In MLS there's not that big of a pie yet, so new teams need to compensate established teams significantly.
824015744077799424 is not a valid tweet id DP = designated player, high earners exempt from salary cap
Who are the 8? Nacho Piatti, Diego Valeri, Mauro Diaz, and who else? Of those three, Valeri and Piatti were very good in Argentina, Piatti was great, yet Mauro Diaz was a complete failure. A really, really disastrous player. Funnily enough, both his sisters are married to the Funes Mori twins
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_Player_Rule#Current_Designated_Players Think it's based off this list. Isn't Lucas Melano headed back to Argentina? Edit: I see it's on a loan. Mauro Diaz has been great here. His injury doomed a Dallas team that would've been on its way to a treble this past season. I'd be curious just to see if his development would translate back home any.
Melano is back at Belgrano, on loan, but its for a year. I wonder if he had any personal problems or difficulty adapting. He's a very useful player and a good signing for the Cordobeses. I did't follow him in the States, but its strange he is returning. I Would have liked him for River, but considering he went back to Cordoba I wonder if its not a personal reason LOL @ Matias Laba, Gonzalo Veron, Villalba, and Federico Higuain being designated players. ITs also shocking to see a muerto like Michael Bradley earing 6.5 million per season. Robbery, that. Its not that I think Bradley is that bad- he certainly has been horrible the last few USMNT games- but to think that guy is the highest paid player in the league behind Kaka... Shocking.
Yeah I don't get Bradley making that much either, particularly for a Canadian team! Can't imagine anyone cares that much about him up north. Just mindblowing but Toronto was desperate after so many years of failure. Melano was terrible here. Always missing chances. He had one really nice goal that I remember but every other game I saw of him was a disappointment. Federico Higuain I don't think was a DP initially but he had a big year for the Crew that turned into a raise.
Valeri adapted well in the MLS and in the US. He speaks English relatively well and is basically an icon for his side. At least he came to the league and stayed. Some players come for a year for a payday and just leave.
Props to Valeri for learning English and adapting so well, but then again its not that surprising since he is an educated, respectable, and polite person. I agree that a lot of people jus to the MLS for the pay day than leave, like Gata Fernandez, who before I saw this video didn't even remember he had been in MLS. Melano may have just gone for the pay day before going to Belgrano, but I think it was more that he didn't adapt and was homesick, considering the little I read about him. He has a little brother who plays in Belgrano's youth team, and he's undoubtedly a big Belgrano fan. One of the big problems I have with MLS is that it seems to be a dead end league. Obviously, if you're like Valeri and you're married with kids and you just want a comfortable life in middle america, great. He's already played in Europe and the adventure wouldn't work out for him. Now that he's older and with a family, he probably doesn't want to bounce around from club to club anymore. Yet I do notice that very rarely to you see the MLS sell players to Europe. They tend to go there to stay and don't get the chance to progress professionally. Melano is not a world beater, but he could certainly do more than Portland Timbers in his career. After Belgrano, he'd do well to look for a move to Europe or to a bigger club in Argentina
MLS is indeed a payday for many players who come from abroad. But as I have mentioned before in other posts, the quality of life and pay is really high. It is not like the Chinese Super League(Or whatever it's called) where the pay is great but the quality of life is likely far poorer than the country that they are coming from. Valeri is an interesting case. He left Argentina in the prime of his career, he was 26 or 27 perhaps and he stuck around, which is great for the league. I do not watch the MLS on a regular basis but from all the reports said that he was a step above everybody else in the league. Will the MLS get more players from abroad who are in the prime of their careers? Who knows. I think the owners and the league are happy with the progress over the years. The games are shown on a regular basis, the Galaxy share a network with the terrible Lakers. Will it ever become this world-class league? Not likely but I believe the fans and the ownership are okay with that.
The coaching and development culture here is still lacking outside of a couple teams like New York Red Bulls and FC Dallas, who are consequently one of the few teams sending guys off to Europe (beyond just Americans who typically start here). I'd have to find the link but the average age of foreign players MLS is bringing in continues to drop. I think the league is pretty ideal for guys like Valeri who didn't necessarily have chances of making it big in Europe. That 25-28 age range is pretty ideal.
Gigliotti could be returning to Argentina to play at Independiente. But in the meantime, they already got one signing:
So does the league start again next week? It's really confusing trying to follow this from the internet with all these sites that have fixtures but they all say postponed.
Any English speakers who'd like (need?) as cogent an explanation of the Argentine futbol clusterfu(k as is available, take the time to listen to at least the first half of Sam Kelly's requisite Hand of Pod , episode #247. You'll know what's going down with several issues after giving it a listen. Held me in trance through a sh1tty 6 mile run on Saturday AM. https://handofpod.wordpress.com/ Furthermore, Vamos LA LEPRA
For any of you guys in the US: I have Frontier fios & TyC channel has been inconsistently available despite the fact that i am paying for it. Anyone have any good links for Primera matches? Newell's in 10 minutes
I get all my streams from Futbol Para Troncos on Youtube. They moved to some new channel for some reason. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK9fVaEiqCcr8m9Jy_ElV1w Follow them on Twitter for updates. https://twitter.com/LosTroncosFC
Thank you @Burr you have greatly simplified my weekends henceforth, tired of fighting off the popups on Rojadirecta. I'll buy you several beers at a Rowdies game
Yeah it's way better because now I can just fire up the stream on my Xbox or my dad's smart TV if I'm at his place instead of having to hook up a computer, since they both have Youtube apps. Great quality too! Although if you need national team games I suggest setting up a Kodi installation with Sportsdevil addon to access Rojadirecta's streams without all the crappy ads and such. FPT doesn't do those games unfortunately, probably because they'd get smacked down quick.
What a great gesture from Maxi. 105 year old fan of Newell's. She wanted to meet Maxi and he made it possible. One of the GREAT men in futbol.
Maxi Rodriguez is a great guy one of the best men in sport. One of those players you can't help but admire and respect both on and off the field yesterday. Also congrats to him on scoring Newell's 4,000th all time goal yesterday. For me, he is Newell's greatest ever idol. Also congrats to Tati on making it to 105 and meeting her idol. Unbelievable hopefully Really nice story I hope Maxi keeps making her happy with his goals and they can gift her the primera division title this year