Dude you could fix the material and salary failings of the academy far cheaper than the veteran payroll problems. Few hundred grand to attract coaches and improve facilities. Maybe as much as they pay one of our most expensive players. Sell one player for even as little as a million and it pays for itself. If the idea is this won't be a vanity project team where the owners pay to try and win for kicks, then the tactic of choice around the world for teams in our spot is a selling team that churns its roster and makes its money selling its successes on, both foreign signings and domestic HGP from the academy. We were sending players abroad under Kinnear. We even technically sold Torres away. You just do a better job developing and scouting to improve the assets. ie, you fire the GM. There might be some roller coaster to this but if you do better on personnel, plan ahead for transitions, sign replacements, and "sequence," then you're not in a position where the front line are the only players worth a hoot and they all want out of town at the same time and it's like f*ck I can't sell all the decent players but this is supposed to be a selling team. You get out of that by having more talent around, staggering exits, and not looking for the new guy AFTER you want to sell the old one. More like, we have your replacement lined up, so we will now pursue your transfer. This is not high theory speculation, Dallas and other MLS teams already do this, and as people are saying, people are end running our academy for theirs because they know they (a) train first team ready players (b) sign and play their HGP and picks and (c) sell academicians and first teamers abroad. In contrast based on our track record I would play for the Texans (or the equivalent of the one-off I played on). We are only attractive in the most generic sense of "I play for my local pro team's academy so I must be hot stuff," not because the system actually works. Any team with an academy it's like "well maybe I could get signed by the MLS team or its USL team, and if not this is a feather in my cap."
I read this. Then get proud to witness how the sport has grown in our culture. Then read about us, crash back to reality.
The sport has grown so much here since -- depending which time frame you use -- 1996 (MLS) or even 2006 (Dynamo). Played at a faster rate of speed with the ball more on the floor at a much higher technical level. That and the payroll/talent gap (and maybe that we became an imbalanced defensive self-caricature shy of goals) is what got Kinnear. MLS has now outlasted the 16 year NASL (v. 1) by several years and people criticizing the caps and rules should be mindful of that. Yeah, I posted that article because it's like we're (including me) not cranks, people outside this see the same things about us. And, yeah, to me it is telling of some mix of management-side mentality and development effectiveness that we basically draft picks and sign HGP now almost straight to RGV. Even if the contract is nominally with us it's with intent to loan, the players aren't ready and/or the coach already pre-mapped a veteran lineup without even going to camp to test what he has, and the fait accompli is soon made fact. Particularly as the process has pivoted from rights dibs on juniors or seniors -- where you could blame the club teams raising them up -- to growing your own from junior high age groups, it becomes inexcusable. If they are your products from point A to point B there is literally no one to blame other than you. (Technically, the players also, but your job as an organization is to identify and create so many "Them" who are drilled up right and chosen well that any one failure or loss of interest or shift to another sport just works out in the wash. We instead are begging for first team ready talent, I mean, one guy.....) And, like we've been saying, people right now are voting with their feet. Texans. FCD. etc. At least one problem I have -- and I don't watch the youth teams so I couldn't say so absolutely -- is that every player we seem to sign from the academy in the current era and rules is some slow, semi-technical mid who should instead be going to college and/or buying a jet pack. That, to me, is the last level where players who aren't athletes and aren't hypertechnical, but are drilled and solid soccer IQ and skills generally succeed. Every "good" but slow player I knew from childhood topped out at something like NCAA D1 or maybe even bench there or D3 or something. You step up you need some standout attributes, high skill level (Davis), speed, height, defensive knack, truly great keeping. I am genuinely curious if any attention is paid to athleticism, height, the sort of thing even the youth NTs factor in. Some of the kids on the YNT are there for being blazing fast or looking like they will grow up to be tall or strong. My club team as a kid had several track runners. It's a very narrow point of view to (a) focus solely on skill and (b) not care if they are also athletes, if that's what we do. IMO you wouldn't even win youth leagues with a smart, honest, but unathletic and only fairly skilled side. Much less the future of the Dynamo. Based on what I've seen they need to rethink what their targets look like. You can teach a fast kid to have better ball skills. All you can do for some lumbering technician is buy them a jetpack or try and make them Brad Davis. And we don't seem to produce that level of technician.
Key losses: Luis Gil had me rolling, which was followed by the sad thought that we're so low profile that Gil is literally the only name that this write probably recognized. Said it before on the Jordan depth quotes, but I feel like he has trotted this line out every season and every season we come to the stark realization that: A: Improving depth only provides marginal returns B: The depth was minimally improved in any case and we'll hear Jordan trot out the same line next year
The above article is depressing af since we quite literally dont have a single member of the team on the 22U22 MLS award eligibility list and that's damning from a team who hates the draft and hates even more developing talent.
I dont know whether to be more upset with Jordan, Ives (or whomever is editing these days) or the writer.
Btw I was wondering now that the guy who hated blue is gone, think we will get a Love Ya Blue throwback of some sort at some point?
Well — the article starts out saying the Houston Dynamo are ambitious. So its not rooted in any reality.
what in the world! Writer: "So, it’s no surprise that even though they failed to make the playoffs for the fourth time in the last five years, they’re confident that they can make a run towards a CONCACAF Champions League Trophy." ... Cabrera quote 2 paragraphs later: “You have to be very ambitious, because if you don’t think big then you cannot achieve anything,” head coach Wilmer Cabrera said in a recent interview about heading back into the CCL. “Realistic? That’s different. We’re ambitious, but we have to be realistic, you have to create that balance. It will help to prepare you very well to have great expectations, but be humble enough to understand it’s a very difficult competition.” c'mon mr. writer. Cabrera is actually being brutally honest instead of coach-speaking and you writing your own narrative. SMH.
Not complicated. (1) we seem to be drafting straight to RGV these days, (2) we seem to have our minds fairly made up on a veteran lineup the day the team arrives in camp (ie before the coach even watches the players)(which blocks the kids from any sort of Cameron/Holden surprise), (3) now that we control players in our academy for most of their youth career we only have ourselves to blame if they don't come out well, (4) academy age kids seem to be voting with their feet by going elsewhere (latest, Cappis, Richards), and (5) based on the players we sign we seem to create development players who are all slow and semi-technical, which seems to be neither a youth strategy for winning nor useful to the first team. At which point I suggest why not look for height, speed, defensive knack, you know, pro attributes. If you want to make technical players they need to be not just kind of technical like Memo but Brad Davis types, I mean, ball on a string, inch-perfect crossing. The more pointed version would be why does a team whose most dangerous elements seem to be speedy attacking players, instead seem to specialize in creating the sort of unathletic-not-quite-Brad-Davis player whose ceiling looks like RGV? In fact, until last season RGV didn't even reflect the first team's version of the forward line, and even now it seems to be something we stock with imports. I ran track in the Houston area, and it was killer. Are you telling me you can't find a half dozen junior high age kids with track speed and make them into soccer players in 6 years? Or look for raw speedy club kids?
Cabrera appears to be candid and honest. What the writer left out were the awkward pauses from Jordan when he had to take time to find out what powerpoint slide his mediocre GM-speak quotes were on.
Saief is talking about coming here for MLS. Westberg the long term French leagues keeper is also coming here. Boyd came here also. I have previously pushed for signing a player like Garza on the make and eager to come back. Looking down any Yanks Abroad type list usually comes up with many names who either never got the NT look they wanted, or are in a bad club situation. We talk about foreign scouting. I can do this for our own nationals just going down a public domain list. "He plays but probably has a chip on his shoulder that he never really got an extended look with the Nats, and he's still in his 20s." "He got hurt and got forgotten." "He got stuck with the wrong coach and disappeared." There are obvious candidates like Aron Johannson, who lived in the south and is struggling with injuries and disuse in Germany ever since he left Holland. Solid, forgotten players. They may not be the obvious candidates to come back to everyone, but the whole idea to me is figure out the surprising ones before the next guy. Westberg wouldn't have been obvious, born there and played his whole life there. Ditto Jermaine Jones. But hey. To get at least some of the people you need, we don't need Latin American or European junkets to watch random people from off tape. How about, oh yeah, I remember he looked good for the Nats 5 years ago, whatever happened to him, etc. Obvious quality, but people US soccer forgot about.... This was the team that gave Holden his second reboot but for some reason has not gone back to that template. I was told Greg Garza was gold plated. He makes $175k. We pay AJ more than that. What some people seem to miss is players in unstable or low profile positions don't have endless bargaining power. That they feel like a million dollar player but actually are worth $200k should actually make them precisely the bargains to pursue. C'mon.
Aron Johannson is a terrible candidate. He has played in 27 games the last 4 seasons and has scored 4 goals. He is perpetually injured. I would be wary of Saief for that same reason... his career was derailed hard by an injury and he apparently has never recovered. As for him "living in the south" C'mon ... like him living in Alabama from 1 - 3 has any relevance to his desire/willingness to live in Houston. I agree as a general principal though. I badly wanted Benny Feilhaber. I thought he would be a great MLS player and he has been. I also wanted Clint Dempsey but of course that was never going to work out because of the money.
If there was any Yank Abroad that is a center mid a la a Benny, f'n go get him now Jordan! It really is as simple of running down a list of Americans playing overseas and just call the agent to float the idea of coming back. That's the first step, See who even has interest in playing in MLS and here in the Gulf Coast of the nation, most diverse city in our nation. With great food, hot women, terrible traffic and worse weather. Truth be told, AEG and Clint's agent were on the same page, the money was there to pick Clint up. Also, he wanted to finish his career here in Texas and specifically with us, not FCD. It's just Dom had his way of being that he did not want one player to be such a higher wage earner than anyone else in his locker room. Which is just silly, if a player has earned his paycheck overseas and certainly has proven to be in the top 5 of all time U.S. soccer players then he has earned what he is gonna get paid. Any other athlete in the locker room should respect that, never get humpty over it. Even if they did, as old athletes go, you just look at yourself in the mirror and know you probably shoulda trained harder growing up, then you could demand such a wage in pro sports. Dom also shoulda thought of his Dynamo as a club, specifically our "club legacy" now that everyone knows MLS will be here to stay for generations to come. Think of our image in MLS lore over the current team of 25 players and their emotions, There is this massive feather in our cap to have Clint Dempsey play for us. It would be special to have him if he was from Vermont, but he is not from Vermont Dom. He is a Texan and desired to play for Houston Dynamo not Seattle or LAG! Dom sez no thanks.
As of 7 pm central the LA galaxy will have to either restructure an existing DP contract or pay the remainder of one of the four DP players and release him and be assessed only a TAM cost of 1.5MM instead of the full DP cost against the cap. I doubt GDS accepts a reduction of salary. They are probably taking any and all offers for him. Should we look at pursuing him? Would Cabrera be able to handle him and get the most out of him like he did Cubo? I respect GDS abilities and think he would fit in great as a #10 in a 442 system here. the knock on him is the lack of desire and healthy contribution at LA. Opinions?
Pass. He hasn't done that great in LA and I think a big reason for his desire to move to MLS was to live in LA. I very much doubt he wants to live/play here and for a guy who has had motivation issues in the past... I don't think it would work out.
I know it wouldn't work out. Has he ever worked out, anywhere, in his entire career? He is way too much of a nut job to succeed here or anywhere. Nor do I want our FO to have to deal with his dad. And I don't think they're capable of dealing with him.
OK It looks like LA bought bought out his final year at $6MM?!?!? League still owns his rights and could let other teams sign him in MLS or they could sell him to another league LA kept his brother Johnathan on his current DP contract. So they are down to only three DP players now within the rules.