Arriola's salary has never been high (he's less than Stieber). I wonder if the transfer fee + salary are at the point, now that he's not a young DP himself, where he could be bought down if needed. And yes, young DP is certainly an accounting thing - a young DP only counts $200k on the cap rather than the full $530k for a full DP.
O ne of the guys I go to games with owns a nano-brewery in Falls Church (Audacious Aleworks). I suggested he get the streaming service and become a DC United bar. He told me any sort of streaming service is a pain, because you need to make sure that your employees know how to make it work on gameday, or you'll find yourself having to come down to fix the problem. It's just a hassle.
I mentioned before that the big, legacy EPL bar in Vegas had this exact problem. Bartender could only find the NBCSN/CNBC games, a waitress who showed up after halftime set up the rest of the games on NBCSports Gold on some other TVs (which had a low quality feed as well). With a crowd that had called and confirmed that the Gold games were available. If essentially the “only” soccer bar in town can’t be bothered to have games ready for people to watch from the biggest leagues, no way a small-time operation will have DC United on week in, week out. In fact, will any of the “bar partners” be showing the game Saturday? Or on non-watch-party days? Thx, Jay!
He's totally gone. I'd expected that they were keeping the DP slot open for him during the off season negotiations with him and to acquire Asad. The fact that they didn't get Lucho locked down back in October, IMO is massive failing. He should never ever ever ever have gotten to this point. I would imagine he and his agent are only continuing to listen out of courtesy and to keep thing cordial. There's a massive amount of up front money for them in a new deal, especially one that comes with no purchase fee.
Dammit, that was in the totally wrong thread, sorry about that! I think Lucho's fate is pretty much up to his agent at this point. Thankfully, at least so far, he seems mostly engaged.
There is no reason for Lucho to sign an extension with DC. My guess is he signs a pre-contract in July(or gets transferred for half of what PSG offered and signs a new deal) Probably killing a team that looks to have championship potential. Well done Kasper!
Depends on how much Power Kasper has here there is probably a fair amount of both. If Big Dave was in Europe with complete control to do what he thought was best and everything fell out over 1-2M then he has to shoulder some blame.
The owner sets the parameters on which Kasper can make an agreement. If Kasper makes or doesn't make an agreement it is still the owners fault unless Kasper acted outside of instructions. If Kasper wasn't instructed it is definitely Levien's fault.
I think there is a lot of reason for Lucho to sign. He knows the kind of signing bonus he can get on a free transfer. He also knows the kind of salary he can expect. If he get that with DCU and also shares in the transfer fee he can 'double dip' if he is sold. Additionally, if he's making $2M/yr for DCU he can use that as leverage against any buyer who wants to low ball him on the salary. He can reasonably demand more from a buyer than what he's making for DCU. I like Lucho, but he's not a super star. He's still a roll of the dice for a club like PSG. No guarantees he pans out. That said and I see a great replacement for Lucho if we lose him. Samu Saiz who is currently playing/sitting on the bench for Getafe. Saiz is a top level talent who is far more physical than Lucho, but not as fast. Saiz is a great dribbler and probably 2 years older. He's owned by Leeds right now, but his wife/domestic partner does not like Yorkshire. Will she like DC? Hey, our cafe culture is better than Yorkshire! Saiz should be cheap during the summer transfer window. Leeds bought him for about $3.5M, but won't be able to fetch that for him now. I would also bet the farm that Leeds would loan him out for a year with an option to buy later (as Kasper likes to do).
I think your analysis is correct. I would add that Titi Rodriguez also was brought in as a possible Lucho replacement if it comes to that. I agree that signing a deal makes sense. If Lucho has a dip in form or an injury, his transfer value drops considerably. Better to have a signed multi-year deal in pocket and then roll the dice than risk it all on the chance of moving on a "free."
This is the reason his agent should tell him to sign a 2-3 year deal, imo. High transfer fees are probably just ego-strokers unless you're the kind of superstar who gets a good percentage of the transfer - mostly it goes to the rich guy who "owns you" - I wold think salary is more important to the actual player. On the flip side, maybe the high salary prices him out of some clubs - it's an interesting problem to have for a young player also, I blame the PSG coach more than Dave Kasper for the deal breaking down (if it ever really got as serious as we think it might have)
So everything I heard was that the transfer deal was no where near the original $10M number that leaked. At $10M with no strings, you sell him everyday and twice on Sunday, but it wasn't that. I'd heard the number was closer to $5-6M and had all sorts of incentives making up that number. Remember, MLS is going to carve off a third, the shady intermediary wasn't doing this for free and its possible Lucho and/or his agent got a cut. If even remotely accurate, I was ok with walking away from the deal and making a run winning the MLS Cup and having him walk for free (although we should have had him long since singed) in October. Remember, he's under contract through this season. He wouldn't be going to Europe until January. I can't say I put this on PSG much if at all. Lets face it, the intermediary was umm, shall we say, shady at best. PSG was being offered a player they might not have known much about beyond a sizzle reel. The thing that pisses me off was that we got anywhere near the last day of the season without having him signed to an extension with a good salary that was going to keep him focused here. And thats on Levien and Kaplan 100%. If you're talking DP money, after the max DP cap hit, its just cash. Cash we were supposed have by now from the stadium revenue, from a new shirt sponsor, etc. We just brought in a money man in Kaplan, but I think we haven't seen that he's necessarily that guy. They still don't have a ton of money in this roster. Cost wise, we're still just middle of the pack. They didn't pay much to get Rooney, the money we're out of pocket is low, especially for what he ended up providing. Pretty sure he's still on the books in both Manchester and Everton. Tit is definitely a hedge on Lucho leaving, but tactically, I think he is a second creator on the field so that teams can't just crowd Lucho. I liked how Titi and Rooney played together in the opener while I think Lucho and Rooney also look to be right on track with where things were at the end of last year. I think this makes this a very tough team to defend, especially when Lucho goes out on the wing and now you've got 2 separate sources of service to Rooney. Lucho also looks to have raised his defensive game. I am still worried about what we look like without Rooney, because we aren't even close to having a really consistent threat striker behind him.
D.C. United secures prestigious friendly against 8th place team in Spain. 🚨NEWS🚨 | D.C. United Secures Prestigious Friendly Against @RealBetis in May!🔗: https://t.co/Ei7jQfDHYD🎟: https://t.co/st37pvId4w#DCU | #RealBetis pic.twitter.com/p7rfUWSsEA— D.C. United (@dcunited) March 14, 2019
Who? edit: Damn, that comes off as dumb instead of just smart-assed-don't-care-about-intl-soccer me - but my page loaded just showing the tweet, not the line above it that kindly tells me who it is I hope they are also playing RSL.
So between May 15th and 25th we are looking at @ Toronto May 15th @ Houston May 18th Real Betis May 22 @ New England May 25 And of course they will trot Rooney out for the Friendly since he is their big draw. The team may not survive the Month of May with Ben's desire to never substitute until the 80th minute.
I don't even know why they're pretending that its DCU vs Real Betis. Given our fixtures, its gonna be some deep bench guys + a mostly Loudoun United squad vs a team that's playing Real Madrid 3 days prior and flying across the Atlantic? Doubt its much more than a B team from them. I've already traded those tix and gotten some F&B vouchers.
And yet I savor any opportunity to see some of our bench guys and Loudoun chaps, because given Benny's reluctance to sub it may be a very rare chance to see them in action before they are dealt.
If you're not being sarcastic, this could prove interesting. Xfinity dropped BeInSports last fall, and La Liga with it. So Flo could fill a huge void.
On the FO front, in the last week or so I actually spoke with my rep Aaron Therrien. Today I got an email from "him" saying he was sorry that he missed me in various telphone conversations and hope to connect soon. I actually feel sorry for those guys, sort of like they are child laborers chained to their machines or something like that. Someday, long after I am dead and gone, the FO will figure out customer service -- or the sun will explode and consume our pitiful planet -- one or the other. What's the over/under on that?