RSL 2019-20 Offseason Thread

Yura came back and made a lot more money than when he was here the first time. He made an improvement.

 

"A complete list of Expansion Draft-eligible players will be released Nov. 16."

Any chance we might have a GM or coach to help make these decisions, or did DLH always take care of these by himself?

 

Unless you count academy players leaving for college or abroad, isn't the sample size pretty small?

Findley
Espindola
Jamison
Horst
Wingert
Yura
Toia
Sebastian

who else?

 

What I miss is the tremendous professionalism the team enjoyed under Lagerway, Kreis, and Manning.

What we need is someone with enough gravitas to stand up to and manage DLH's micro-management impulses. If I saw that I'd buy season tickets again.

Positives for Kreis: He did well at identifying players who contributed. He's someone who faces reality and does not make excuses.

I don't know who else is in the pool. Our front office resembles the White House in many ways. Lots of drama, lots of departures. Nouveau-Riche property-rich narcissist at the helm. Nobody sane wants to work there.

 

I thought Kreis had a job with Inter Miami? Why would he be interested in any job with RSL when he's got that going?

 

Whether a head coach or GM role with RSL, either would trump an assistant coach role with Miami. Hard to argue either from a career move standpoint. Still a number of factors that would point against this happening, but nothing that definitively would rule it out.

 

Luke Mulholland and Justin Portillo started at center mid in the game against Phoenix. Thats... just wow.

 

I noticed this to. Maybe its a sign the organization is turning the corner when it comes to how they're using the Monarchs for player development.

 

Chang is 28 and was starting up top. Plewa (27) and Ryden (28) in the back next to Holt also made the average age of the defense for the Monarchs (26) older than that of RSL (25) against Seattle.

To be fair, the average age was around 21/22 for the game. So that is certainly an improvement. I still hold firmly that the team shouldn't play more than one or two players above the age of 23 and should have a requirement to field/roster so many academy products. But, yeah, I guess you could say this was (hopefully) a step in the right direction.

 

Seems like a good place to mention that 4 FC Dallas homegrowns are training at Bayern Munich this offseason.

Four FC Dallas homegrowns and U.S. youth internationals (Thomas Roberts, Ricardo Pepi, Bryan Reynolds, and Edwin Cerrillo) will be training at Bayern Munich from November 11-25

— Brian Sciaretta (@BrianSciaretta) November 4, 2019

All 4 are signed to first team contracts. There's a direct connection between the teams who are willing to sign young players to the first team and/or USL teams and the teams who don't lose talent to Europe.

We're about to have 0 players on the MLS 22 under 22 list. For a club that talks up our academy so much, it's notable how much ground we've lost in the past 4-5 years.

 

At what time will we lose the "play your kids" mantra? The 97s are now 22, will turn 23 or be 23 next season. That's still "young" but by no means a "kid".

When will Vazquez and Arriaga break the 18? Who in the current academy is worth looking at? Who is at college that we should have signed before (see Herrera/Baird) but will hopefully bring in and make a difference?

 

I'd say we already have. We almost tied for last in U20 minutes this year. The only reason we didn't finish with 0 is that Arriaga got a handful of garbage time minutes.

 

@irondeepbicycle who from the 98-02 classes have we missed out on? We know the big names like Soto, but I'm curios who we've been missing that was on the level of like a Herrera or Bofo

 

I haven't followed this as closely as in the past but I know a handful in those ranges who probably could have gotten first-team deals.

98 was a fairly weak year in general. Best candidate is probably Tanner Dieterich, who used to be pretty reliably involved with the YNTs. He's a senior at Clemson now, and splits time between CB and DM. He's probably got a decent shot at a HG contract this offseason. Marco Gonzalez, MF, has been fairly strong for UNLV. CB Nick Barriero is a consistent starter for Schellas Hyndman's team at GCU.

99 had some strong candidates. Biggest is Milan Iloski who I've mentioned before, and I'd be shocked if he doesn't get a HG offer this winter. Outside of Milan, Glady Mendoza, LB, and Erik Virgen, CM, were both pretty reliable call-ups for YNTs who went to the NCAA - Mendoza has been playing this year with UCF, and Virgen played his freshman year at UNM, then he went pro with FC Tucson.

Another 99, Alex Vedimanikam, went to Europe already and kicked around the lower leagues a bit. He'd probably be a good Monarchs signing.

00 the big names are Soto and Ledezma, but outside of them, Sam Tojaga has started almost every game for 2 years for a really good Akron team - he started in the last College Cup as a true freshman. Delentz Pierre played a little with the Monarchs already, now he's starting as a freshman for Portland. Pierre and Tojaga are probably players to consider signing.

A couple 01s to watch are probably Bryce Duke, who went to the Barca academy but who we still have HG rights for, and Ben Ortiz who is playing with Pierre at Portland. We missed Booth, but already signed Ochoa, Arriaga, and Vasquez from that cohort, so we haven't missed as much from this class.

 

In terms of who to sign, I'd say literally anyone I mentioned in the last post would be a good Monarchs signing.

For first team signings this year, definitely Iloski. If we signed anyone else, my best guess is it would be among Dieterich, Pierre, or Tojaga.

We could also consider Jordan Pena or Steve Jasso, both of which actually got signed to the Monarchs... though they played sparingly. Baby steps I guess.

 

My little brother is an 01. Doesn't play for the academy - he plays for a club team. Watching their state cup that just wrapped up was really inspiring. The level of play in this state continues to rise and is fun. There were multiple kids in the tournament (across the age groups: 04-01) that shocked me as not being linked to the academy. Seems the bar to get in is either really high or the academy selling point isn't for everyone.

 

Pretty sure this is us:
Report: Unnamed MLS club makes $11 million offer for young Romanian

 

We don't have anyone to play on the wings right now, so makes sense

 

Speaking of Dieterich. He's Clemson's captain and has played almost every minute this year. He played CB for us in the academy but has played almost exclusively DM for Clemson this season, and has discovered a creative touch with 8 assists and 3 goals.

Clemson is ranked #2 in the country and is about to go #1 after Washington was upset yesterday. This is after being unranked coming into the season.

Just for the sake of making dumb predictions that won't be correct, I'll predict now that we'll make 2 HG signings this offseason, and it'll be Iloski (who is still leading the NCAA in goals) and Dieterich.

 

I don't see where the "unnamed MLS club" could be anyone other than NYCFC.