I liked everything Bruce said in his initial meeting with the team. I doubt very much Brad would have ever admitted to making a mistake... especially before he made one! Anyone else notice Farrell translating the whole speech to Penilla?
And it makes a pretty serious statement in the whole is it Burns or is it the Krafts argument. But, you'd think an active ownership would have canned Burns over the whole Jones incident - maybe he saved himself by winning the coin flip.
Yeah, I said this in another thread. The whole story is mind-boggling! I get that differences often happen in the workplace, but if you argue strongly for a point of view, and then the boss comes in and overrules you, often the only face-saving thing that can happen is if you are proven right, and you're not a "I TOLE ya so" jerk about it. In this case, it was the most successful, most impactful single player signing in years, with literally nothing since then, and Burns was against it. So he was about as wrong as you possibly could get, and even the owners who are not involved in the details noticed it. Yet he stayed on for almost 5 more years!
Ritchie is official https://www.revolutionsoccer.net/po...volution-hire-richie-williams-assistant-coach
I still believe that the fortunate series of events which led to those several competitive years in the Nicol era under a shoe string budget was the worst thing to happen to this franchise. It concealed many of the problems under the surface and proved a business model that wasn't really sustainable could work. The Revs stuck with that business model for many years afterwards. Had Twellman stayed in Europe, Shalrie Joseph held out longer, we didn't luck into key players like Ralston and Heaps and we didn't hit the proverbial lottery with Dempsey, we would have sucked during that era and the Krafts may have changed their business model a decade earlier. Who knows where this club would he now.
You could make an equal case for how unlucky the Revs have been over the years - losing Twellman in his prime was a HUGE blow, and the uncertainty over several years made it even worse. And, we didn't really hit the lottery with Dempsey - in those years, he was a good rookie, then became a very good player over the next few years, but was nowhere near the player he would go on to become in later years.
The Krafts could have chosen to replace or augment Twellman, removing the multi year uncertainty. I’m pretty sure the DP rule existed at the time. Certainly open roster spots did. The Krafts controlled their own luck in this case, choosing the cheaper path.
Had we not gone on a tear at the end of the 2002 season and come within a crossbar of winning MLS Cup, this club might very well have been lying in the same cemetery as Tampa and Miami by not. They seriously considered folding the team when the "If you build a stadium with cup-holders, people will even come and watch soccer" theory didn't hold true. Had they finished the season like all but 2 of the previous ones (out of the playoffs) odds are they would have thrown in the towel.
Yup, it definitely goes both ways. Aside from Twellman's head injury it's hard to not feel really unlucky about losing multiple MLS Cup Finals on extra time goals and PKs. I can't help but feel like winning in 2002 might have significantly changed the next decade for the club. Being included in the "title town" discussions would certainly be nice. I agree on Dempsey. Dempsey was a lot of fun to watch and a really talented MLS player during his days with the Revs, but I'd argue that he wasn't the real driving force behind our success. We really hit the lottery with Twellman and Joseph. Twellman was arguably the best goalscorer in the league for the better part of his playing career and Joseph was an absolute beast and constant under the radar MVP candidate.
Brad Feldman just casually dropped in that Mike Lapper will be leaving the #NERevs sometime in the middle of June.— Six States One Pod🎙 (@SixStatesOnePod) June 3, 2019
How many MLS managers can say they are undefeated? Seriously, I like Lapper and wish him the best in his next job. I hope he gets another chance at head coaching soon.
You could see flashes of his raw talent with the revs and even in the 06 WC. It was clear he was going to be a star; just not greatest scorer in USMNT history type star.
They have/had money and they could have tried to replace him with someone. I don’t believe they tried. IIRC they did nearly nothing, waiting for him to retire or for his contract to expire. Trying might have replaced only 2/3 of Twellmans output but that would have been better than near zero.
To say they have not tried to replace Twellman's CF position would be a lie. To say they did not try hard, were incapable or were unsuccessful would probably be the truth. Twellman had been injured almost a year before they brought in anyone. He played two games in 2009 and retired in 2010. 2009 they brought in Jankauskas, 2010 they dumped Jankauskas for Stolica. In April of 2011 they signed Lekic and in August of 2011 they brought in Milton Caraglio(who they should have kept). 2012 they brought in Imbongo and Sene. 2013 Chad Barrett, Bengston and Agudelo joined. 2014 came Bunbury and Davies. 2015 they brought back Agudelo and signed Okoli. 2016 was the year of Kamara. 2017 was Nemeth. 2018 no additions at that position, 2019 Caicedo was added. Twellman played 174 games and scored 101 goals which are really incredible numbers. The players mentioned above brought in to replace the scoring from that position combined to play 695 games scoring 155 goals. They had mild success with a few other players tagged as forwards that were brought in but none played the same position as Twellman.
Very good recap. The problem with Twellman's injury was that no one thought it would be career-ending, let alone anything as serious as it turned out. It was uncharted territory for everyone, as it turned out. Twellman will go down as one of the very best players of MLS' first 20 years. I only brought him up to point out that it was a huge case of bad fortune for the team, regardless of whether they could/should have done better finding another scorer.