Goals 1. Chris Rolfe 6 2. Jairo Arrieta 5 3. Chris Pontius 2 4. Perry Kitchen 2 5. Fabian Espindola 1 Assists 1. Fabian Espindola 5 2. Taylor Kemp 4 3. Chris Rolfe 3 4. Davy Arnaud 3 5. Nick DeLeon 3 Shots 1. Chris Rolfe 41 2. Chris Pontius 25 3. Jairo Arrieta 19 4. Nick DeLeon 16 5. Fabian Espindola 15 Shots on Goal 1. Chris Rolfe 17 2. Jairo Arrieta 11 3. Chris Pontius 6 4. Conor Doyle 6 5. Fabian Espindola 6
Yeah, when we made this move (and others like it) I thought, 'here's a guy who's starting to get old, he's on the upper end of the payscale, and his production is tailing off with the team he's on.' But the Fire let him go too soon and too cheap.
I thought by now everyone who had their reservations all agreed that we were dumb and Chicago is dumber.
And that's the other part, really. What else would we have done with that money? What about our international acquisitions would make us think we could have spent it in a smart way?
At the time, I thought that he was past his peak and on the downward slide of his career slope. I still think that was true. Where I was wrong back then was going from "past his peak" to "not good enough". I think it's obvious that when he came here, he was not as good as he was in the best years of his career. And I think it's obvious that he's not playing as well this year as he did last year. But I think it's also obvious that we'd be dead without him.
That's exactly it. I didn't think it was bad (I leave it to you to do a search and show me how wrong I was), but I didn't think it was enough. I still think would could do better, though I admit we seem pretty unlikely to do it then and now. He's indispensable to us now.
Yeah, and I think my main criticism was that the team we put together was full of solid guys who could play, but that it was only designed to hold together for one year. I'm legit surprised that it still is in 2015. An offseason of reckoning is still going to come, but in getting two good years first it was certainly worth it.
Ditto for Boswell. As with Rolfe, he's evidently on the back slope of his career, but that is still something rock solid that has been essential for us. If we can get them through 2016, that would be awesome.
What I really hope is that some sort of mentoring thing is going on between Boswell and Birnbaum/Opare. I wish Concina was still here.
Boswell has been as important as Espy and Rolfe. For a number of years, the CB pairing was a nightly shitshow of great plays, ball watching and completely inexplicable plays. Now, it's just solid and boring, which is what it should be. Boswell grew up big time in Houston. For a guy maybe even slower than me you don't see him get turned or beaten for pace because his positioning is so good. Every interview I've read or heard with him shows a level of maturity absent during his first sojourn here. I'm quite sure he's providing the necessary mentoring to Birnbaum and Opare.
Well yes, and we're dancing around the fact that for most of us fans, the idea of putting together a roster is an entirely different thing than the actual job of doing it. Some of us are from a generation where we related to it like playing a video game, and others of us related to it from a youth coaching perspective, etc. But the actual job for someone like Ben/Kasper is all of that and a lot extra. You have to consider the balance and chemistry of the roster, the personalities, the mentoring relationships, etc. That's really the nuts and bolts of building a roster in real life, and most of us don't have enough detailed information to put that all together. We have stats, and hearsay, and FIFA games. If you ask me, it's these unrecorded characteristics that I get the sense Ben is actually good at.
Rolfe is almost surely past his peak but what other players on this team, other than possibly Espindola, get themselves into the right place at the right time for either a shot on goal or a well-weighted pass to an attacker?
That roster turn around has to be the most impressive in MLS history for a single offseason. The F.O. doesn't get enough credit for that.
I realize I'm going to be in the minority here but in all sports we tend to think that when these guys come out of college at 22 or 23 that they are physically mature. While that is often the case, there are occasions when an athlete is a "late bloomer" physically which, I believe, is the case with Rolfie. As far as his past productivity is concerned, he is on track to match or beat his best year which was several years ago so I'm not sure how you can say he is "past" his prime when even last year, he was having a career year before he broke his arm and shattered his elbow. He's more physical now and it appears that his tendons and ligaments have matured so those nagging injuries when he was labelled him injury-prone by some don't seem to be a problem now. The only thing that may possibly slow him down is that he is now a 10-year veteran of a very physically demanding game which undoubtedly makes it harder for him to get up in the mornings but I tend to think he is playing his best soccer now as opposed to when he was 27-30 when we typically classify a player as being in his prime.
Rolfe is 32. Jaime was effective into his mid-thirties. Pippo Inzaghi was effective into his late 30's. I'm not saying Rolfe can maintain this level for years, but I think he could potentially produce a couple more years of high quality play.
I posted this mainly when I looked at the team stats and saw where Chris was in the stats. I was impressed on what his numbers are this year. No he is not the player he was 7 years ago but right now he is the second most important cog behind Fabi.
Sometime around age 30 your body starts making less IGF-1, which speeds up recovery time after injury or hard work. That is why players tend to go downhill at that point. Obviously this happens at different ages for different people. How well you take care of yourself makes a difference, too, and Rolfe seems to do a good job at that at least with his diet. http://www.usada.org/igf-1-and-the-world-anti-doping-agency-prohibited-list/ No doubt.
I never thought it was a bad move, I just didn't expect much from Rolfe. He has played way above my highest expectations and thrilled to see it. Similar scenario with Boswell and Espindola. As poor as we've been on international market, we've done a great job domestically recently.
well - Espindola is from Argentina, but he's been around MLS for a while, so I get your point Ben (and Dave?) seem to be better at assessing talent within the context of MLS than within an overseas league - But then thats to be expected
Yeah, by domestic I mean players that play in MLS for least a year or two. We've had real issue with players coming in from foreign leagues since about 2008 I want to say. We were really good at it before then.