Nations League A, Camp 1, Cuba/Canada, Oct. 11/15

The marketing machine continues. Another promising player lost to mediocrity.

https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019...s-robinson-agree-multiyear-contract-extension

 

I'm excited about the Cuba game. I'm trying to guess how many players will defect this time around.

 

More power to them I say. I'm surprised Cuba still tries to compete internationally and any sports besides baseball.

 

One of the big problems with MLS is how bad the coaching often is. The first focus should be to win the CONCACAF Champions, then start thinking about having 20 guys in UEFA top teams.

So far not one of our clubs has the coaching level needed to beat the Mexicans, no one is going to pay any attention. All we get for the most part is either third-rate Euro clubs taking players and kids on a free to make the numbers, or big Corporations that also have a big club in Europe taking our players to see if they can market the game in the USA, then tossing them away once that doesn't work.

What we're trying is dumb, putting the cart before the horse. So far they don't respect us, the league, the country, the academies, the entire system in the USA, we're going to be producing mostly Euro-flops.

 

TFC lost the CCL final in a penalty kick shoot out just last year. Vanney definitely did some coaching there.

 

McKennie at the end How can you not love him?

 

He plays with joy. He and Adams have some real potential to be great leaders of the program. Hopefully they are up to the challenge.

 

Paxton Pomykal has signed a new contract with MLS to extend his current deal to 2024, according to Sam Stejskal.

https://theathletic.com/1280345/2019/10/09/sources-fc-dallas-signs-paxton-pomykal-to-new-contract/

R.I.P. bsky22

 

This is not good.

 

Average salary will be $650K, so Pomykal will be okay if the story is true.

Fortunately, a big European club will still be able to rescue Pomykal from the grasp of MLS, but they'll have to pay for him.

 

Yeah, can't say from a fan perspective I care at all about what his salary will be. I want his development to progress, and MLS is simply unlikely to help in that area as much as Europe would.

Here's to hoping after maybe another year of success a Euro team is willing to pay a big-ish transfer fee.

 

Agreed. I thought he may even have a shot at moving to Euro in the January Window. I guess another year in MLS wouldn't hurt... he does need to increase his core scoring stats... 2 goals and 1 assist in 14 appearances is not terribly great from an MLS perspective. I know he has been more of a facilitator when healthy... but I still think his numbers need to improve... especially w/ respect to assists.

 

recent scandal aside, wanting your kid to get into harvard does not make it so. you can push and push your kid and they don't get in. the kid might even be a good student with a promising future anyway. but harvard doesn't have to take them because they have ambitions. more people have ambitions than there are spots. if you get in, good for you.

i did cornell for a summer program. i couldn't get in as a normal student. i held my own for that semester, As and Bs. i thought the smartest kids there were truly exceptional. i thought the average kid there was no smarter than i was, perhaps harder working/focused/prepared, or perhaps from more privilege.

moral: you can be provably capable of it and not chosen. you can want that level and not be wanted back.

i also think you are neglecting that there is still something of a bias against us, and that the better moves may be early or mid-career. early like weah did, where you can shift gears while still young if you can't fit in. or mid career like dempsey or donovan or steffen where you come there with established world level gravitas from MLS and the NT. (and some of them tried at 18, went home, came back more ready)

personally i would be more interested in, are there european teams that develop our players well if handed them as kids (dual nationals) or at 18 (under fifa rules). and then interested in veterans making smart moves where they play.

like i said before, what i was always taught, in a club team that got some people in mls or drafted, is do the work now and show up ready. teams signing 20 year olds are looking for fairly complete products ready for a first team, not projects. we keep talking up loan players but what that really says is either they bought you to sell shirts, or they brought you in and you aren't really ready, may never be.

in terms of CL, i stand by what i have said before. to say something different, there are trade offs. you can be more ambitious and chase elitism and money. you can also get left hanging out to dry like freddy adu, waste whole years of your career. you can also calibrate your choices and emphasize someplace that will play you. to me you are going to be less a soccer player if you don't play. you might develop if you are still U19 and in that sort of teaching situation, but in a couple years they want a first teamer or its on to the next list of U19s coming up.

i also am fine with dempsey types working their way upward and trying to find that level. i just think the history on that is more ambition than actual success. long list of americans sold or loaned back out from elite name signings. steffen at man city? nope, fortuna. does CCV ever play for spurs? does miazga ever play for CFC? is CFC playing pulisic? what's the point.

it's a nice abstract goal but players should live in reality. i think the NT might profit from some kids going over at 18. but i think careerwise once in their 20s we need people playing and the NT does best with that. right now we have tons of people nominally on the books someplace special and a lot of actual good that does......pffft

 

Torrent? Almeyda? De Boer? Bradley? The coaching game in MLS has gone up a lot in the last five years.

 

I think you are confusing the best hope for 2022 with what has to be the long term goal of every sporting organization. But you are mostly just confusing. How does having a large amount of the best players in the world give any power to Europe?

Pretending that MLS and CCL can be equal to the UCL is what has set back much of the program and MLS for decades. It is Fool's gold. Is is akin to things like the XFL trying to compete with the NFL. Focus on organic growth and try being the best league on this continent for starters.

 

Not sure, again, what the problem is. Every individual story is an individual story. Look at MLB. For every 1 Hall of Famer, there are 3000 MLB players of varying levels. For every MLB player, there are 1000 minor league players who were probably the best player with 50 miles of where they were born but will never get to the majors. Then there are 10,000 more playing professionally or semi-pro who thought they would be Kirby Puckett but never even got on a MLB team's radar. Focusing on the kid that thought he was going to be Pete Rose but never made it past Toledo, then extrapolating that to your entire player pool is weird.

Maybe you are looking at things from the bottom up? Or are so biased against some types of players you are not comprehending?

The goal is to win the WC some day. Ask Cordeiro, Pulisic, Berhalter, anyone. USSF has had that as a goal since 1998, if not before. Maybe it is only lip service and the goal is to make money. But, ask any fan of the USMNT, and their wish is to see the USMNT win a world cup before they die. JK got roasted as un-American for expressing anything less.

How do you know if you have a WC competitive team? Not a upset or two and a quarterfinal berth once every three decades, but a team with a legitimate chance every cycle? You will know it when 80-120% of the roster is playing in the UCL.

It is just a fact. Even teams that seem to be outliers have large numbers of UCL players that year. Croatia, the supposed tiny underdog, had at least a dozen UCL players and quite a few more at teams that have been in the UCL in the next or previous year. And only the third GK was at Zagreb, so it wasn't a backdoor cover haha.

France had 17 and all the rest in the Europa league. They left some UCL players at home too.

I don't know why anyone would even argue against this. It is like saying, to get to the moon you have to at least get into orbit. There is nothing insulting to anyone or anything. It is just what is needed.

 

If you think you can make good money, not have any competition, and actually be preferred over players in Europe for the USMNT, why ever leave?

 

"Europe" means nothing. I'd feel the same way if Paxton signed a contract with a Championship/B2 team: Meh.

He won't consistently face faster/smarter/better players and that's a shame for a young up-and-comer that many, including myself, have hopes in.

 

because you want to make great money and you want to compete against the best.

It's not a secret that MLS/B2/Championship are minor leagues - you can make a good/great living but make no mistake that it's akin to the best leagues.

Some have ambition and are wanted by the best teams. Some have one or the other. Some have neither.

 

Yeah..... then he can ride the bench and rot like Pulisic.... or maybe a 10 minute shft. How does that develop anything?

 

Wow, what in the <censored> was he thinking? What a truly terrible decision. Otoh, it's probably great for his USMNT career, I bet he gets 90 minutes in every game in 2020 as a result, maybe an emergency injury replacement call up and immediate 90 minute start in both matches as well.

 

Yes, exactly what I was thinking/hoping for...great point.

Or, the counter would be - he goes to Europe, to the right situation to a club that is keen to develop him (like CP at Dortmund), and gets to be a better player by playing against the best in the world, something he won't see in MLS.

Again, I don't care about him making loads of money or how happy he is in his career. I want US players to always choose Europe, because that's how they will become better players.

He isn't, and that is not a good thing.

 

the downside to your tongue-in-cheek quote is that it likely does limit the pool of potential buyers given the increased price tag and mostly rules out the middle-of-the-pack major league clubs where it should be a bit easier to get early playing time.

 

Well sure, UCL club is great. However, I just can't hate on FCD paying a player with all they've done to up the level of player development in MLS.

In the end, the best thing to develop great players is to have lots of very good players competing against them. That can only be done if MLS is fully invested in youth development. That may "ruin" one player but it motivates a hundred other players in their academy and the long term effect over the years is expanded.