Both the wife of the owner and the GM were at our watch party last night. When the announcer said that we turned to look at them. They were as surprised and puzzled by it as we were, and everyone laughed. In other words, they had no clue where the announcer got that idea. I think its safe to say that the announcer was inventing or imagining things.
Possibly. It is my understanding that there is outside interest in EJ. Any why not, he is one of the top strikers in the league. Hopefully he is with the Aztex next year, but I guess it depends on who is calling and what they are willing to pay. One of the tough things about D2 is that some of our best and favorites will move onward and upward. However he is still one of ours and we need 3 goals from him on Saturday.
Well, that is true. I do fully expect that we will lose at least one of our top players to another team before next season. The one reason, though, that I don't expect more to go is that I believe the majority of our core are on 2-3 year contracts. So any movement would require someone being willing to buy them from us. As far as I know, there's still only been one purchase of a D2 player by an MLS team -- Kandji from Atlanta or Carolina (he was with Atlanta but sold Carolina before going to NY, I think). All other movement that I know of has been loans (another one today -- St. Louis' Dufty to Chicago Fire). So for any MLS team to get one of our top players, they'll need to change their behavior and pay us for him, or Phil will need to decide to void a contract. I suppose he could do that for the sake of the player. Who knows.
And even that one single sale had its share of drama. It's not nearly easy enough to make inter-league player moves, imho. Maybe loans are close enough, I don't know.
Thanks VC and 2meters. Very interesting perspective on players moving up to the MLS. So it is easier to sign/purchase a foreign player ala Handball Henry than to make the move from D2 to MLS? Seems like that could be a huge barrier to attracting talent to D2 if they feel that success and moving up is next to impossible.
However, it still happens. Not exactly sure how. I guess most of the times lower division teams don't get any financial benefit from it, just a pat on the head. Haven't made any effort to learn the details of how he moved, but here's another MLS player that spent time in D2 before MLS: Osvaldo Alonso.
A lot of players move from D2 to MLS when they are out of contract. You are right that in the past MLS has been unwilling to pay transfer fees for lower division players. That may change with the expanding number of teams and rosters and the subsequent the need for domestic players. One thing to keep in mind is that Portland and Vancouver can still sign players until Dec1 (I think that is the date) under whatever terms they want. Those players' contracts do not have to comply with MLS player contract guidelines. If the player is under contract as of that date, his contract rolls into MLS and is not revised until its renewal. So, Portland or Vancouver could pay a transfer fee for EJ or any other Aztex and not have it considered an MLS payment. Montreal will be in the same situation next year. I expect they will begin to look for MLS talent at the end of this season. They have the added benefit of playing in the Canadian Cup which has only 3 competitors, although Edmonton may enter next year. Still, winning that Cup places them in the CONCACAF Champions League (ala Puerto Rico and the Caribbean Cup). A pretty good reason for picking up talent now. I think we will see a lot of poaching of our players after the season. BTW with EJ's season, I figure he is already gone. With his sucess, you know teams will be willing to spend to get him. And after all, one of the ways the Aztex make money is to sell players to other teams.
Congrats to our old friend Yohance Marshall for getting called up by T&T to face Jamaica. I would rather he were still here, but wish him luck with the Soca Warriors. http://www.socawarriors.net/mens-senior-team/7804-final-squad-announced-for-reggae-boyz-clash.html
Wish I would have been wrong on this one, but he has just played too well to not get a chance at a higher level. Congrates to EJ who is headed to the MLS and Portland!!! http://austinaztex.com/news/headlines/index.html?article_id=461
According to Marc Weber's twitter feed and blog, Portland traded for Johnson mid season and loaned him back to the Aztex. Otherwise the Wcaps would have had first opportunity to sign EJ. If true, very crafty and well kept secret except to the announcers in Montreal. Marc Weber's blog http://communities.canada.com/theprovince/blogs/backofthenet/default.aspx
Not sure what the Aztex got, but it's the first example of a stated objective for the team, which is to be a development organization. Adrian Heath talked in 2009 about the Aztex being able to find players, develop them, then sell them to higher league teams (MLS, EPL, etc.). We would then turn around and use the money to get more youth.
From Twitter: According to HoustonDynamo.com, the club is trialing former Cuban U-23 and current Austin Aztex CM Yordany Alvarez til Thursday. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For sure. In this soccer environment, this is how the club will make any money. I guess the only tough thing for the 'hardcore' fans is that we can't keep track of how well the club is doing in these regards since financial terms aren't disclosed. I don't mean to be demanding, but when its stated that the club is a development organization (as it should be), you know that winning trophies isn't the goal each year. The goal is developing talent while playing football that is good enough to keep the fans interested. I'm not saying that once they have the team together they don't try to win, but they're not stocking up for title runs each year. I'm hoping some details come out so we can judge the 'true' success of the club. I'd also settle for more great seasons like the one we just enjoyed. (I know I ask for a lot.)
From my perspective, I've never seen a conflict between the stated goal of developing (then selling) talent and winning silverware (man, that still stings after this season). On one hand, if we lose Yordany (BIG IF) in addition to Eddie, I'm not worried from a performance perspective. I think there's a lot of talent that's waiting in the wings. Heck, just look at how we bounced back from 14 dismissals at the end of last season. We not only got great talent (Max and Leonard Griffin, Lance Watson, Jay Needham), but some of the talent we had grew from where they were last season (Eddie Johnson, Michael Callahan, Jamie Watson). Now that I've said that, it's going to be hard to not only see players we all know and like (on and off the pitch) not in the red and white next season, but in another teams strip. If you start to get lonesome for the days when Eddie was in the Aztex red and white, you can always listen to his appearance on "In the Mixer". Still one of the funnier guests we've had.
I agree that my original statement about not trying to win every year was a bit strong, especially since we just finished season TWO (and a great one at that). So we'll see how it all works itself out in the end. At some level I'm happy that I might have more of a rooting interest in MLS if more of our players show up there. Either way, it will be tough to imagine some of these guys leaving.
Ah. So that's who Dom was watching. *sigh* This could be a tough off-season. But I guess that's what happens when you have such a good second division team. Last year, we learned to live with sucking. This year, we learn to live with losing our favorite players.
Good job on your French-Canadian's version of MLSRumors on getting that story right. It will be interesting what Dominic Kinnear sees in Alvarez. I'm pretty sure the Dynamo are looking to clear some players in the off season. Perhaps we could take Mike Chabala to improve our defense.
I have to say that that was a VERY well-kept secret! But, yeah, I have to wonder what it is that the Aztex traded for. As far as I know (and that clearly doesn't mean squat, considering that *this* was a secret for half a season!) all of the players that we got mid-season were from teams other than Portland -- Montreal (Hemming) and Baltimore (Patterson and Yoshitake). (As an aside, I have to say that I'm very impressed with Johnson, playing his butt off for us, even after he already knew that he was going to MLS next season.) Are we getting some other player to be named later? Did we trade for money? What? It'd be nice to actually know.