I'm with you on that. Therefore, we need to keep the salary cap, we need to keep restrictions on the number of "foreign" players allowed on each team. We need to restrict the number of DP's that we allow each team. Without these things, we will end up with a few perenial "best" teams, while the rest of the league sucks canal water. And USian fans won't go for that. This is the land of the NFL. Parity is what we expect. Every team should have a shot, based on their cleverness and hard work. Otherwise, it's just a pissing contest between wealthy old men. Go Quakes!! We're lousy and we don't care!! - Mark
More prosaically, we can apply the rules evenhandedly, and not change or ignore them whenever it suits the Galaxy.
Funny you should mention the NFL. There's not nearly as much parity there as people like to believe. When you have the Patriots appearing in and/or winning almost every other Superbowl, the farce of the whole thing becomes pretty apparent. And no, the Patriots are not playing by the same rules as every other team, either. They are the sanctioned exception because New England is a very loud and powerful NFL market. But there are still teams like Detroid and Cleveland which will likely never win a Superbowl ever. MLS is the logical conclusion to the NFL's owner controlled league manifested in single entity. Via single entity they can collude without breaking the law, resulting in suppressed player salaries, which maximizes league profits. I'm sure the NFL wishes it could turn back time and be single-entity. Now, from a competitive standpoint, I'm not really sure what conclusions can be drawn. MLS is considered a league with a fair amount of parity, and there are examples of this. LA going from rags to riches to rags (in terms of results) despite being one of the largest spenders in the league lends some evidence to this. I'm not sure that similar parity couldn't be achieved with looser spending restrictions. The league could still have a salary cap to limit spending, and they could do away with mechanisms that allow for teams to game the system, like allocation money, and maybe things would be different. Likewise, all restrictions could be lifted and teams could spend whatever they wanted. Your suggestion that teams would simply become have and have nots would likely come true. The evidence we have for leagues with no restrictions is pretty strong. However, the even if the league owners were totally in control of their own destiny with regards to putting together a roster, they would not give up revenue sharing, and I think there's a quiet incentive in there that would keep teams from going all out to outspend each other. If you spend fifty times what every other team spends, and you win every championship, you probably earn a lot of fans, but do those fans make up for that added operation cost? In MLS, almost definitely not. So if you buy up the best talent, and walk all over everyone, the fans of other teams become less interested, dropping national appeal, and overall limiting revenue as well. What I think you'd see is owners trying to figure out exactly how much more than the league average they need to spend to be a winning team, and them spending about that much, maybe a bit more on years that look especially promising. If you look at MLB, which has the fewest spending restrictions, teams are constantly trying to figure out how to spend less. It's become a bit of an obsession, which is why you see stagnant free-agent markets, and guys signing for a lot less than they might have a decade or so ago. What's changed for MLB is revenue sharing. Haven't looked at what teams are spending in the Premiere League, so I'm not sure if a similar trend is happening (I suspect it might be). But soccer in other parts of the world has a lot longer history, and there's a lot more pressure from fans to spend, etc. etc. MLS is still very young, still very obsessed with how much it's spending, and paranoid about letting things run away from them. For all you TL;DR out there, parity in MLS and the NFL is largely a myth, and MLS will always have spending constraints in order to keep costs down.
If anyone is interested, I have a copy of the extensive investigation that Referee Magazine conducted into DeflateGate. It makes it pretty clear that it was all planned and perpetrated by the Patriots. I guess that Brady’s hand must have grown larger after that season...
As the league revenues grow, there is natural pressure to bring in more star players. The 'big' clubs will always be the instigators to push the spending higher, increase the number of DP's, etc... Historically LAG and maybe Red Bulls were at the forefront of that. But at this point, Atlanta, Seattle, LAFC, and NYCFC have surpassed them as the leading big clubs. I'm not sure those teams have any incentive or need to follow LAGs lead. For the first time, LAG may be told to stick to the existing rules.
Not according to the recent The Athletic article, which reports the Galaxy are right now faced with an quandary requiring a rule change simply to retain their current roster.
Below the upper tier of teams (Atlanta, Toronto, NYCFC, Seattle, LAFC, LAG) in terms of spending: Philly signed Marco Fabian, Orlando signed Nani... I'm not sure I'd want the Quakes to take the risk on either, but that's two more teams (also DC United - Rooney and Minnesota - Quintero last season) that have signed players that casual soccer fans may actually have heard of. The Quakes have yet to make such a signing. That's not necessarily the best option (Chicago signed Schweinsteiger and they're still a mess, NYRB are a more competent organization now that they're not signing players like Henry and Cahill), but it's another measuring stick by which we fall short.
This could go in the Fioranelli thread or the Almeyda thread, but it probably makes the most sense here given the “budget problems” part... 1099382497023012866 is not a valid tweet id This seems believable, I would assume Almeyda wanted to bring in a top level player or two... sign a third DP, get rid of Magnus types and bring in replacements for them, etc.
Not sure how much was invested in getting Almeyda to come to San Jose initially but if the Quakes get $3 million from the buyout of his contract, they will make a lot of money. At least as far as MLS circles are concerned. Not sure how great it will be for PR and fan support though but it this is true, he will be gone before he starts the job!
if true this will be a complete disaster for San Jose and will absolutely confirm and validate everything we’ve known for years really re: the truth about the great Fisherball swindle being perpetrated against the good people of San Jose.
Looking at the roster, I’m sure Almeyda is disappointed in not being able to get or afford the players he wants. Wouldn’t he have known this before he signed on though? I mean didn’t they discuss this when he made a commitment to coach San Jose and/or didn’t he tell them what his expectations are or what he would want or need? It makes no sense.
Almeyda let slipped through the last interview that he is making half of what he makes at Chivas. Was he making about 1.5 at chivas? So he's being paid about 700k or so here? That's barely 200K more than the bum Starhe, that's serious underpayment. And then you won't let him bring in players he want. I think if Almeyda bolt from the team, most of the fanbase would bolt as well. Not because they're following Almeyda, but it would be a final wake up call to stop supporting a team that do not want to win even a game. It would definitely be a sad day. And yet somehow, deep inside, I kinda wish for this to happen
The $3 million could come in handy for a team like the Quakes but it would seem like such a PR fiasco if it’s true and he ends up leaving. Knowing him as a player , he always played on top clubs and I’m sure he isn’t use to the Quakes “small team” mentality. Chivas was also a top team but not sure if he wanted out or if they fired him. Making $200k more in Mexico is probably 4 times less in Silicon Valley with the cost of living being so high. He may have wanted to make the move initially to get his family established in the USA. That’s not uncommon in today’s Latin America. Also why GBS came to LA from Boca Juniors.
Quakes would never put that money towards a player anyway, not in Fisher’s DNA. If true, this would be a bigger fiasco and setback for the club than winning the wooden spoon after a half dozen years of crap futbol. I mean seriously, this would suggest that he has zero loyalty or commitment to San Jose after all this crap about Samurais and trips to Cancun and getting these players to buy into the Matías way. Exactly what nobody wants to hear on the eve of the opening game...unbelievable.
It would definitely be a setback. I believe they had to also pay Stahre what they owed him so that’s money out the door which MLS owners do not like spending. I’m betting Almeyda stays on until July or August and if things go poorly, he goes back to Mexico in time for their split season.
I'm gonna chalk this one up to rumors and gossip. The kind you get from a league as high profile as Liga MX. It could have easily been something he said taken out of context or taken too far.
Hopefully you’re right...this the third time now I’ve heard rumors about him saying he couldn’t bring in the players he wanted, specifically from Mexico apparently, but it’s hard to imagine he would actually be complaining and telling the media or whoever that he was ready to leave SJ already...that would be incredibly messed up given that our season is just getting ready to start.
Almeyda says he's focused on the Quakes. Never met with Cruz Azul. Lo dejó claro: Matías Almeyda no se reunió con “Billy” Alvarez y está enfocado en San Jose. #Quakes74 pic.twitter.com/fDuTKdeCPl— Joel Soria (@soriajoelfutbol) February 24, 2019
Unlike US based media in regards to soccer, players and coaches are the only thing the rest of the world talks about. There are no other sports to compete with really and there could be even some truth to the rumor about Almeyda. Some journalists stretch or embellish the truth to a point but they know quite a lot about what’s going on with the game.
Who is Joga Bonito USA anyway and should anyone consider reports from this source believable or credible in any way? I have no idea.
Joga Bonita was crediting Univision as the source of the rumor. You've heard of it, right? Thankfully, Joel Soria is on the story. If Matias leaves, we'll know the rumor was true. If he doesn't, we'll know it wasn't.
Univision seems like a source that would be highly credible, from what little I know. Seems strange that they would make up a story like this, complete disaster if there’s even a shred of truth to it. Matías is our best hope for 2019.