RSL needs to change

I seriously think that dealing Mathis to someone who's willing to take a chance on him would be the best move for RSL right now. I don't know how he did against KC, but he never got past a trot in Saint Paul, and I think he's a bad influence on the young players--remove him and give more room for *good* veteran leadership.

I'm sure someone in this league would be willing to take a chance on Cletus.

 

Kiss of death Clint. As soon as he decided to "come help John Ellinger" by playing for him on your team, I knew you were in for trouble. He has never gone to a team and left the team with the same coach in charge (maybe he did at LA - but he was not there very long).

I am amazed that Bob made it at Metrostars.

Your team is basically very weak. John Ellinger really didn't think things through when he put it together. Either that or his braintrust told him not to worry about winning more than 5 games in each of the first two seasons.

As far as the general problems with your team - I analyzed them before the season in this thread:

https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=184600

It is educational.

The fact is that Ellinger put together a bunch of spare parts from other teams - guys who would struggle to start anywhere else* (Pierce, Williams, Dunseth, Kamler, etc), a few old players with declining ability (Kreis - who has done very well for himself, Pope, Mathis, etc) and a bunch of young, unproven players (Watson, Countess, Kreamlmeyer (sp), etc). He didn't use his draft picks wisely. He didn't use his international slots wisely (he is hardly using them at all).

His biggest mistake was not finding a plus defensive/holding midfielder who would help your team control the game tempo. The fact that your team has even struggled so much to get results at home (where the altitude and your great crowd should give you a huge advantage) is a testimony to the fact that you cannot control the game tempo.

Second, he did a miserable job finding two-way players. With so many older veterens amongst your best skill players, you are going to really struggle to get results at the end of the season. Why? As the weather gets hotter - they will be even more useless playing team defense. You might score more goals if you could pay Andy Williams (M), Dipsy Selolwane (RW), Mathis (M), Watson (FW) and Kreis (FW). But amongst those players - hardly any of them play any defense. And after about 60 minutes, Williams, Mathis and Kreis cannot even chase anyone around the field. A lot of these guys are not only fairly poor defensive players - but they play soft as well (Watson, Selolwane and Williams). Not a good recipe for a team that has to grind out results.

As a result, your team is taking the arc that I predicted here:

https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=3982734&postcount=19

some great results (though not many wins) early in the year. Especially at home. And a decline to totally miserable by the end of the season. I am afraid that you have not yet hit rock bottom, although the Thunder did their best to put you there.

Also - your team really needed to get results during this month, as many other MLS squads are at much less than full-strength. But again the curse of Ellinger's team-building stategery strikes. Because of the way he constituted the side (i.e. making Pope the centerpiece of your defense and having Andy Williams in a big role), you are perhaps more hindered than the average teams. If Clint Mathis was not such a shell of his former self, all of your so-called "elite" players could have been gone at one time. As it is, you are still basically running an mid-to-low-grade A-League roster out on the field with Pope gone.

D.J. Countess and Jason Kreis are playing better than that standard - but I would be hard-pressed to find anyone else who was.

* - by anywere else - I mean any other team other than Columbus or Chivas USA .

 

I’m not sure I would be bragging about your predictions just yet. Your #2 team is just below us and picking FCD #1 was a no-brainer.

Aside from that you basically have told us that all our players are sorry. I can’t buy that right now either. Let’s get back together at the end of the season and evaluate it again.

 

Yeah, I will own up to that. I realize that Chivas USA was a bad pick. But when I made that choice, Sandoval and Palencios had not quit on the team yet. That made a big difference in the personnel that they had available. And if you read my commentary - I talked about the overall weakness of the division.

There were still people picking LA to be above Dallas. Dallas was not the presumptive favorite until they got Carlos Ruiz.

But I bet you that by the end of the season Chivas is above you and most likely above one or two other teams.

The team that has surprised me the most is Rapids. I though Clavijo was not so bad that he would "lose" Mark Chung and Chris Henderson (both couldn't stand him). They are professional players, and their happy detachment from the team speaks volumes about the shambles it is in from a sporting standpoint. They are truly the Columbus Crew of the Western Division.

No - it is not just that your players are sorry. It is the way that they are sorry. Ellinger really screwed up in some particular areas of his team-building philosophy. There are some very poor teams (from a results standpoint) that are still able to hang in games and build momentum over the course of a season. But Ellinger did not give your team a good core (through the center of the field). He did not give your team a leader in the engine room who could help control the tempo of the game and he did not select veteren/star players who would be immune to national team call-ups and play two-way football.

Look at what Dallas looked like last season. They were still a deplorable team. But they had much more competitive upside that helped them make a better transition this year when they added better personnel.

By focusing most of the money on the forwards (Kreis and Mathis) and on one defender (Pope) and being completely negligent in forming the side where the game is won and lost (midfield), Ellinger was stupid.

And by drafting so many players who were VERY young and ill-suited to contribute right away (taking a keeper where he did in the draft - unnecessary, drafting a 16 year old that no one else was pressing for, drafting Watson etc), he made bad choices.

It was like an NFL team just starting out and signing crummy linemen, then drafting the TOP-RATED HEISMAN Quarterback and shelling out money on some aging running-back and wide receiver with great stats 5 years ago. Recipe for disaster.

 

Let's see Liverpool SC - your team is DC United - oh wait, isn't your team next to last in the standings...and didn't DC draft a first round pick of a 14 soon to be 15 year old a couple of years ago...you need to go back to your own boards...

 

Watson hasn't contributed?? Interesting.

 

Well that's the point isn't it! We aren't the Expos, we're the Metz. Actually paying and stinking at the same time. That points to horrible personel decisions. We don't even have room to bring on decent players in theory. Mathis must go.... I don't know how, but we need to get his ass out of here.

 

He has had a few good games, but he is not having the impact of a Chris Rolfe or a Michael Barrett or a Hercules Gomez or an Abe Thompson or a Scott Sealy. I am willing to give you him as a good signing, but why didn't Ellinger do a better job signing some forward players who had a lot of energy and could play better team defense (such as Chris Carrieri)? Watson is still very light and gets tossed around out there.

And he has only scored a single goal and four shots in 8 games. Not exactly blowing the doors off.

Also - I like Luke Kraemalmeyer a lot. But he is another case of a player who (at least now) struggles with the physical nature of MLS and the demands of two-way play. Why didn't Ellinger think about these things during his draft?

We are basically tied for 4th and 3 points out of 3rd place. We also have a game in hand over most teams in our division. Chicago has played 3 more games than we have, which explains their inflated points total. My team has not played your team once, has not played Colorado once, has only played Chivas USA once and has not played the Galaxatives at RFK. Most of the teams in the Eastern Conference have already racked up lots of points against these bottom dwellers. We also had a very difficult early season with the fixture congestion due to our matches against Harbour View and Pumas (we had one stretch with 5 games in 14 days that included trips to Ciuded de Mexico and Los Angeles).

We have beaten New England, Kansas, Chicago and San Jose. So I am not too worried that we have the quality to peak high once our younger/newer players: Boswell (an undrafted free agent from Florida, John Ellinger), Clyde Simms and John Wilson (A League players who were available to any MLS team, John Ellinger) get fully acclimated in the squad.

Your team has played a much easier schedule and has half the points (with a game in hand). So your point is a little bit lost.

The Eastern Conference is so much stronger than the Western Conference, it is pretty much like a Second Division (if you swap Dallas for Columbus).

These are the points that Checketts needs to take into consideration. Signings like Pope and Mathis are making Real Salt Lake look like the New York Knicks West - too many non-contributing players taking too much of the available money. I had not realized that RSL had the 4th highest salary among MLS teams. That is almost scandalous.

I still don't understand why Ellinger did not look for a great/plus holding midfielder. It sounds like he could have worked for a player like Rico Clark (maybe offering a package deal with the higher draft pick to either Metrostars or San Jose). They could have tried for Pablo Mastroeni (a high-dollar player to be sure, but one who is rumored to be available and who would have had a much greater impact than Mathis) or even Kyle Beckerman.

Again - these are players who can help control the tempo of a match, win some balls, protect the backline and support playmakers like Andy Williams who tend to get less and less effective the more work that is required of them.

And as far as international players go - for the salary that Mathis is getting, you could have had two or three players who cost about what Christian Gomez or Mario Rodriguez or Shalrie Joseph are making. I know it can be tough to find impact players like these - but RSL had plenty of time to scout and search over the last year. Instead they sign a player like Marlon Rojas who plays in a low-impact position (fullback) and who had a very modest pedigree.

I do like the Tiger signing, although it does seem like he is a bit limited. A bit of a case of too little, too late - but he was a very low-risk, low-cost signing and he is a great bench player if not a great starter. There are plenty of these kinds of players around in A League.


The only reason I posted in this thread was to let you know that you shouldn't be too down on your team. They are doing as much as could be expected (with the exception of giving up 6 goals to a bottom-tier A-League, er, USL First Division team). The problems that your team has were apparent before the season: the weak midfield, the overreliance on declining players who soak up too much of the money, overlooking the physical demands of two-way play in MLS and the lack of young impact players who can contribute today. For this reason - I don't think you should fault Ellinger the coach as much as Ellinger the "GM". If you paired him with a good technical director who could help find great players in USL First Division and overseas, he may turn out okay. But the panicky kind of response he has had to the poor run of late is not a good sign. He needs to keep inspiring confidence in his guys and help them draw satisfaction from performing at their peak regardless of the results.

 

Watson has no energy either? Are we talking about the same player here?

You first comment was not contributing. Now it's "not exactly blowing the doors off". Give me a break! You could say that for the entire team.

 

My statement was: lots of energy and could play better team defense.

For my statement to be false, both of the issues above would have to be false. Watson does play with energy, but he cannot get stuck-in very well. That is why he ends up peeling himself up off of your carpet so frequently in matches. He is not physically robust enough to mix it up with the average player in MLS.

As far as "not exactly blowing the doors off" - that means that he is not an obvious candidate for rookie of the year or any other such accolade. Your fans have been acting like he is the second coming of Damani Ralph or Taylor Twellman just because he runs around a lot and appears to be more dangerous than your other, rather lethargic forwards (Kreis is good but not high-energy). I am suggesting that a "game-breaking" attacking player should have more than 2 shots on goal in 400+ minutes or at the very least be doing a lot of other stuff to help the team win (i.e. play defense, set-up goals, make tons of decoy runs that lead to goals, etc). In reality, Jamie Watson has had one good game in MLS and he showed up pretty well against a lower-tier USL First Division team.

If that is a satisfactory contribution in your eyes - then I will be glad to concede the point about Jamie Watson. I admit I have not seen him play that much. Although he still has not been half as effective (from a production standpoint) as Abe Thompson (physically strong), Scott Sealy (physically mature), Chris Rolfe (physical freak of nature), Chad Barrett, Abbe Ibrahim or a number of other rookie forwards. Many of whom were available to RSL through the draft or as free-agent signings.

If you disagree with my analysis of your team's weaknesses, that is fine. I am glad you are an earnest supporter of your team. But I think a lot of what I have posted is true. Your team is suffering more from a talent deficit than a terrible coaching deficit. Your squad does not seem to give up - they just can't cut it against tougher teams. Unless the coach is a complete imbecile from a tactics standpoint (like Columbus - a team with plenty of talent) - that is usually the hallmark of an overmatched squad.

 

Look, this isn't rocket science. Watson is 19 years old. You're comparing him to players that are all much older than him.

Sealy has international experience & is 23 and has nice midfield feeding him the ball.

Abe Thompson hasn't had an impact; look at his minutes. He's just lucky to be part of a machine.

Gomez is a moot point. IIRC he's been LA's property for 2 or 3 seasons now.

I'm assuming by Michael Barrett you mean Chad Barrett. The boy's barely played for 2 hours this season. How the heck does that equal impact?


Why not Carrieri? Cuz he's a cancer. Why do you think the Rapids let him go twice? Hit the wrong key on the entry form when submitting the roster?

Watson's not the issue. He's a young pup that was never a key part of Ellinger's plans. But the job wasn't getting done and things had to get shook up.

 

Exactly. Maybe Ellinger would have been wiser to draft someone who is not 19 years old and is ready to play two-way soccer.

And got drafted two slots lower than Watson. Hmm. Wonder how hard it would have been to package that first pick and Watson's pick for two lower first round picks and gotten a Parkhurst and a Sealy? Maybe that would have been smarter than two guys who are teenagers.

Besides, Kansas City doesn't have a great playmaker in midfield (at least not one that can play major minutes). Klein crosses the ball well. But they don't have a number 10. It is probably their greatest lack.

I don't care about his minutes. But since you mentioned it, he has 3 goals in 212 minutes. That is half the minutes and three times the goals that Watson has. And Thompson is actually strong enough to match up well against physical defenders.

I guess RSL fans have a different view of what constitutes 'impact'.

And if you are suggesting that "anybody" would score goals for FC Dallas, how come Arturo Alvarez and Ramon Nunez don't have as many as Abe Thompson in tons more minutes? Don't take away from Abe the fact that he is a solid player who was available late in the draft.

Oh yeah, Dallas also has Aaron Pitchkolen. A great center of the park player who was not drafted until the end of the second round. He has also scored goals from midfield. I know it is hard for RSL fans to believe it is possible for midfielders to score goals - but it can be done and this rookie has scored almost as many goals (in 812 minutes) as yours has this season.

He was never signed to more than a developmental contract in 2002. This means "available". Not quite sure how this makes him moot.

Sorry about missing out on the first name. Note that in 2 hours playing time he has a goal, an assist, twice as many shots and he has won IIRC a penalty kick. He is also physically more robust than Jamie Watson.

Why do I think the Rapids signed him twice? Because he had great talent and did the work of two players on the field. He is the prototypical type of player you want on an expansion team because he gets results even without service.

Besides. Ellinger signed a cancer in Mathis and misfits like Pierce and Williams. So why not take a chance on a guy like Carrieri?

Yeah that's the problem. Ellinger chose to use precious draft picks (the 1st pick and the 13th pick) to draft guys who were not key parts of his plan. That is STUPID. Here is a list of players that Watson could have been:

James Riley
Domenic Mediate
Chris Rolfe
Gonzalo Segares
Brian Boswell
Aaron Pitchkolen
Abe Thompson

Some of these guys would probably have helped out your team much more than Watson.

That isn't true. It is well known that Mastro has been available at different times both in this off-season and last due to his high salary. The Rapids got sick of him being gone with the Nats so much and being injured/red carded at other times on his high salary. Perhaps that would have been a problem for you too. But a player like Mastro will keep you in far more games (at a lower salary) than Clint Mathis. And it takes no clairvoyance to recognize that fact. The engine room is where games are run and Clint ain't got the stomach for the engine room.

I just threw out some ideas. There are plenty of ways that RSL could have made this happen. For instance, they could have done the Pope trade earlier, but insisted upon getting Clark (and giving up another draft pick or an YI slot in return) as part of the business. That is why RSL management gets paid the big bucks. As it is, they took the most expensive defender from MLS' worst defense the season before and a broken-down striker who is among the most expensive players in the league and thought that Brian Kamler and Andy Willams would be a great center midfield pairing. That is stupid.

That is why it is prudent for expansion teams to hire (as a director of scouting or technical director) someone who has been around the block and can help balance a rookie coach who reflexively signs a bunch of teenagers he has coached, or former teenagers he has coached - to play in a man's league. They had plenty of time to do scouting and watch games. Soccer is being played year round around the world. And plane tickets to South America are pretty cheap right now.

You are really mixing apples and oranges there. Stokes was a first-round draft pick out of college - like Troy Roberts. And he is better than half your defenders. Jose Alegria was from Fairfax Virginia and was basically a free-agent signing. Jamil Walker is not a terrible player as a 4th forward in MLS.

There will always be bad picks that don't turn out. But your team's entire philosophy to the draft and to its "elite player" acquisitions was flawed. It is the philosophy that is flawed. Not things that just inexplicably didn't turn out okay.

Read the posts I alluded to up thread. Chivas is going to get better this year. You are going to get worse. Chivas is starting to shore up their defense (they have given up far fewer goals in the last 4 - 6 games) and any team that is as risk-taking as they are can score a bunch of goals if they are playing a weak team.

Chivas did not build their team with teenagers and guys who are older and will struggle in the heat come the end of July and August. Chivas did not forget about the midfield and they are addressing their greatest weakness (oddly enough their forwards). They will be okay by the end of the season.

https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=184600

I wrote about it the day after Ives posted his run-down of the West, well before the season started. I don't think that any of the pundits went into the team's weaknesses the way some of the posters did on this thread.

 

1. Hire a technical director who handles personnel matters, and take those responsibilities away from Ellinger so that he can focus on coaching.

2. Hire a scouting director who is familiar with USL First Division and has an eye towards signing players who can shore up key weak spots on the team (esp central midfield).

3. Find a way to shed some salary. Be creative/ruthless if necessary. A team like Kansas City may bite on Andy Williams for Alex Zotinca or someone like that. Zotinca would be better at defensive midfield than anyone you have. Or try to trade Mathis or Pope straight up for a SI player like Galvan Rey, who is max salary and otherwise unmoveable (but will be coming off the books after this year). You may find a taker and it will give you more flexibility in the coming year.

4. Find a way to get some value out of the Senior International slots. For instance, find a team that has a useless SI they need to get rid of and do a package deal to include that player with a player who fills a hole on your team, since you are one of the few MLS sides that can accommodate a non-contributing SI player on your roster.

5. Focus on developing more effective team-defense so that the backline does not get overwhelmed. Every player has to work hard on both sides of the ball or they do not play (Mathis, Williams, Selolwane might see their roles diminished).

6. Consider going to a 4-5-1 or 3-5-2 if it helps the team be more effective winning the battle of the midfield. This formation can work for you in more games against Western Conference opponents - most of whom concentrate their build-up play through the channels (4-3-3 and 3-4-3 and the weird Galaxy 4-box-2 formation) and the center of the field. You would get killed by wing midfielders playing this way game in and game out in the Eastern Conference, but not so much in the Western Conference.

 

So it appears this thread has now become a Watson bashing...He is still a young player and growing. You are not comparing apples to apples against players that are older than him. Watson brings energy and enthusiam to the pitch that others seem to have left at home.. It seems the focus of negative should be focused on the rest of the team that go out game after game and only bring 50% at best to the game.

 

You guys are struggling with reading comprehension here. I am not suggesting Watson is a bad player. I am saying that he is not having as big an impact (as a teenager) as Abe Thompson, Chris Rolfe, Scott Sealy or some of the other players that I have referenced. I have no doubt that he has the potential and likelihood of being a quality MLS player in 2 - 3 years. I would be surprised if he is not better than a half the players I mentioned. Once he is no longer a teenager.

Nick Besagno may be in the same situation.

But that does not mean that either was the right choice for Ellinger and Co. to select in the draft. They are not the best players to meet the needs of a brand new expansion team that is going to need to get a big impact out of its higher-end draft picks.

Whether Watson is now (or is going to be) a good player is not my point. It is whether he was the best use of the 13th pick in the draft to meet RSL's needs in this season and the next. See the difference?

MLS is not a league like MLB, where first round draft picks should only be expected to mature in 4 years or something. The league is designed for more of a short-term approach. There was no reason why RSL should not have been able to put together a competitive playoff challenging team from year 1. Chicago proved that could be done. The playoff format (especially considering the relative strength of the Western conference) and the parity in the league almost beg for an expansion team to make a run at a playoff spot. Especially since ya'll ended up with the fourth-highest payroll in the league.

But RSL did not build their team sensibly with this objective in mind. Instead, they drafted three players (Nolly, Watson and Besagno) who were not likely to start any games, let alone have a big impact on the season. Does this make sense considering the defending champions have 3 first-year MLS players in the starting lineup?

It is not going to be easy to fix things this season. But next year you will have some more very good draft picks and possibly even another allocation if you are bad enough this season. I just hope that your front office is prudent about selecting players who make a bigger difference than Pope, Mathis, Watson, Besagno, etc (your "high opportunity cost" players). That is - a player who can boss the midfield (like Simo Valakari) or a player who is a good, hard-working two-way attacking player (like Chris Carrieri - the US version of Craig Bellamy) and some other guys who bring a little more all-around skills to the outside of your formation (Gregario might be one of these) than guys like Broome, Brown or Pierce are able to.

 

But that's not making an impact. That's playing for a damn good team that's playing well in the weaker of the 2 divisions.

I'm saying you're thinking about this way more than you should. You have your opinion and you've expressed it. But just because you can yap about it for paragraphs on end doesn't mean you know better than Ellinger. Especially considering that I'll be damned if you have any proof that back when the draft was ahppening, you were saying the same things.

Daftee. Rapids cut him again him again this year and not a single MLS team picked him up. Of course that means nothing but your view of Carrieri means everything.

again, show me the money. What were you saying about which players to draft BEFORE the draft happened?

 

A draft philosophy that involves teenagers and a goalkeeper (not anticipated to start). When you have the best picks in each round. Is not going to get you impact players for an expansion team.

That is the simple truth. If you cannot build a successful MLS team around Freddy Freaking Adu or Danny Szetela (indeed neither is a full-time starter). You won't be doing it with Nick Besagno or Jamie Watson. I guess you have to be a rocket scientist to understand that.

It is true that some of the other draft picks have not or will not pan out - no one is clairvoyant. But why shouldn't the draft philosophy (not individual picks) of a team starting from scratch involve physically mature players who can hold their own in a man's league? It is not like the draft is spin the bottle. You have to have a gameplan for what you want to get out of it. Steve Nicol (Parkhurst, Riley, etc) sure did. Steve Sampson (Ihemulu, Enfield, etc) sure did. Chicago (Rolfe, Barrett, Stewart, John, etc) sure did - just look at how they rebuilt an offense from scratch after losing all of their top strikers - they did it mostly through the draft on very short notice.

By the way, Abe Thompson has a game winning goal. Gonzolo Segeres has 2 (as a defender). Rolfe has 1. Barrett has a game-winning assist. Boswell has a game-winning goal. Scott Sealy has a game winning goal. That is making an impact.

None of your rookies have had either a game-winning goal or assist.

Not one of other first round picks has fewer minutes than first pick overall Nick Besagno. Even Jack Stewart - playing behind an all-star has a couple more. Some teams have the luxury of breaking in a first round draft pick slowly. But I don't think an expansion team is one of them.

I only hope that Ellinger is still around when Nolly, Besagno and Watson are entering their maturity as professional players.

 

Again Liverpoool_Sc, you fail to show these predictions back before the draft. It's nice to see you think these things now, but they're all in hindsight. It'd mean something to me if before the draft you were saying to nab these other players. That doesn't seem to be the case.

 

Didn't they lose a pick in aquiring Broome?