I figured out that Fire get RSL 's 2006 2nd round pick because of Whitfield (dumb, dumb) Anyone else find out anything?
Hey, where's the FCD game thread?? How am I supposed to troll this board if you aren't going to discuss the game?
I know its hard, because you are a Dallas fan, but check the RSL forum main page, its been stickied for your small brain.
D'OH!!! I skimmed the front page looking for it. I'm used to seeing game threads with a date attatched I guess. As for this thread topic......I personally questioned the wisdom of Ellinger's strategy from the beginning. IMO, expansion clubs are going to struggle, under the current expansion rules anyway, no matter what you do. Knowing this, the wise thing to do is to go for youth....allow them to get in their knocks during the early years so that when you enter year 3 or 4 you have seasoned veterans ready to build around. By building the team around aged veterans RSL has only guaranteed the need to rebuild again in a few years when these guys stop playing....meanwhile the youngsters are having a hard time getting on the pitch for much needed game experience. I think, other than Besango, Ellinger drafted pretty well. Hopefully in the next couple of drafts he can do the same. Meanwhile some of the veterans will retire and you'll recieve allocations as compensation which can be used to bring in some foreign talent or returning yanks with more energy and upside. Ellinger's a good coach, that's important to remember.....given time I think he will build you guys a solid club. The one thing that would worry me is Chivas USA all of a sudden throwing some good players in there to be more competitive. Looks like Palencia will be joining them soon. If that kind of thing continues through the next few seasons it will be tough to hang with them......which will only make the drive to get into the playoffs that much tougher. I'm looking forward to a competitive RSL club coming into the fold. Its a market with great potential, and I think the fans will recognize a quality club if they have one. Perhaps that will make the push for public stadium funding a bit easier.
Remember, at the end of the day RSL is a business. Wondering why they brought Pope, Kries and Mathis in? See the first sentence in my post.
I'm not wondering....I know exactly why, but I still disagree with it. Considering the market and the lack of professional sports competition, I see no reason why RSL could still be having success at the gate with a younger lineup. I'm not advocating that there be NO marquee players on the squad. Just not a team built around guys who won't be around in 2-3 seasons. I believe they could have marketed the team around just Kries, or just Pope, or just Mathis and been just as succesful at the gate. A team without ANY veteran leadership would be worse off than this one is......so I'm certainly not suggesting that at all.
I am not a RSL fan but I with SoccerPrime about what is lacking for them is foriegn more to the point Latin American players. Clint Mathis is a natural born leader and genuis in Mid field but he could do better if he didnt have to do so much. What RSL need to foucs is on more high preassure defense, better short pass give and goes and creative passing, individual ball skills, and condintioning to get back on defense. We need to keep American Soccer up to a certain standard after the last World Cup there actually are advantages we have over the Europeans that can play only see how to play one way. You beat them by playing outside the scope of there narrow vision. They like to call it organiztion. Two leagues have just entered the realm of world class football MlS and the Mexican league. I just saw Monarces play and they are ahead of us but they are about ready to shock the world with that new Argentinan coach. We need to keep up and compete. RSL is falling behind but the whole league needs to keep up for the sake of out National Pride.