Your sentiments are spot on, but I would beg to point out that the late lamented Riverboat Gamblers played in the A League at the time.
Sooooooo, still no news re: Mensah's injury? I have to assume the club has "evaluated" the knee by now. He could be out for the season or starting at Chicago on Wednesday for all we know. I mean, I can't imagine it's the latter, still... Has anyone heard any rumors about his status?
A little. But, there is truth in jest. The league needs to spend more on talent and do away with arcane rules like the DP. Heck, the DP limit is what, $530k? Most teams should have all the players in their starting 11 on that level of salary. This is not directed at the new Crew ownership, but the league in general.
Most teams do have most of their starting 11 at that level. Even we did. When we had Steffen, Mensah, Valenzuela, Trapp, Meram, Santos, Pipa and Zardes that was 8 of 11 guys either at max, paid below max with GAM/TAM, DP or a young DP. Just because few of them were worth the money doesn't make it any less true. I agree that it is becoming time to simplify the roster rules. I'd like to see minimum and maximum salary budgets and fewer/no exemptions. I'd like the rules tailored to encourage academy production. Similar to how homegrowns don't count towards the budget now for a certain period. I could get behind something like a 6 year system (2 normal contract terms) where academy product salaries count 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% of their value towards the salary budget.
Gosh, I feel like Cliff Claven today: You're probably thinking of Edson Buddle. Who would be a case in point himself, hitting a bunch of goals in his one year with LI, but that was around 1999 or so and he had to go through the Superdraft, where he was, IIRC a 3rd round pick.
Yep, you're right that it was Buddle not Stern who came from LI. There are a number of countries around the world with decent soccer leagues and shaky national economies. The sort of places where the paychecks bounce or arrive months late. Let's be honest: upgrading the current Crew roster isn't the hardest of tasks.
I think South America is a more natural hunting ground. Euro talent hounds infest Africa like maggots on a dead possum. In SA however you're competing with strong established local clubs, while Africa has a weak and shabby system. Unfortunately this means that players often dont get first class training until they're too.old. Like with Caribbean players, you end up with athletic guys with weak soccer.foundations.
So I don't know if we're truly in the running for that Tankovic guy at Hammarby, but I kinda hope so. He doesnt seem like a mega ambitious target but I think he looks like a good prospect for us, especially with IM suggesting we're probably not getting another DP this window. His salary may not be prohibitively high and the combined hit with his transfer fee might be possible to be bought down into TAM range. Hes a guy who can play wide or central as an attacking midfielder which Porter has said he still wants. Hes spent time at both CAM and left wing with the club. Had 7 goals and 5 assists in 30 appearances last year. Has 6 goals and 5 assists already in 13 appearances this season. 24 years old. Was it someone here, maybe elsewhere?...mentioned we offered 1 million but it wasn't accepted. This seems like a plausible target for us, with ownership that isnt averse to spending huge, but probably still wants to feel out just how much they need to spend to be winners. I'm keen on this one.
I agree in principle, although I think that what we need mostly is an overall talent upgrade, not neceesarily a big splash. A guy like this seems made to.order. Not a big time world changing DP superstar but a competent professional footballer. Just using that last four words with much of anyone we've sent out there over the last 3 months would be hilarious if it wasnt so sad. I would however disagree on one thing: there's just no question that Bezbatchenko is the one telling the owners who and what is worth the money. I dont think we can overestimate the extent to which hes driving this car. When McCullers wanted to spend big on a player he was required to fly to Dallas and beg. I strongly suspect that when Bez wants to spend a measley million on a guy he picks up the phone and has a short conversation. Or he may not even do that much. In situations like with this Tankvic guy, the Crew will offer what Bez thinks hes worth on the open market. Period. His call. Partly because 12 months ago no one in the Haslam family could have told you what a 10 shirt means. Partly because the Haslams learned in Cleveland that your professional managers have to be able to wheel and deal without having to check with the owner every ten minutes. I'd also point out, albeit with limited evidence, that Bez appears to be something of a fake-out, misdirection guy. Lots of rumors floated around about this Swedish keeper or that, one of them even got fed to Jacob Myers. Then he signs the guy hes apparently been angling for for months. All the rest was just smokescreen. I'm mostly ignoring the rumors. The current regime plays it pretty close to the vest
https://www.dispatch.com/sports/201...-crew-center-backs-gaston-sauro-josh-williams I mean, what do you make of this? But: So, only Sauro will miss multiple games, right? But Mensah already missed last weekend's game due to injury, so if he misses tomorrow's game, then he'd also be a player missing multiple games due to injury. Whatever. Anyway, the article does confirm (in writing, even) that Diaz got his P1 Visa last week, but Hamilton and Room still await theirs. Which leads to another interesting nugget: P-1A Internationally Recognized Athlete I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker Forms that need to be filled out to get a US work visa as a foreign athlete. Visas are valid for 5 years. It's how the sausage is made, which may not be of interest to everyone. But these details are why it takes time to get international signings fully on board. Previously, I hadn't known which type of visa foreign players needed, and I was too lazy to try and look it up.
In short: Weeks ≠ Games. Mensah can miss Wednesday but play Saturday and technically only miss 1 week even if he lost out on 2 games. Pedantic but that's what Professional Sports Injury Lists from coaches gets you these days. Reading between the lines, I take it as they are designating Sauro as Out for the immediate future while all other players on the Injury List are Questionable and their spot in the lineups will be based on their progress throughout the week. Not having any inside info, I'd guess Guzman gets Wednesday night off and if possible Mensah suits up for both.
I gotta say that while I really like Sauro,at some point you have to say the guy is injury prone and needs to move on. He's just never available, never healthy. It sucks but that's just the way it is sometimes.There were reports a couple weeks back that an MLS team as well as a club in Argentina were both interested in him.If they still are, I'd be sorely tempted to see what we can get.
We need both. Overall talent upgrade AND some high end talent. We are deficient in the former and totally lacking the latter. Like I said a bit back, the FO has punted on the season. Does that mean we cannot do some business around the margins and improve things? No. And we have done some things that potentially makes us better (Room, Diaz) and taken some fliers on other team's leavings (Williams, Hamilton). Bully. But those moves are not going to move the needle much. And if you think I am going to be happy about the FO punting on a season with 13 games left, during the worst run in team history, forget it. At this point, spending Saturday night at a polka bar is infinitely more enjoyable than dragging myself to CCS for 90 minutes of hell. C minuses for everyone. At best.
I gave a list of proven goal scorers who had all scored double digits somewhere (club, country), who came to MLS ank kicked ass. THAT WAS THE ORIGINAL POINT. We need proven scorers. 10+ goals. Somewhere. Young. Old. In between. Don't care. You then made a dumb comment about proven players leaving MLS not coming to it, which is BS. So I posted a list of proven guys who came to MLS and kicked ass. Then you tried to dig out of the hole by talking about guys being over the hill, despite the fact they all kicked ass in MLS, and was never the point anyway. So yeah, you are picking nits and missing the point, per usual. So, are you saying Rooney is not a proven player and that you would not want a similar type player because they are over the hill?
Our team is so poor, we apparently believe that Room will be better playing outfield than in net. Proof below according to what you can buy at the online store. Maybe he can replace Guzman in the 11...
Please turn in your fan card to @stanger at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your former support.
Bring it! I bought 4 extra Nordecke tickets for this one, so six total, probably 10-12 people in our group total.