With 30 teams in the league, and more knocking at the door... It’s time to open up the doors. Rules I’d like to see enforced: -4 DPs for every team. these need to be completely cap exempt. -HGP are permanently cap exempt. -Clubs can buy percentages of other teams HGP if they buy them. For example, let’s say Colorado Rapids buys Carleton and deal for 100% of his HGP eligibility. He would then not count against their salary cap at all. Whereas, if the buy him at 75% of his HGP eligibility; Atlanta would still have a 25% discount on his salary cap if he returns. -Domestic players need to be automatically 50% cap exempt. -Players can receive a 10% increase after each season without impacting the team’s salary cap. For example, Julian Gressel should have been able to get at least a 10% bump in pay each season without any negative hit to our salary cap. -I’d add that 10% be broken into 5% for the club and 5% for the league. So, Julian Gressel could still receive a 5% hike in pay when he goes to DCU. This is meant to at least try and keep players in the league. -Lastly, I still argue that we need to expand the US Open Cup to include ideally a game once a month, to bridge the gap from USL and the senior team, to give young players chances and bench players sharp. Ultimately, there needs to be a legitimate pathway to build a super club. In principle, it needs to be through youth development. And as much as I want it to be Atlanta, If FC Dallas keeps leaving everyone in the dust when it comes to youth development, I’d like to see them become the first super club. Something has to happen to push this league to the next level.
Caps in general are both for parity and to protect the owners from themselves/each other. Without the cap, all it would take is one owner who cared about winning and then the rest would have to either start caring (and start spending) or lose. It cracks me up to read Orlando fans talking about "Built, not bought". Nobody builds anything in football, haven't in decades. Every big UEFA club has advantages over most of its domestic competition. Madrid, Barca, Manu, Arsenal, Liverpool, the two Milans and Juve, now Chelsea and ManCity as well... that's how Rooney was lifted from Everton, as one example. Parity has no place in the club game (Newcastle's been relegated twice in the last two decades, but they still fill their grounds. How many American fans could handle supporting a second-tier club just as fervently as they did when the club was top-tier?), but the lack of a true footy culture here has made it impossible for the average American sports fan to support a club that's not in the top flight the same way that club would be supported in the top flight. If we'd started small and regional, we could have grown into a true single table pro/rel in five or six decades. But creating a league with a national footprint in a matter of a few years was going to require safety for the owners and investors, safety from plastic fans (Remember all the Bulls stuff folks were running around in during the 90s? I used to get a kick out of asking those folks about Reggie Theus, who they did not know because they weren't fans before 1984). But they could win a title in the couple of season before those raises get called in. And that would be problematic. They think visibility will matter, but it won't. This isn't the NFL or MLB or the NBA or NHL. The world knows football and they know we nuked this league instead of cooking it up slowly enough to allow American fans to be properly assimilated into the traditions of the institution instead of being allowed to create some kind of mutant. I mean, I love that I have a team big enough to watch on TV when I can't get to a game, but at the same time, I don't want MLS to influence the world.
Appreciate the dialogue on the matter as opposed to the emotional overreactions on Facebook. Also, could someone please ensure that Bravo's seats this year are nearby one of the med stations? I'll also re-up my CPR certification. Leave no fan behind!
Three years ago I swore up and down that there was no way the USMNT would miss a World Cup in my lifetime. The confederation is too weak and the setup too favorable for anything to happen otherwise. I'll never make that same mistake again. My guess is the club has a good idea of what the new CBA will look like. They obviously knew they weren't going to have the money to make Julien happy, so they make the move. I wonder if when they made the move for Hyndman they thought they'd have more money in the new CBA for Julien. Regardless, it looks like the club swapped Julien for Hyndman and in my opinion, that's a downgrade. Doesn't help that aside from Josef, he probably was the most popular player on the team. All that really seems to have happened is we've swapped Nagbe/Gressel/LGP for Hyndman/Lennon/Meza. That's a downgrade. And the club said they wanted to get the new players in before camp, so there was no repeat of last year. There's still time left, but I don't care about any Garber bucks the team has acquired. This offseason has been very poor so far.
Play offs are the big "parity" we can have. It doesn't matter how good you have been all season or how much you spend, if you lose ONE game in the playoffs that's it. All the money you spent and the record breaking season you had goes down the drain. If La Liga, EPL etc had play offs with a similar style like MLS of one game and you are out, we probably won't see those dominant teams win all the time. I don't mind the salary cap. All these other restrictions and mechanisms are the ones that just aren't necessary.
They got down to needing to win one game and have two other results go in their favor. Even on the last matchday, it took planetary alignment. I think what we're looking at is a rush to judgement combined with having only one other good team in CONCACAF. Well, true supporters will continue to attend games even if Gressel isn't with us any more. It has, and it is. I've spent the last year watching us in the moment but still YTing '17 and '18 videos for the beauty of our play. The playoffs are the start of the problem. Those Euro and SA teams have earned the right to win again and again by putting forth the effort and cash needed to win. We have playoffs here because American fans have to win every once in a while or they go away. There are exceptions (Cubs, Sox, Sox, Browns, Leafs), but for the most part, these folks don't see their football club as something that's a part of them, their families, their schoolmates, over generations, like a church. Something bigger than themselves, for God's sake. Playoffs artificially boost interest because without them, American fanbases would fold. They're very much like the salary cap in that they allow crap clubs to win stuff and create an extra layer of difficulty for the quality clubs. That's fine for American sports, but not for football. I occasionally think of all those people in Naples who followed the club for the entirety of their lives and never won a Scudetto until Maradona got there. I'm glad I didn't die without seeing AUFC win, but even if we don't ever win another match, I'll always bleed red. Always.
Oh, BTW... we have someone named Adam Jahn on board, per altutd.com EDIT: smgdh. He's a 29 year-old forward from Phoenix Rising of USL Championship. Pretty cool name- for a Japanese team. Here stateside, it just sounds NWSL af
He's a body, but I still say if there's a game tomorrow Tito would be the backup. Assuming that most of the cash we've gotten is used on the midfield, here's hoping that Josef stays healthy.
Adam Jahn, the one that scored the winning penalty for Columbus Crew in the 2017 playoffs. Don't we have anyone we can bring up from the academy to be the back of Josef?
I should say so! That is, if Tito hasn't been traded for a sack of magic beans by tomorrow... Shit, we need everybody who was with us last season to stay healthy. Everybody. We haven't gotten anyone of any consequence yet. Crazy as it seems, I'm still actually thinking the FO has something up their sleeves. You don't strike the pose in Arthur's boardroom if you're just going to break up your team so you could say an AUFC player had a role in another R16 World Cup exit. I'm still holding out hope of something happening and we get some players who can get us over the hump. Them folks is crazy! It's all about scarves and flags and where you saw Josef or Guuuuz in a restaurant, or what part of the world you can take a selfie in your shirt... What's more, MLS and AUFC don't seem to work very hard at keeping away trolls from UEFA fanbases. That format isn't conducive to serious discussion anyway. Neither is DSS or MLS or the team site. I really wish more message boards would use this format (is there a name for it?). I'm surprised that more folks don't come here. Columbus and Chicago and DC have yuge numbers on their pages, for obvious reasons. I'm proud of the nine or ten of you helping keep traffic and discussion going here. We'll carry him around like Weekend at Bernie's. Once a fan, always a fan!
Just a note to say Julian's position was untenable. If he got inj. with this contract his career is pretty much over. He gets no offer for '21 in the MLS and interest in Germany is likely nil too. He had to get some security now or at least try. To do a 4th season at 150k was not option he wasn't stupid. It will be interesting to see what kind of deal he gets from DC? I'm not thinking about money as much as could he get an option to leave for the Bund' if he got a particular offer after this season?
Agreed. I don't think that's true any longer, at least not until the final round of the hex. It certainly was at one time. But I think MLS has come a long way since 2001.
Decent article on AJC.com with Bocanegra clarifying the team's stance with regard to Gressel. Another one with some comments by Julian there, as well. By all accounts everyone understood the financial constraints for the team (per MLS budget rules) and what Julian was seeking. Paints a picture that even with other cuts made by the team the fear was they couldn't match his demand without taking a hit elsewhere, and the player understood this. So the team has actually been making sound moves financially. The question is to what extent the personnel moves will affect the team play. Salary caps or no this isn't a new or rare phenomena but the nature of modern pro sports. Fingers crossed our team leaders are being wise beyond our understanding.
Agree with all of this. Based on the roster from the team site I see the following for a depth chart. I'm assuming we start with a 4-3-3. To me we need cover for an attacking midfielder and a right winger. ...........................Josef ...........................Jahn .Barco..........................................Villalba .Nascimento.................................__________ ...................Pity................Hyndman ................_____..............Adams ...........................Larientowicz ...........................Remedi .Bello.......Robinson.........Meza........Escobar .Castillo....Campbell........Walkes......Lennon ...........................Guzan ...........................Moore/Kann
There has to be more players coming in with all the cap space left. I just hope they don't wait till summer to get them.
If the rumor mill is to be believed AUFC has come to terms with Jake Mulraney. An Irishman playing in Scotland with Hearts. He's 23 and plays RM. Been capped 11 times over the U-21 (5),U19 (1), and U17 (5) national sides Some competition for Mr Villalba
I'm well aware of the match to which you were referring, as I watched it on TV and remember being really impressed by Honduras.
They are really freaking out now because someone posted an article on how Racing Club is interested in Franco Escobar. I think we should send Bravo over there to calm down the FB chicken littles. There is no way that we are selling Escobar.
That was a good team and they attracted really great fans. The only way to buy tickets to that game was through the USSF as the federation was trying to get a pro-USA crowd, well that didn't work. I would be generous if I said the sellout crowd was 50-50. I remember boarding the Metro for the game only to have my heart drop as the Hondurans out numbered us 4 to 1. It was still a great atmosphere and a great game even if we lost 3-2. I left the MLS game at halftime to eat B-B-Q goat in the parking lot with my new Honduran amigos.