Years of watching the Revs not fill all their rosters slots, not hire full complements of coaches, not hire their own scouts, not make bigger investments in the youth system (particularly in terms of facilities and fielding a USL side), not use all their DP slots and not build a SSS isn't evidence enough for you? That's kind of like the frog in the boiling pot of water saying, "Is it hot in here? I didn't notice."
Virtually every decision that virtually every pro sports team (let alone, business in general) makes is at least in part, financially motivated. - Payroll is a league expense, not a club expense - and generally they are close to the maximum salary cap. Factoring in DP salaries, they are in the mix of clubs that don't spend way above MLS averages. How does that provide evidence of spending on coaches? - coaching staff: how much do they spend? How much do other teams spend? Do we even know that they spend less than average? - front office: same questions. - there's no evidence that the decision, up to now, not to field a USL team is a purely financial one. And, fielding USL teams is a relatively new trend in MLS. The Revs generally do what other teams do, but seem to prefer to not be on the leading edge. You're answering the question with the question. - Why should not filling their roster be seen as a financial decision? They could easily fill those empty spots with league-paid salaries. - There youth system is generally pretty well-regarding in MLS and they do invest plenty of money in it, providing fee-free, high-level club training for the participants, while continuing to add teams and new age groups. - There is no evidence that the inability to build a SSS up to now is primarily a financial decision. Finding a suitable site is pretty clearly the primary roadblock - and while that involves financial factors, they clearly aren't the only factors. ---- Possibly not having a 4th coach is a financial decision, but there's not enough information to assume that. Since a 4th coach is not likely to be a very high salary, it seems rather unlikely (to me, at least) that the ownership would draw a line in the sand about that, if the head coach felt he really needed one more coach to be successful.
I'm glad you are finally starting to see my point. DP salary: One time they "broke the bank" on a DP (Jones), and I'm sure that was calculated into what he would bring in increased ticket sales and jersey sales. He essentially paid for himself. Once that jersey money dried up, they shipped him out of town and replaced him with two players (Koffie and Kouassi) who combined make 1/3 the amount Jones made. It will be interesting to see how long they keep Kamara around. We've established the fact the Kraft is a (dare I say it) savvy businessman. Does it make sense that a savvy businessman would pay top dollar for a head coach with zero experience and not even a coaching license? Isn't it a logical conclusion that he would be paid near or at the bottom of the MLS coaching scale? Throw in the fact that it is also the smallest coaching staff in the league, and it becomes a logical conclusion that it is also among the lowest paid. Same criteria falls on the front office. Zero experience outside on-the-job training, would be foolish to pay them what more accomplished team presidents and GMs are. Scouting: virtually non-existent, so can't be spending much on that. USL: More than half the league (11 of 20) own a USL team (not including Houston's hybrid). Others have plans to launch soon. The Revs seem perfectly happy with their non-existent relationship with Rochester. Given that owning a USL club is more expensive than an affiliate, and that the Rhinos were the least used affiliate in the league, it is a logical conclusion that the Revs spent the least amount of any MLS club on the USL.
The league doesn't make any money on it's own, that money comes from the clubs. It's an accounting trick to keep the league's single entity status. In your words, we don't know for a fact that teams don't get to pocket the amount they don't spend up to the cap...
OK, so which one is it? The Revs are middle of the road in terms of payroll, but for years they would be well below the league salary ca.. um, budget. We don't know the exact numbers, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and speculate that it costs more to have, say, 7 coaches on your payroll than 3. Same answer. How many people do the Revs employ on the non-soccer side? (not players, coaches, trainers, equipment managers, etc.) Someone did an informal survey on this a couple years ago and the Revs were among the bottom of the league in numbers, with most of those roles being junior level positions. And yet, it used to be worse when the Patriots people were doing the jobs that should have been done by Revs-only staff. Are you a lawyer or something, because you use that term a lot. There is no evidence that I wasn't carrying Ante Razov's severed head in my gym bag. You can't prove it, and no one saw me do it. Seriously, about half the teams have their own USL teams, and within the next 5 years I expect 23 of the 24 teams to have them, or serious plans underway for one. Depending on how the whole USL/NASL thing shakes out, they ought to just go with a joint venture with the Pioneers and stock them with reserves. 2 hours down the Pike is a lot easier than sending them to no-man's land in Rochester, where they won't even play. This again? So why didn't they? I would like to know how there can be "no evidence" of something being the case, where at the same time, it's "primarily" just that, if you're talking spending $100 million or more. Can you 'splain that to the more thick-headed amongst us, because I don't seem to get it. So in other words, you don't think Heaps wants another assistant. But we don't have enough information. And how high of a salary do you think an assistant would make around the league? And I'm sure Kraft has no problem dropping an extra $100,000 if he doesn't think it's necessary, but there is "no evidence" either way. Oh well, might as well just let them off the hook then, right?
Absolutely agree. Almost all my friends/acquaintances of Portuguese/CV/Brazilian descent have been turned off to the Revs. The reactions I get when I mention the team are to "dis" the quality of the side -- I still hear things like me and 10 of my friends could beat them any day of the week. I try to combat this with logic, and my personal favorite argument: "This is the best LIVE soccer we can see in this area on a regular basis," but this argument usually gets the response: "I'd rather watch better games on TV."
I think its the same reason why nobody respects or watches Euro league basketball in the states. We feel like 4 of our friends and I could easily beat these scrub basketball teams form Europe. Just like we have biases, so does the rest of the world. We should be asking ourselves "what can we do to raise the profile of the MLS and soccer in the US in general?" I don't have any good ideas myself, but just knowing that MLS gets almost zero respect from most foreigners is a start.
You've pushed my favorite button -- the how can we improve the view of MLS from the foreign-born fan's point of view question. I would argue that LAG's philosophy of over-the-hill superstars is exactly the wrong thing to do, and that the primary driver of making MLS a foreign-fan-friendly league is the perceived quality of play. Players like Giovinco are the way to get a really positive reaction from this fanbase. More Mouse, less Posh's hubby, I guess is my mantra. The Revs aren't much behind the rest of the league in my point of view: Bengtsen could have been this type of player. Kouassi could be this type of player.
It's worse than that. We hear the "MLS is crap" line all the time because people see the Revs and think the entire league is like that. Even my wife thought I was watching a foreign game when a Portland game was on a few weeks ago. People seem to be genuinely surprised that most of the league plays on grass fields to 90% capacity crowds and usually has a decent fan atmosphere. Meanwhile, we play on plastic grass in a soul-less concrete edifice in the middle of a suburban shopping mall, where even with a big crowd, there are 45,000 empty seats.
I never suggested that Heaps would draw top-dollar, but he had other good employment options, so I don't see him going for bottom-dollar either (not to mention that there was some salary history from when he was a player). I could see Soehn being paid more than most assistants; I have no idea about Remy Roy or Nick Downing. You may very well be right, but it is still based on assumptions, not any kind of real data. Why would the Revs spend less on USL than other teams that use affiliates? Plane fares? By the time almost everyone in the team has a USL team of their own (if it happens), it's a good bet that the Revs will too - based on their history with other league innovations. The Revs won't be among the first, but they generally do what becomes S.O.P. for the league. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think it makes sense to assume things with any factual data - or any other kind of evidence. This group is full of baseless assumptions. I'm not so sure the Pioneers would be interested. They seem to have their own, nice little gig and can run things the way they want, without having to play someone else's players. I don't know whether Heaps wants another assistant, but I don't see any logical reason why the Krafts would deny him one if he really felt it was necessary. To save $70-80-100K in a multi-million dollar operation? Maybe Heaps is a more hands-on coach than most - and he works with defenders, while Soehn works with attackers, Roy works with the keepers and Downing does the fitness drills and stretching. Do they need another coach to work with the lefties? I'm not saying another coach couldn't be helpful, I just don't assume that Heaps can't have one if he wants one.
Yes, we've covered that ad infinitum here. There is not any kind of real data, and there never will be. All we have to go on is what we see. In a word, yes. You can nitpick each item individually, and come up with an alternative answer, no matter how unlikely your alternative is. Heaps just doesn't want another coach (ignoring that it's been that way since the Revs began) seems much more unlikely to me, but it is a possibility, however remote. But when you take the list as a whole, it is a logical conclusion (to me anyway, obviously not to you) that money is the common thread and therefore the most likely explanation.
So you're disputing my speculation of the factual data that it would cost more to hire 7 coaches than 3? Well, I guess if the 3 coaches are Bruce Arena, Bob Bradley and Tata Martino, you may be right, but let's not even pretend that the Revs would even consider a coach in that price range. Oh, by the way, I think you forgot to answer this: Which is it? OR
My bolding. My issue is that 'could have' or 'could be' have been the operative phrases of the Revs FO for some time. Jermaine Jones 'was/is', other than that who 'is'. Kamara might finally be coming into form, but he's no Giovinco.
There's no contradiction there (the first statement is about evidence). That's fine - I expect each of us to have different ideas about what is more or less likely. What I argue about is assuming what some of us think is likely, when there isn't anything tangible to support it. I also think that in these discussions people tend to think that they have a pretty good grasp on the range of possible explanations for things, but, unless you are directly involved in the situation, that's probably not true. For ex., we really don't know Heaps' management style - whether he wants be a manager/delegator or more of an involved, hands-on coach, who is personally very involved with his players. When Nicol was in charge, maybe we could have had a full-time scout, but I certainly had the sense that he insisted upon being personally involved in scouting of foreign players. After time, he seemed to come to trust Mariner enough to involve him, but I think for the most part he seem to insist on relying upon his own eyes and the recommendations of a small circle of his personal football contacts.
Nicol might have done it that way because he had to. Once the season started, you knew there was zero chance of a new signing. The only exception was when the U20 WC was held in Canada and he came back with the two Gambians. If that tournament was held in Europe, that wasn't going to happen.
He might have, but OTOH he might have been unwilling to delegate that to anyone else (until Mariner, in his last few years). That was my point.
In that statement is reason they are a vanity. You think you have "facts" but they are an individuals personal interpretation of the data where vanity takes over. We see it all the time on this Board---same data but different individuals come away with different interpretations. Measuring a piece of lumber with ruler may allow for an object statement but when assessing data points where one isn't really sure what the data means or that all the data has been made available is always going to be arbitrary and a vanity
But if someone's personal opinion of the length of that piece of lumber is "3 feet," and when measured, the facts show that it is 34.63291 inches, I would tend to believe that person instead of the one who says it's 12 feet long.
Regarding scouting, I am not saying that it is the right approach, but I wonder if Nicol did not "teach" the Krafts how things were to be done in soccer. Maybe Nicol, as a respected soccer expert and winning coach, set the pattern that the head coach needs to see the players being scouted first hand before moving forward unless the player in question is a very well known commodity? Maybe Nicol being given the money to sign players, but not spending it because he didn't want to sign just anybody also taught the Krafts something about player acquisition and bang for the buck in soccer (not that I agree)? We will never know, but it is possible that some of these things are part of Nicol's legacy that will last longer than wins and losses? Maybe the Krafts have bought into the Bill Parcells statement that the person preparing the food should also be the person shopping for the food in order to have a better chance of success? Anyway, MLS has changed a lot in just the last few years. Hopefully, they Revs can move on as well regarding their approach to scouting.
Wrong. I understand the difference between fact and personal interpretation. FACTS: The Revs have the smallest coaching staff in the league The Revs have the smallest roster in the league The Revs do not own a USL team The Revs have the fewest player minutes played with a USL affiliate this year I am making my assumptions based on these facts. I never declared my assumptions/personal interpretations to be fact. I do feel my assumptions are "more likely" than any alternative that has been presented here. To me, the vanity is when someone says we don't have all the facts, therefore any interpretation of the facts is invalid, no matter how likely.
People who say this have such outdated thinking. Maybe they're referencing the Mickey mouse rules With a countdown clock and shootouts 20 years; maybe they're just arrogant and ignorant pricks - or all the above. Either way, I would love to see them get smoked by a USOC caliber revs lineup.
They were never right, however, the reality is the perception here. If you think that the caliber of play is low, and don't want to open your mind to see that it's better than you think, then you will continue to believe that the caliber of play is bad. Most of the people I'm thinking of aren't old enough to remember the countdown clock and shootout era.