Adam Jahn is the second striker you have when you are trying to squeeze under the salary cap after spending close to 900k on Jonathan Mensah. Again, poor roster construction and mismanagement are the hallmarks of the Precourt/Berhalter era. Only when Kei Kamara fell into our laps was this fact temporarily hidden.
I'm sure I'm alone on an island with this but do we know that Precourt doesn't have money? Does anybody have any proof of his income or his businesses revenues or his net worth or anything. Do we know that hes not open to adding investors to his team to support the club? I feel like all of our negative assumptions are only based off what we've seen him do (or not do) with the team thus far. Like I said, I understand people will see me as delusional and glass half full but..... I see a team owner who has surveyed fans about their distinct specific opinions about a new stadium. Revamped the image of our club and it's logo. Made as many upgrades to the stadium as one could justify (if you're planning on building new soon) as well as upgrading player amenities. He obviously hasn't invested big in the roster but I assume that's because the businessman/investor in him sees that an expensive roster is not necessary to win. Most of the time when he or the organization has botched something (like the tv deal) they admit it and work to make it right. It seems to me like he's just taking his time developing the club into what he wants it to be and is going slow because he's learning along the way. Everything is just assumptions on our part though. Anthony might just be remodeling this club like a rundown house he's going to flip and re-sell but i dont see any real evidence. On the sporting side of the organization.....Precourt will show his dedication to the club soon enough with how he manages our head coach and sporting director positions.
The longer he takes, the less fans that will be around to witness any turnaround. The timing of this may determine club's fate in both short and long term. Critical he gets it right.
Again, I don't doubt that Precourt is loaded (at least on paper). The odds are good, seeing as though his father was an oil co. executive and donated $30 million to Stanford University and his sister is donating $4 million paintings in Colorado. But let's put it this way - he wasn't beating out Steve Ballmer (Microsoft) for the NBA's Clippers a few years ago. The Warriors and Kings were also sold a few years ago - right in his backyard. He didn't win any bids for recently sold NHL teams. He could have had the Coyotes (also much closer) if he had the cash. I know all of the major leagues are closed societies and that existing owners have to approve sales. But if he was a rich version of a rich guy, I think he would have ended up with one of those. You are correct. Sheer payroll is not a guarantee of success. However, to consistently acquire the talent requisite to succeed in the Crew's market, you are going to have to overpay or be extremely successful at scouting. The success the Crew have had in that realm (and, fairly, going back to the Hunt era) has been minimal and erratic. I wholeheartedly disagree with the concept that he has made requisite upgrades to the stadium. There is no prospect - zero - right now as it relates to getting a new stadium in the imaginable future. Additionally, various pro teams have made upgrades to stadia and arenas even when they know a move is imminent or coming soon, including teams playing in temporary venues, with many of the upgrades able to be moved and/or repurposed. Heck, the stadium doesn't even have Wi-Fi! Teams do studies all the time from concessions to game days to stadia all the time. In this instance he was trying to push the conversation about the new stadium, so don't give him too much credit that he is concerned with what the fans think. The team got a new logo - which I still do not see the excitement about, which I don't see how it relates to Columbus (other than literally the inclusion of the city name) and for which he used the excuse that he wanted it done in house - coincidentally saving the cost of having professional assistance. But what exactly is the new image of the team? "We're as exciting as watching paint dry!"? "Hey, at least we're not the Revolution!"? Have more people been pouring through the gates or consuming the product in other ways? The team still fails to market itself in any discernible way outside of greater Columbus (again, another massive failure of the Hunt group, as well). Every kid that plays soccer in Ohio or a neighboring state and their family should be a focus. The league has its new deal with Target. Has anyone seen product in stores outside of greater Columbus? I have not. The TV issue has not been completely fixed, in my opinion, as someone who lives in northeast Ohio and spent time in southwest Ohio. Whether or not the Crew would from time to time be relegated to alternate channels on Fox Sports Ohio, I had co-workers telling me they were watching games (anecdotal, yes) when they were on the network. The cobbling of the over-the-air schedule in Columbus (& Toledo) is an improvement. But the Crew are on what is essentially a cable-access channel to which the rest of the region has limited or no access to. You have to make access to the games easier for non- diehards. Finally, I can agree that he got one thing right in the rebrand. This surely isn't America's Hardest Working Team anymore!
And I apologize for shifting the focus of the thread. Berhalter is the sporting director - he is not getting enough suitable players and his vision has failed. He is also the manager - his decision-making, tactics, and player management and development have been miserable, overall. Whether or not he has been hamstrung by any number of factors, a change is necessary.
Yes and no. Greggggggggggg did not invent that style of play. It's not innovative, it's not original, it's not unique. You see it every day of the week. Maybe he convinced the owner that he is some kind of tactical genius who came up with this radical innovation but anyone who knows jack squat about soccer knows this is bunk. And every single professional coach on Earth knows how to counter it. Didn't require any sort of brilliance either. What worked was the personnel, specifically Kai Kamara. The fact that it stopped working on the very day and hour that he left is not in any way a coincidence. Full stop. Kind of like the way Robert E. Lee stopped being a brilliant battlefield tactician the day Stonewall got shot. To be completely fair about it, we simply do not know how MLS treats expansion fees. It's highly doubtful that they simply carve them up like an Easter ham amongst the investors. That is precisely what they criticized about the original NASL and swore they would not be doing. Plus it would be stupid. Don't ever forget that MLS is all one single corporate entity (we all know it intellectually but we all tend to forget sometimes). When other leagues expand they do in fact divvie up the cash between the owners. Nothing else they can do. In MLS, Garber can stuff it all under his mattress if he wants. Bottom line, they're not supporting the teams with expansion money. This is almost certainly true. He's an investor, not a soccer freak, and he has exactly zero ties to Columbus which would in any way inhibit him from walking away when the value of his asset increases exponentially. Which in turn is how you make money in the sports business: franchise value appreciation. P&L is almost irrelevant although it's nice if it can at least break even. But I also know this: the value of this team will always be limited by the market it inhabits. MLS is resolutely against moving teams. It's another founding principle of the league (along with not propping up teams with expansion cash) Now we can disagree on whether that is likely to change any time soon, but Garber and the investors want you to fix your problems by FIXING YOUR PROBLEMS, not by running off to someplace else. It is beyond question that if MLS would allow it Precourt would move this team tomorrow. But I don't think they will, so we're likely stuck with each other, at least for a while. Once expansion is capped, that becomes more problematical because, again, the team is in reality "owned" collectively and when there's no more slots available and a really rich guy in, say, St Louis or Memphis or wherever is willing to pay $200 million for the thing NOBODY is going to want to say no. Nobody. No, he's not. An impossibility. The city won't help, the county won't help, the state won't help and however much dough AP has, he can't afford $400 million for a building. We also badly need an actual training facility better than a mid level NCAA D1 program has and we're never getting that either. He's caught between a rock and a hard place on this. It's stupid to pour cash into a substandard building that you're hoping you can leave. It's not like painting the bedrooms and updating the half bath so you can peddle your house. Nobody is going to buy the thing. Any money you put in is money you're going to walk away from. Again though, lack of a modern stadium AND lack of decent training facilities are two big reasons why he can go to the league and claim he has no choice but to move the thing. That, plus a huge money offer from someplace else, will EVENTUALLY move this team. It's entirely true that he wanted to get into sports ownership on the cheap. Nothing wrong with that. Steve Ballmer is making a worse mess out there than he started with. Money can't buy you brains. Yes, but wrong question. The problem with the team on the field is player identification. Berhalter is simply terrible at it. Being able to locate and identify diamonds in the rough is a talent and he simply doesn't have it. I don't blame Precourt for that even a little. And it's not a question of money so much, IMO. Which is what I wanted GBS for. MLS is not about X's and O's, no matter how much gets said about it on BigSoccer or Massive Report, where the 3-5 2 or the 4-3-3 or whatever else gets debated endlessly. This league has seen dozens of tactically sound and previously successful foreign coaches come in and fail miserably. It's about finding talent. It's the hard part. The rest you can get from a book. GBS knows players and has contacts all over South America who can plug him in. He's known and respected and it's acknowledged that he develops players. Question: if you were a promising young middie from, say, Venezuela or Columbia or Bolivia or Argentina but your progress is somewhat stalled or you're looking for a fresh start or whatever, would you even take a phone call from some guy in Columbus Ohio named Berhalter? Probably not. But if your brother says Guille is on the phone you're going to break your leg jumping across the room. THAT is why he was the right hire. Screw formations, screw tactics and jam that Powerpoint presentation up your butt and spin it. GBS probably doesn't have computer skills. All he has is soccer skills. Bummer. Bottom line, we can't blame the current problems on Precourt. He's not running the team. And when he does agree to fork over some money who do we get? An incompetent boob like Mensah, who is currently a running joke in the league. I can't find the article but recently SoccerAmerica ran a midseason team ranking thing which put Columbus in the bottom 3 teams in the league and said that a) the talent was way better than the record and b) Mensah is flat out awful. The only thing you can legitimately blame AP for is handing the team over to an imbecile, watching said imbecile run the thing off the road and doing nothing while the crowds melt away in disgust.
Just one other note on the rebrand: Precourt was sold on the whole thing by the KC example. He himself said so on more than one occasion. Everything jibed: 1) midwest midmarket team 2) original but aging identity 3) Previously successful at the gate but had alienated the fanbase 4) Hunt Sports Group ownership (ie. bare bones financing) and 5) general market boredom. KC got new owners, new coaches, new players, new uniforms, new name and a new stadium and the thing took off. Big. MLS convinced him this was a template for success, and it's one that appeals to any investor: buy a slightly rundown property, polish the thing up some and rake in the money. That's like crack to these guys. So Precourt did all of those things. EXCEPT the stadium. Which was the big one. You can't convince everybody you're a brand new thing is they still have to schlep over to the fairgrounds to the Old Tin Palace. In short, it was the right thing but it basically failed because a crucial element was missing and at this point I'm not convinced that a new building will turn it around. The momentum was wasted and momentum is something you don't get back. Butsince this teamwill never get a new stadium, we'll never know if it makes a difference or not. They'll be playing in the House that Lamar Built until the day they load the trucks and move.
Maybe you should ask Artur. No doubt there were/are teams in Brazil that could use his skills.Why did he come here? I'm not defending gregg but sometimes we reason ourselves into a corner.
Jose Artur de Lima Junior, brother of Norberto, is here on a short term loan from SaoPaolo. They farmed him out to the bush leagues for some seasoning. He came here because he was sent here. His player contract is with Sao Paolo, not MLS. \ How it came about we do not know. It's entirely possible if not probable that his club worked out a deal with MLS, who in turn sent him here. Either way, it's doubtful whether the kid had a damn thing to say about it.
This is laughably inaccurate. Sao Paolo didn't have any plans for him (he may even be out of contract after the season). Gregg had seen him play before and really liked him. Gregg inquired, Sao Paolo gave him a thumbs up, and the Crew negotiated the loan with Sao Paolo. Players have a say in where they're loaned. If he didn't want to come here, he wouldn't be here. MLS didn't force him to come to Columbus after SPFC worked out a deal with MLS. That isn't how that works. At all.
1) Um, only america forces players to change team. No one else in the world does that. 2) we have an option to buy. 3) GB new about him since preseason, ya know, when we were in brazil.
That's the story the Crew peddled, yes. I do agree that players can usually refuse assignment,although few actually try it. In other countries, it's very bad to disagree with management.
Nope. The problem with this team has not been scoring it has been defense. Ola's output matched or exceeded Kei's. The tactical failure is with defending. Agreed. And no one has any proof otherwise. And the orneriest fans in the MLS. Sorry no. I just got back from a trip and was wearing my Schelotto jersey. A group of Argentines made it a point to tell me how much of an a--hole Schelotto was. They were River and Estudiantes fans but the hate for Lord Guillermo was strong. They told stories about how he has gotten people fired and gets in the faces of opposing players and is very abusive. Would you rather take a call from a guy you don't know or a guy that insulted your mother? Lord Guillermo is our god but he is a devil to many others in South America. Also please provide evidence GBS is a player finding savant of players from other clubs and foreign players. It looks like most of his players are Boca players who were already in the system. I would love to have GBS back but I worry that working within the MLS structure will make him bad and will ruin his reputation with fans. And that we agree but every team MLS is forced to over pay for DP's and they all get a bad one or two. This is not unique to Berhalter. I will not mention the Pirlo / Kaka / Fat Frank type DP's but compare him to some other mid-market DP's who are defenders or defensive mids (but also remember Yura Movsisyan at $1.9 mil and Freddy Montero - $1.8 mil or Veron for NYRB $500k and plays for RBII) Xavier Kouassi - $890k Matías Laba - $885k Maurice Edu - $818k Now you can make the argument that we can afford ANY mistakes, as a small market with low attendance, but that is a extremely high bar for any coach to hit. Even Seattle that spends a ton and has a whole department for this looks to have fallen on its face this year. But maybe Perja or Vermes . . . but I am sure they have a lot of help.
Oddly, Pereja's DPs have been incredibly underwhelming. Gruezo looks very solid in the middle, but Chala had to be loaned out because he wasn't good enough and Colman has yet to score in MLS.
And Vermes has Besler and Zusi as DP's and isn't that Rubio guy a DP as well? He's been a backup striker at SKC for like 2 seasons now.
I'm still mad over tonight. Fire him. Clean house. Get an owner who cares about the team. It's 2017 and there isn't one billionaire or multi-millionaire in Columbus willing to make a downtown stadium happen? FFS
You reap what you sow. This team should have hired Schelotto after sacking Warzycha. Instead, we hired Berhalter. I was more than willing to give the guy a shot. But this experiment has long since run its course.