a ball-winner? Not necessarily but he does more on defense than many other players that have roamed in CCS wearing the yellow kits for us.

 

In my opinion it's a huge torpedo into the hull of the goodship McSigi if they got Seb that wrong. IIRC, he's top three in payroll, and literally will not play any meaningful minutes this year, and will be cut or traded for pennies on the dollar.

It's being set up if we take Seb out of the equation that there's going to be a lot of kick and chase type ball out of Crew. Good luck making the playoffs with that....It's been sucessful in world soccer .00000001% of the time. Any wonder why Crew give up goals in the second half? Uh, because the ball doesn't get tired, people do.

 

If Sigi has put Seb in the doghouse, then I'm really dissappointed in him. I thought we'd got away from a style of management associated with our earlier coaches, and that we had a coach who rewarded performance with play.

Rozental has vision and the skills to execute what he sees. He brings an awful lot to the team, and has the ability to adapt to the players around him.

He could be the vital spark this team has needed.

If he and Sigi have disagreed about something, then they both need to get over it. I've seen crap like this before, and unless you end it, both sides lose.

 

Excellent point, has anyone else noticed how much Gaven's game picks up with Seb on the field. Intelligent players have a way of finding one another.

 

It seems to me the general consensus is that he's a good player who just doesn't fit well here. That's a great thing for us, if we try a trade - we should be able to get excellent value in return.

Continuing our trend of getting LA's best players for a song in return, I suggest we trade for the Chunky Chilean for Landon Donovan.

Or, perhaps we trade him to Chivas USA for Sacha Kljestan (with Ramon Ramirez retiring to free up an SI slot).

Or, since we've expressed interest in Brian Ching, we can ship him off to Houston.

Or reunite Ruiz with the coach that brought him to MLS by shipping Rosental to Dallas.

I'm not really interested in anyone from RSL or Colorado.

 

B, b, but Gaven and Seb don't put their shoulder down and hoof the ball ten yards in front of them and take people on.....Please. I'll take smart soccer. Uh oh, Vasquez has a yard of open space, players running into space....Oh, another shot straight over the north end stand.

 

I assume you're having a laugh, but just in case....You know what you get for Seb on the open market? Uh...Ryan Pore. Or something of the like.

 

At the forum on Tuesday Sigi threw Seb under the bus. He was asked who we were looking at internationally for the transfer window. Sigi didn't name names but said we were looking at a couple of players. Then he said international players sometimes work out well like Gonzalez and sometimes don't work out like Rozental.

 

That's what bothers the hell out of me. He's already written him off for the season. It's irresponsible, especially if Sigi's been paying any attention to our offense.

 

See my comments from early, we have a big squad, and a lot of new players, these guys are auditioning for jobs next season. If you make the playoffs, great, if you don't that's fine too. Sigi has established his goal either way, he's had a season long tryout. That is exactly what is going on right now.

 

Maybe it's a simple cost/benefit deal.

Rosental was supposed to be (after initial fitness problems) an immediate solution for this season at a high cost and results of this high cost purchased should have been realized by now.

To equate it to my job; Rosental was an expensive piece of software purchased to run my business. Rosental v2.0 took a while to set up, has the occasional failure and bug, does interface with other pieces of software in HR and purchasing (but not perfectly), generates some pretty looking reports and make the numbers look good but is doing an acceptable job of running the main part of the business. Rosental v2.0's competitors are cheaper, require a little more work to get interfaced with each other and with other pieces in the business, are faster and if configured correctly over time will be moderate to high-cost effective solutions to run the company. So here is my dillema: the yearly service contract for Rosental v2.0 is due for renewal at a steep price and although the job is being done adequately do I pay again or doe I look at some of these other components to do the job?

My guess is Sigi is expecting Rosental to perform at the same level as an Amado Guevara, Jaime Moreno or maybe a Dwayne De Rosario; but does not appear to be.

And we can banter this back and forth until the cows come home but none of have any perspective when it comes to what goes on behind closed doors and outside of public areas. Maybe a combination of attitude and behavior sour upon a list of expectations that haven't been met.

 

All joking aside you should be forced to hand-wash all the DC United player's jock straps for making such a comment...

 

I've barely seen any Crew matches all season, in fact, the only ones had Rozenthal in a starring role, including last night's match, so this discussion is very enlightening.

I think Zak might have it right. Sigi is holding auditions this season for the core of the team he is hoping to build. Rozenthal's audition is complete and now Sigi is just going through the motions of playing him every so often since he's earning good coin, but really, he can't do anything at all to change Sigi's opinion and his status in the doghouse is permanent.

Too bad for you Crew fans. From the looks of it, Rozenthal could have been one of the players that could really spur this team on to a playoff push. You aren't that far from the Wizards, RBNY or Chicago, although you have played the most games. Sigi's attitude toward Rozenthal may keep a hot player from contributing to your team's revival. Too bad...