...And I wish to god we'd take him on. Yeah yeah blah blah he's just the wrong side of thirty and skipped training, looks lazy to the John Doyle-mindset... And I know we're all bought in to trying to get younger and niftier and more Euro and we're gonna be super savvy in our expenditures but this guy is a Proven. BRILLIANT. Skillfull. Goal creator. Genuine, pure soccer entertainment - with great stats! Fine go load up on a bunch of mediocre randoms from mediocre random leagues. Bet our season on Urenas and Jungwirths and Vakos and Quibergs and Hykas and Hoesens and Affolters rather than homegrown mediocre players - Jesse F can toss his scarf with Euro aplomb. But can we do that AND have a guy we know is worth the price of admission? A genuine TOP TIER MLS player who wouldn't cost us a transfer fee? Orlando got Sacha. LAFC got Benny. Both over thirty. Just look at the money being invested by other teams. Atlanta, the Galaxy and Toronto are upgrading by adding talent. Heck even Chicago and PHILLY are dropping real money for players now. We gotta be able to do this is we tried. He wants a trade and NE has a new coach and too many attackers and just signed another! Get NGUYEN -- for the fans. Just this once - a big, attractive, attention-worthy signing. Somebody really worth watching. For us fans!
Yeah yeah you'd rather have Rowe. He's great. So is Nemeth. I'd love to have those guys. They're younger. But not as special as Lee Nguyen. They're just not.
An altrustic view would include the attraction to the local population factor. When I was growing up near Tully and McGloughlin in the 80’s, there were a lot of people coming in from the country of his heritage, Vietnam. That might bring a few new fans into the mix.
I think Lee would be a good pickup. Not sure I agree with your brilliant comment, but he has good stats. I think that he needs the right players (as in good) around him to produce. Otherwise, he may look like he does on the USMNT.
What...New England will not just let him go for nothing. He'd be very expensive for an older player. It's not as the Revs would be stupid enough to take Dawkins off our hands in a trade to allow roster compliance.
But, we now have a soocer wise GM, maybe he can pull it off and make the other organization look like geniuses.
Nguyen is arguable best as a classic #10. That requires a team to be built around him. I don't think he is going to be as good without the right combination of players to support him. It's way too late for that in the current season. The dice have been cast. Other teams are still in the midst of roster builds and I could see him going to one of them. Or he might stay in New England one more season, in which case we should pick up this conversation again in a few months.
Given how many players the Revs stole from the Quakes back in the day, maybe we can claim it's restitution.
I dunno, he might pass. I know a (really great) guy who works for USA Cup up in Minn named Trygve Nystuen. That's apparently Swedish. Actually I'm sure Nguyen would pass, awesomely, and that's one reason I want him here.
Are you kidding? I'd swap any two players we have outside of Wondo and Godoy. But given our whipped believer mindset here, I'm sure people would say they'd rather have Vako or Hoesen.
Arguably yes. Wouldn't be the first time we've played guys out of position. From what I've seen, Lee would be an upgrade at 3 or four positions in our current set-up. Whatever that is. We played a lot of different ways last season. He couldn't be more redundant than he is in New England, which has Fagundez, Agudelo, Rowe and Nemeth already. They're all a little different but there's a bloated mound of overlap there.
I think our proud club and eurosavvy GM are already messaging that our roster is set for 2018. Ready to compete for hardware, I'm quite sure.
Reply to myself in my own thread? Why sure! Keep in mind, NE is sitting on all that redundant talent, and most people think of them as the cheapest-ass outfit in MLS. At least Philly brought in Stewart, and Bedoya was a huge addition - league headline worthy - and they just broke their piggy bank getting David Accam. And it was a smart move. They have a much better idea of what Accam can do in MLS than we have about Vako or Eriksson. NE needs quality defense. Lee wants out. Let give him a place to shine and dazzle out west. ONE big signing that says we matter. C'mon Quakes, you owe us this.
Oh and Revs just made a "major announcement" of another winger/forward from Pachuca, Cristian Penilla.
Vako is a DP but Hoesen isn't. There are roster rules in MLS and it's not about snapping one's fingers and anybody can just appear. We're joking about them taking Dawkins off our hands, which they wouldn't be stupid enough to do, because it solves the DP problem. The only guys for which a straight up trade could be done, unless we get rid of Dawkins are Wondo, Vako, Erikkson, and Dawkins unless there's enough TAM remaining for two buy downs (plus buying international slots). You get 2 DPs...a thrid if you pay luxury tax, and anyone else over $480isk has to be bought down with TAM unless they're U23...I think. So, even if the MLS forces New England and some other team into dealing because they rate the player's happiness so highly (which I don't know if they would although they've done it before for returning Nats), we don't have much to work with to offer. If it's no to Wondo and unlikely to be Erikkson whose never played for us, and unlikely to be Dawkins since New England isn't going to take a guy as useless as he was last year, that leaves only Vako. Otherwise I don't think the money exists. Even if the ownership were willing to just cough it up out of pocket, there isn't a mechanism within MLS roster rules to do it. You can't buy TAM or GAM or international slots with your pocket money. They can buy out Dawkins contract to solve the DP issue, but you still have one DP deal to buy down, probably Wondo's, but then how do you have the TAM left to actually pay for the player and buy thru trade the international slots we also need for roster compliance. NE isn't going to take all our 1st round draft picks till 2022 or something like that as a trade. It might not be impossible to request a Vako for Nguyen trade and have the league go for it, but I think it's darn close to that. If they force something, it would be a team with open DP slots and flush with TAM as well. There are just better dance partners for NE. It's not any sort of test of ambition...or go and propose how you actually work it?
Thanks for articulating. The Quakes simply could not be in this trade even if they wanted. It's total fantasy. The idea of trading for such a high caliber player is noble and hopefully it does happen before we're all dead but this isn't going to be the player, not this year.
Then it can come down to whether the league will stand by the Revs or try to force a deal because they value the player playing that much. I don't know which way they'd go. They've forced things before because of the "wrong" team having the #1 spot in the allocation order to get a returning player back. They've manipulated things to get players like Landycakes where they wanted him. But I don't know if they really value Nguyen that much. My guess they'll stand behind NE here. It does make one curious what Nguyen is so unhappy about that he's willing to not honor his contract. Anyone heard rumors on that?
It's a contract issue in part so the league will stand behind the FO not the player. I think a team in Vietnam could make a public, unsolicited multi-million dollar offer for him to end the Mexican standoff. I don't think he is going to another team in MLS, because that sets a precedent (essentially Nguyen is acting like he is a free agent, but he is still under contract, and free agency is THE one big taboo the league and owners don't want to relent on). What is his problem? The guy is 31 and good enough to be on a team that wins trophies, but NE isn't going to be that team. Also he is underpaid and NE wouldn't give him a new contract at a higher salary. Remember we gave Wondo a new contract 3 years running when he turned out to be such a key part of the team? Well homey Kraft don't play dat.
If I'm reading you correctly* - and through my lens - we need TAM to buy slots for an excess of mediocre international players. So those guys cost even more. The rules are Byzantine that's for sure, and your guesses are better than mine. I'd trade Vako for Nguyen in a hot minute and shout it to the skies, if that's an option. But I do think there's a question of ambition, and I am disheartened that we had an administration that did not have an eyeball on NE's glut of skilled, creative, relatively inexpensive attackers and now have an administration that did not have an eyeball on NE's glut of skilled, creative, relatively inexpensive attackers. *Big "if," sorry.
Not hard to guess but if I were him, and his agent, it would be hard to stomach being the seventh highest paid player on the Revs - a totally cheap-ass club - while being one of the best players in the league with a lot of money being thrown around.