We are taking bids on the dynamic wing player, and rumor is the whole three of them want out. The players behind them are sub quality. Jozy, like Beaz, is American, has had his wild period abroad, and would be content to play out his career in America. Now, if our game is instead flipping young foreign players, not assembling a long term team, then Jozy is expensive. But then get to flipping the forwards now. Quit farting around and not making deals. What is wrong with anticipating your own next moves? I could understand to a limited extent we can't read Alvarez's mind and whether he signs here. But a smart team has plan b, plan c, etc. And we should know our own plans and sequence their replacements. OK, it sounds like the forward line wants out. We intend them all gone by summer. We can sell this cycle and then wait til summer to replace from abroad, or we can do a deal for a player whose "I don't think I will be in Toronto much longer" press junket sounds like someone in the shop window right now. Are we trying to pay competitive wages? Are we now a selling team? etc. Resolve it, plan your moves, execute. We will fart around, sell Elis at the last minute, be starting Pena or McNamara half a year, and then get someone who may or may not be Elis' or Jozy's quality. People wonder why we suck? We dither, we think you can keep up with half measures, etc. It's a crying effing shame for me to write something on a bulletin board back in response to your thing. Like playing politics. If it's not "block him" it's games of "and now you respond to this." On what terms exactly do I get to talk? Yours?
Nothing wrong with anticipating a need but dropping that kind of cash on only a possible need is ridiculous. And you would be the first to point out Jozy is way overpriced at that kind of outlay. Having asked Chris before, they won't be spending that kind of money on a player. The ROI just isn't there and I believe him. Now if Jozy comes down from his crazy salary, maybe, but I won't hold my breath.
One did not need to visit the San Jose boards circa 2005 when the hammer dropped on their loyal fan base by AEG's relocation project to know a screwing might be coming our way,, all one had to do was have followed AEG's handling of the entire process leading up to December of 2005 and know just what kind of cut throat folks were forcing a move to our great city and in the name of screwing over their loyal fan base with a winning history ball team. Which is what AEG did to San Jose soccer folks. Also, recall, that no one in Houston was clamoring for AEG's relocation project. There was speculation from MLS HQ in 2004 and 2005 that Club America, to follow Vergara and his Chivas USA project in MLS, they would come in with some bid to expand a new MLS franchise somewhere in the U.S. or AEG moving somewhere but again no big owner or biding war was held by anyone in Houston. The talk was always that Houston would need a local owner to secure a stadium site and build their own SSS, then get Garber to rubber stamp the new expansion team to Houston. What is always weird is that AEG wanted out of a college gridiron stadium in San Jose as renters with San Jose St. University...to then relocate their SJ MLS team to of course a city in the Gulf Coast of the U.S.A. (with little history of pro soccer support) and U of H with its college gridiron stadium as renters once again! On top of this with ZERO land acquired ahead of time, a plan to build on, and no stadium designs in mind. Thus you as the question from above, imagine the San Jose fans reaction to hearing the above I just posted. In reality, AEG is moving an original MLS team. One that hosted the very first game. All cuz AEG did not want to continue as renters at a college. To then move to a new city and continue to be renters at a college. Ouch for San Jose folks!!!
Um, yeah, about that with Kinnear and his way of signing players. Certainly big name players to Houston. Clint Dempsey on his return to MLS after playing for Fulham and then Spurs, he specifically had his agent contact Canetti and our FO on finishing his career out in his home State of Texas. Kinnear specifically killed any chance of this because "he did not want one player earning so much in front of the rest of the other players earning not as much." Even though said player is the most accomplished American to play in European pro leagues and certainly as Texas soccer goes a player that had a following with kids and adults that love soccer here in Texas. I.e. would have really loved to witness Clint play in our Dynamo orange! So credit AEG for willing to pay Dempsey like Seattle's owners easily did. It was on Kinnear and his "way". However, their LAG marking budget and certainly getting a bigger JumboTron was money that we earned for home base 1 AEG out in L.A. Yet went to items like that around their town and in Stadium and of course the aggressive money spending with signing Becky and Keane and so on. Where we sign no one for reason like above. It just always affected us Houston fans Don. One way or the other.
As L.A. Galaxy goes, correct. Again, San Jose fans will tell you an entire different perspective. Also, recall that AEG told Kinnear and the players all leading up to the eventual move in 2005 season that AEG was not moving the team. Tell your wives and kids to relax. But to then drop the hammer on Kinnear and Ching and the guys with what...pulling the Lucy on Charlie Brown trick and moving the team that December of 2005. Weird thing about our soccer savvy town is that a big name better be just that a very big name that really moves the needle with the ticket buying power to give a ROI. Jozy is a solid pro forward but to our soccer crowd he is not that big to move the needle. Even an over the hill Euro or South American guy is not doing this. Our people just want good footy on display. No has beens. Jozy seems to be a good signing but it really is all about his agent and his own wage demands.
https://www.houstondynamo.com/post/2019/01/22/houston-dynamo-sign-defender-sam-junqua Junqua is now not just drafted but signed. Accused of batsh*t, they double down and go full crazy before we even kick a scrimmage ball.
The Dempsey argument is misleading because you're still talking about 1 player making that much when LA had 3 (Landon, Keane). My understanding is Dempsey topped out at just under $5 million and in later seasons was down to $1 million and change. That would support an argument AEG was better for us than Brener et al., since while we have thrown around some fees we have not spent more than a million on a player. But that they were that great to us? Meh. They got Donovan, who had been with our team and not theirs, grandfathered. They gave LA Beckham and us a hard cap team. As the exceptions came in and expanded, we would spend them to keep some legacy player with a contract barely over the exception, while LA was bringing in world class players for millions. And like I said re Jozy, the big picture history of the team is that second phase of playoff regular and occasional runnerup was actually falling off from the first phase championship contender. Most of the time we didn't make the final and when we did we were completely overmatched and starved for offense. And while organized and decent defense they would come in with the well funded three headed monster and smash smash smash til we cracked. That used to just be a LA playoff game problem but as DPs expanded and number and spread across the league, there is now a whole tier of teams where we are overmatched. I'm also gonna say that as the exceptions spread and less money came off the cap with them it became harder to screw up all of them, easier to retain a supporting cast, and more truly tiered. It is different with one exception versus working towards half a team where each exception is a significant fraction of our payroll and world class. I will say that structural/spending complaints or not, Kinnear's position on this would be a misreading of where the league had gone, and something he should have known better than based on how his last 2 finals went. I know there was a lot of arrogance around here that basically acted like this was still the 2006-7 team. But we didn't actually win. Taking that a step further, our system based model was no longer championship sufficient. So you can either back pat yourself at being a regular bridesmaid because oh aren't we still such a good team, or you can realize as you once did with say Cerritos vs Dalglish or Ale vs Ngwenya that despite all the history and decent talent you were a buck short still and needed to make another big move to get there. This is where I argue this team became a wagon-circling, defensive caricature of itself. We act like it was the system and don't acknowledge we had MVP type talent (of that era) coming out our ears. We did in fact keep salaries in check but roughly as of when DeRo left you could argue that was no longer a recipe for ultimate success. I realize the chronology was not right for Dempsey to come back and win the titles we lost. But I think you can argue that with 1 or 2 players of LA's spending level, on our offense, we have a chance of punching enough goals in.
I get the irony of us leaving SJSU to end up with UH, however in recent posts which no one seems to read I argued that with the benefit of hindsight that discussion gets more complicated. At the time they moved there was a SSS trend. We played the trend and took independence and debt. But you look at the two finalists last season and it's a AAA baseball remodel vs a NFL groundshare. For two years before that it's NFL groundshare vs CFL groundshare. That can mean no stadium costs. That can mean no rent. That can mean a huge tenant paying you rent. We have soft ownership, stadium and LBO debt, and no big name tenant. And we play outside in the heat when Atlanta plays inside to huge crowds. At which point, I start asking, did we ask about the Dome? Reliant? About buying The Rob out from UH? About going halfsies on TDECU? Have any of the other owners in town offered to buy us? I know Les did. Whether from Astros experience or their own pride I don't think they'd run teams on the cheap. You can make the ROI thing say what you want it to say. Every team in the league has a business plan with their ROI theory and financials. Some now seem to do a lot better than we do. This team was pulling over 20k when it was a winner, outside. There are teams in this league playing in NFL stadia to 50k people and running out stars. I am sure their lights are not about to be cut off. it has to do with conglomeration vs being expected to carry your own weight. It has to do with pride vs a tax shelter. It has to do with filthy rich and vain vs merely rich and safe. People made the same ROI/debt service arguments about the Astros but at a certain point people don't want to pay to watch you lose and the revenue plummets. It only makes revenue sense year 1 or 2 as you squeak by on reduced expenses. Over time the lack of revenue bites. If you run revenues into the ground to save expenses that is a death spiral. Most smart businesses work on the opposite theory of trying to attract more customers. FWIW all the risk averse MBAs trying to ventriloquize the business owners they idealize miss that fans would rather have owners swinging for the fences and if the business side blows up, go get us a new owner. What I hear is basically identifying with your own cheap oppressor because you have a business degree and wish you owned a big business too. Yeah, well, the lack of success and probably moderate revenues should give one pause about defending it. This is what I always thought on ol' Seth Trout. Boy could he defend the status quo. Funny, we're not winning. Maybe try something else. If we're that smart show me the pile in the trophy case. Otherwise all you are is a educated politician's spokesman.
gotta love the Dynamo single game tickets on sales except for DC united and LA the games that people really want to go to. smh
His way was the best team in the league for half a decade ... 2004 thru 2009. He was playing a winning hand. Until the league started raising min salaries and such there was little history of the what you wanted succeeding. I’m pretty sure none of us have seen the books. I’m pretty confident the clubs were run as seperate entities with a common owner. I just can’t get to your conclusion.
All correct. None of it makes AEG an incompetent and uncommitted owner like Brener. It makes AEG into assholes. I, like you, disagree with how they treated San Jose.
yeah, but you have to adjust to the game when it changes. it's not static. it's part of the reason we're in this situation now.
When there was a hard cap you could set up a superior squad by having several good players at moderate salaries versus one or two players with high salaries but dragging money away from supporting cast who were then cheap across the board. Beckham and Donovan and the 9 Dwarves so to speak. We had more quality spread across more players at restrained cost. But people want to be paid so over time we lost a lot of good players to trades or Europe. It worked only when we had a legacy team simply better than most of MLS, and protected by the hard cap. Once DPs increased within a team, and then increased to more teams in general, teams with money could both afford better high end players than us, and then with the DP hit limited lower and lower, more supporting cast to play with them. Basically it equalized the supporting cast aspect of the payroll -- although one team can do better on GM work within that allotment -- and then you start having teams outdo us on DPs. And as it becomes more DPs you can fill more of the field with players we can't match. When it was 1 DP or a grandfather, well, maybe our other 10 are as good or better. But under current rules and with our indifference to the academy and draft picks and affection for MLS castoffs, we probably have as bad or worse a supporting cast and then less money in our DPs as well. We might luck out on an individual like Elis but with our GM and normal statistical spread, we're playing a losing hand. The thing about multiple DP heavy teams is you can luck out and beat one, or one team can mess up on its choice, or have bad supporting players, or an injury bug. Back in the day Gullit and LAG stunk when we were winning. But if there are 6-10 teams spending on that level, if you make the playoffs on the cheap, it's unlikely you can run the field. We should already have known that from the 2009-2012 teams that couldn't beat LA. And that was maybe a 2 spender team league. It's now a list of teams spending enough. As we saw in our one playoff run of late, if KC or Portland don't get you, Seattle or Toronto will. I used to say we could build for the lucky off year like 2015 where the field opens up. But I think there are so many spending teams that the field is rarely if ever that wide open going forward. So you're either spending what it takes to compete or you might as well call for the creation of MLS2 and pro/rel because we are going to tier out of it. To me Kinnear's ideas were already faltering by the 2009 and beyond timeframe, as we began to sometimes miss the playoffs, and in a good year took second to a team that spent money. We lost our top end talent, and became a team hoping to get by on system, and in reality struggling as they tried. And now the league has changed where if LAG has an off year there are about a half dozen other teams spending the same level of payroll to step in its place, Cinderella is not invited. In terms of the ROI BS, my friend and I buy about a ticket a year to watch games together. When Beckham was coming to town his wife had him buy the necessary five pack. Three fans, not two, five pairs of tickets, not one. Good enough a player and it does move the meter. The fans respond to the effort they perceive. When it was a hard cap league there was no perception of low effort. When we built a new stadium, ditto. The ROI argument is really risk aversion re-packaged. It's not a true business plan, it's a smug organization straight lining their attendance in spite of the trend, and then trying to make money off keeping expenses down. But over time the fans do not play along. If you reduce expenses, so do I, if you follow.
Recall that when ground sharing with U of H when AEG rented from them, there was the big friction of securing playing dates by our FO. Specifically midweek CCL and Open Cup matches. U of H would easily demand their contract rates knowing that AEG needed a place to play, so AEG had to schedule weekends according to U of H's demands, and that was a headache to deal with the AD Maggard. Also, us fans had to travel to Aggieland to enjoy the return leg of a CCL knockout match due to midweek games even in preseason were not what U of H wanted to allow us. Or Open Cup play was tended to be a for sure road fixture because our FO was not able to schedule mid week games due to night classes and parking issues. To add on this issue is the fact that whom ever is the lead owner, like he city with their NRG, or U of H, they will always demand a lion's share of the concessions and parking money revenue streams. This was, and still is, very significant revenue streams for a league like MLS where the TV contract money still is not like the other four pro leagues. This is the major reason to own and operate your own stadium. I mean look at the times our FO has to juggle the Astros clashes for Lots B and C. And this for just parking issues. Imagine what U of H would demand year after year from our FO for parking, concessions and general rent fees. Building and finally fully running our own stadium was the right thing to do. It is what big boy association football clubs do around our planet.
Listened to this Down in The Valley podcast from a week ago and they interviewed Gerson Echeverry. He said Nico Corti and Jesus Enriquez were the two Toros players who had come in early to train with the Dynamo. Corti is the main RGVFC keeper and Jesus Enriquez played as a forward on the left wing. Feel like Enriquez would be a good pick-up. 21 years old, 5 goals, 5 assists in USL and really came on strong to end the season. I’m guessing Corti was in just to get time with Paul Rogers, but who knows, maybe we plan on moving on from Deric.
Was not really impressed so much with Corti. Nelson was better and Deric was even better than Nelson. in comparison. Corti didn't seem as tall or long = less lateral and vertical range. Made more mistakes. Brave kid, made some good reaction saves.
Listening and reading fans of RGV rave about Enriquez seemed a bit like fans of a hometown boy bias. I don't think he is from that area originally but my take is that he is a smart player but too slow for MLS. Maybe if he had another forward to pair with who had blinding speed would be better for him. He always seemed alone up top with 3 defenders to beat on his own. Decent technical skills and his heart and movement is good but the offense wasn't potent last year and it really struggled until the Panamanian striker came in (Carlos Small) that they started grabbing results late in the season. Carlos Small has more potential to make it to the first team than Enriquez as a winger or Forward. He would have a better shot as an outside midfielder than forward. If I was Gerson I would use him that way and get another #9 with more pace.
Enriquez was born around San Francisco and spent time with Tijuana, so “hometown bias” is a bit of a stretch. He’s also easily faster than Small. I think his speed is comparable to Quioto, i.e. he isn’t as fast as Elis, but he’s still speedy. I think he fits better out on the left than Memo and McNamara who are both slower than he is and he’s shown enough that I’d take a flier on a min contract. I like Small a lot, but he’s an international and we’re short a slot already so the chances of signing him in the preseason are tiny. Hopefully they can stash him down there and sign him once green cards clear, one of the forwards move on or Lundkvist gets cut. Only issue is he’s on loan so at some point Pan Arabe Unido probably Starts fielding other offers. Also think Small is too slow to play as a winger. More of a hold-up man to compete with Pena or replace Manotas if he leaves. Also Deric was objectively the worst keeper at RGV last season with the exception of the Puerto Rican national team keeper who saw like one game. Obviously outside circumstances there, but he got blasted the handful of times he played
Don't know if anyone has posted this. https://www.google.com/amp/s/mlsmul...mls-superdraft-success-contingency-plans/amp/
Who the hell wrote that and where is the editor? More importantly, what makes our offseasons very successful? I'm not sure what moves were made that warrant such a statement, especially with all of our frontline having contract issues of one sort or another. If anything the offseasons could be classed as uncertain. The superdraft is impossible to judge right away but based on history and what was on the board, it doesn't look good.
No one thought that he would be selected in the first round, nevertheless, Jordan pulled the trigger. Against conventional wisdom. Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but those comments don't sound assuring.
I’d be a lot more willing to buy these “we’re sneaky smart, trust us” takes if it wasn’t Jordan doing the talking. Like if this is Vermes saying this I’d bite. The Warshaw comment was diplomatic at best. No one covering the draft had a clue why we took Junqua and that’s literally the only thing they could think to say short of calling Jordan and Cabrera morons on the air.
Pity Martinez formerly of River Plate has now signed for Atlanta Utd if one has not heard. Here is the link to his presentation day. He was voted as South American player of the year in 2018. So him and Carlos El Pibe Valderamma are two players to have earned this title and play in MLS. From that article I found this interesting from how Atlanta Utd FO is looking at becoming a big player in our Americas hemisphere with buying talent and thus selling talent to Europe, Something a few of us on our Houston boards have desired to be done by our own Dynamo for years now. https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019/01/25/pity-martinez-atlanta-united-made-decision-easy-me For years, Atlanta’s executive and technical leaders have talked about the team’s desire to become entwined in the global transfer market through the purchasing of young players who have sell-on value for interested European clubs with deep pockets. At age 25, Martinez could still fit that mold, and chatter about a potential MLS-record sale of 24-year-old Almiron continued to build during Martinez's introductory presser. Like Almiron when he arrived, Martinez said that Atlanta represents an ideal place for him to perform well and showcase his talent. “Atlanta is a club that's doing things well, so I know that if I perform well, there will be opportunities to have the chance to go to Europe,” Martinez told media. “But I'm not desperate. I'm very happy to be here and to join this club.”