BTW, in the little banner below the text, it shows that I too can buy a 2015 Neagle Sounders jersey. Was $105, now bargain priced to sell at $82. http://shop.bigsoccer.com/71382-neagle-27.html Yippee
Throw him in for the suspended Sarvas and see what happens. I'm not sure the team overall can play any worse. Maybe that works in his favor this week. I still would cut him right now if we could without keeping the cap hit. But that's not an option. I presume we keep him at least through the summer or the end of the year unless he really turns things around and we for some reason think he's worth it at the 300k+ price. Right now, I find that extremely unlikely. Does anyone know how long his contract was when we picked him up?
There's no way Halsti will be match fit for some time. I expect to see Jeffrey against SJ; he looked pretty good to me against Dallas, but I think Savras is now our most influential player so his absence will definitely hurt.
True. I misread the post about Halsti. I was thinking he's ready to play, but you're right, he might not even be fit to make the 18 given the injury and the fact that he came to camp out of shape in the first place. I guess we throw Jeffrey in there and see how he does.
An interesting interview with Halsti. To sum up: Olsen is over his head, noone in club knows whats going on and Goff hasn't been at one practice but writes about them. Basically everything we knew. My favorite part of google translate that just about summs up DC United: "I should just shit in it." http://www.svenskafans.com/fotboll/...har-man-en-chans-maste-man-ta-den-556584.aspx
Actually the interview is more damning than you're making it sound. I had a friend read it and it amounts to (paraphrased) "I was told this was a young strong team in a good league and it turned out the club had no tactics and everyone was just trying to do something on their own and hope for the best." He was basically healthy a long time but probably didn't want to play for this team after a short time of realizing how awful we are.
Wow. That article is shocking. I mean we all suspected, but just......wow. I used Google translator too. Haha, I kept trying to figure out who Tim Sparrow was. Still don't know. I love translators though. Always good a for few laughs.
He'd have a lot more credibility if he had ever bothered showing up in shape and playing up to his potential.
Everyone's entitles to their opinion, even lazy chumps who can't beat freaking Nick Deleon out of his position.
I'm assuming Google translate is correct. But Halsti was an out of shape slow overpriced ******** who shit the bed when he, occasionally, was healthy enough to make the pitch. ******** him and his man bun, let him play in the effing Danish 2nd division or wherever his fat ass takes him.
Isn't that one of the points of the article -- that he's saying he *did* show up in shape and never knew why the team suggested otherwise?
This just seems a really bizarre reaction to me, given that for the most part, the points he makes are ones that you yourself have made here many many many many many times. I mean, his criticisms are ones that have become the standard narrative here. Or am I missing something?
Yeah, as far as I can tell Halsti is saying precisely what many of us have been saying, the only difference being he's seen it from the inside and knows more about actually playing a team game at a high level than any of us.
So is Halsti saying he wasn't injured? Because then someone is lying, and if it's Halsti you should throw out the rest of his comments. But if it's the team....why?
It says he was injured but recovered much sooner than most people (and I imagine this means sports media and fans) thought. So he was basically just hanging out in cafes biding his time until his exit while people thought he was on IR. This is why I don't believe any injury stories from the team.
It's important to highlight that Halsti seems to be explicitly accusing DC United of collaborating with Goff and others to let out entirely false information about fitness and injuries (and probably more).
What is that you say? Goff and the team conspiring to undermine players? You don't say?! Seriously, I have been saying this for years. And usually I get some defense of Goff that includes some nonsense about him not covering the team, but the league in general. And being that he has no allegiance to the team, he is impartial and has no reason to put out false narratives about DC United or its players ..... yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda. I'm sorry, but the guy (regardless of his lack of an official tie to the club) has been carrying water for management here for 10 years. And it's an embarrassment. Every time there is the hint of an issue between team and player, Goff swoops in to the rescue with a scathing shot or two at the player. It's like clockwork. And I'm tired of it.
Bootsy -- you certainly are entitled to an explanation for my rant, because you're right that some of the issues raised by Halsti are ones that I have raised as well. However, here are the reasons for my rant for good or ill: Regardless of whether or when Halsti was fit, when he was on the pitch he was, at best, ineffective. He has no pace and played a very languid style for someone playing D-mid. He probably would have been better served playing on central defense, but he would have been 3rd behind Boswell and Birnbaum there. Looking at some of the pictures from this year's training camp, when Halsti reported late, he clearly has a "gut" that indicates a lack of serious off-season training. Maybe he had a different view of pre-season than Olsen, but the coach sets the standards and if you don't meet them, even if you think he's a blockhead, you will be punished. That's the way it is in sports and Halsti should have known better. In the article, as well as Google translates it, Halsti appears to be asserting that the lack of tactical awareness by his teammates meant that they didn't "cover" for him when he made a play. That is a mortal sin for a player in a team sport to commit. Essentially throwing your teammates under the bus when you tried something that didn't work. It reminded me of an interview Marc Burch did on the radio years ago when he was asked about Freddy Adu. Now, mind you, Burch wasn't on the squad when Adu was here, but some of his teammates had been and he recycled second hand gossip to throw Adu under the bus in the interview. That type of behavior just pisses me off. Maybe because it's my union background, but you don't throw your brothers and sisters under the bus when things go poorly. You fight and struggle and attempt to make it right, or at least better. I also think Halsti was poorly served by his agent who didn't explain or understand MLS and what Halsti was to DCU. As best as I can determine from the article, Halsti sees himself, as our Swedish friend once said, as "Mr. Potato", the guy who is just a complementary part of the whole. Given his international slot and high salary by MLS terms, he was expected to be a difference maker. That's not his game and he and Olsen probably butted heads over that issue. A failing on the part of Halsti's agent, Halsti, Olsen and Kasper. The problem is that Halsti doesn't seem to acknowledge that part of the problem was him. Instead, it's always somone else, Olsen, his teammates, Goff, etc. That type of whinging bullshit just sets me off. I'm not going into the stuff about Goff. Needless to say, I would want more than the words of a disgruntled failure of a foreign signing before I would throw Goff under the bus. Essentially, Halsti says Goff fabricated stories about DCU and acts as an unpaid (or worse) agent of DCU management and Olsen in particular. Now I'm sure Goff and Olsen have some type of relationship because Olsen has been here since 1998 and Goff has been covering the team since then as well. But what Halsti claims Goff does is and should be a firing offense at the Post and a grave breach of any sort of journalistic ethics. I'm not willing to go there without more proof. Anyway, in the clear light of morning, I wanted to respond at length. My spleen was vented last night and I wanted to explain why.
Have to work like crazy this morning, can't substantively look at this yet -- but wanted to say that IMO I'm not *entitled* to anything at all! We're all just internet nuts after all.
FC Midtjylland. A team that has wins in European comps against Manchester United, Club Brugge and Southampton in the last 2 years.
It's pretty clear that Halsti isn't insulting his teammates but the actual team not having tactics. That clearly means the coaches and up. If in fact the problem is systematic then why shouldn't Halsti say something? Should everyone do as you say and put their head in the sand and pretend they have chalkboards where they discuss formations over lattes when decisions actually seem random and spur of the moment? Haven't we lamented things like not having the same lineup for more than one game for an entire season or random uses of substitutions? Haven't we tried to dissect whether there was a 4-4-2 going on versus some other formation but were unable to come to any conclusion because, more than likely, players were just running around trying to make things happen individually?
Yeah, the tactical stuff doesn't bother me. He basically says what most of us think, that United wins by running around and trying to make stuff happen, and in spite of a lack of tactical plan. He says more than once that when the team wins, it's all on the players making it happen, and that they don't gain any edge from coaching. He even says this is Olsen's philosophy, that he turns up his nose at tactics and believes only the players are responsible for results (paraphrasing). He also says it happens in other teams in Europe, so it isn't unheard of. And he compliments Hamid, saying he is very good and wins games for United (who here would disagree with that?). The most interesting part of it to me was him noticing that Goff would report what Halsti did during training, without actually being there. At best, it means Goff is asking about Halsti and reporting what he's told as if it actually happened rather than a version of what actually happened, or at worst, it means Goff is colluding with United to create a certain narrative on this player (and others if we extrapolate), which is shocking and a fireable offense.