Younger Yanks will choose playing abroad

Jimmy Conrad, Pablo Mastroeni, Brian Ching were not a part of the US Youth set up. All were developed by MLS. I'm not sure what you mean by "imapct" but they were all good enough for the USMNT and that's pretty good

 

Rommul, it makes a huge difference whether a guy is proven good or bad. A guy who is proven to be bad doesn't generally doesn't get a high wage. a guy proven to be good usually does. Not drawing a distinction between those two is an idea that cant be supported. How you can claim it's "immaterial" whether a guy is good or bad is well ....... it's silly. Spector is NOT proven like Arjen Robben. Nor is he proven like John Terry. Simply being on the field for a short period of time does not make any player proven. Spector doesn't have enough of a track record to be proven. If he did, he would have gotten more money, IF he was PROVEN to be a player as good as you apparently see him to be (the type of player that PSV thought they were getting with Beasley and Farfan).

As for Convey, put the argument together man. It's essentially the same argument as Farfan. How many national team appearances did Convey have when he went to Reading? Again, you are comparing apples to oranges. Convey, was a US National team regular. He was playing in nearly every game that the US played, whether it was as a starter or as a sub. You know that, so I don't know why you keep twirling in this same circle. Spector is a fringe national team with a couple of caps. Convey was a national team regular on the same national team. They were not similarly situated. I guess the issue that you and I are going to have here is that apparently you have Spectors pedigree as much more highly rated than I do, because you keep using him as a barometer against national team regulars. I don't think he has proven to be able to handle that level, and therefore, using him as a barometer is out of bounds to me.

 

On and off, this has been an interesting discussion. But it's been too riddled with people calling each other idiots over minor, quibbling points related to the topic, like the definition of a "mid-level player." Those of you who like to make your points very forcefully, please think twice about ripping on someone who could bring an interesting perspective to the discussion in this forum. Feel free to disagree, but ridiculing someone who comes on here using their real name, and providing real insight, deserves more respect than he got. And it's happened before, with other posters. The forum would be better if not for these flare-ups.

 

"The next time I have to come in here I'm crackin' skulls."

I had been thinking about "cracking down" and was posting a note on the board about just this thing...

 

Absolutely would consider Pablo an impact player. Ching I'm less inclined although his contribs in qualifying make a good argument, Conrad will have his chance.

And it's always going to be a more mixed bag the less "mainstream" of a pipeline you have. A guy like Kenny Cooper, Danny Karbassyoon, Spector or Owen Hargraeves can come out of the hinterlands, even if they aren't high up in the youth program (I don't really know where Hargraeves fell in the Canadian national team radar, but Cooper and Karby were on the lists, just not at the top, Spector was more highly rated, I think.)

Anyway, I'm not deeply invested on either side of this debate. I do feel there are enough professional outlets that a team without MLS (ie. the 94 boys plus the increased opps due to their success) would still find 23 guys in good professional situations, but that the next 40 players would see a really steep drop-off.

And certainly MLS has changed US soccer culture, will continue to build exponentially on any dividends it has paid in terms of nation team and youth success and attitude in general. I just don't think it's a "without MLS we go back to not qualifying" world.

And, to get back on track, the US, in part because of MLS will continue to produce too many promising players to absorb them all properly, so more and more will continue to find game off-shore. Which is all good.

 

I'm sorry, if this is directed at me, I strongly disagree. Even if Peter Wilt the poster is Peter Wilt the man, he still has to post consistent points of view and not backtrack, revise or obfuscate his posts or he gets reamed. That's just how it is. You don't know who I am, or SFS is, or Peter Wilt is. If one of us writes that there won't be "any" of something, then change our definition so we can be right, rather than simply explaining that we were hyperbolic and reframing the debate properly, we get reamed, and rightly so.

If it's not me you're refering to - nevermind.

But I personally find it insulting that anyone would expect a lesser level of credibility and accountabililty from a guy because he's got a screename Peter Wilt or Pele or England66. In fact, I think England, despite everyone thinking they know who he is, keeps a great attitude. He is regularly attacked (and attacks) but gets the game. This is not a press room. It's a forum - like a sports bar without the beer and urine smell. That's the nature of the beast.

 

I am going to guess, when you put it into a situation of "all else being equal" which is a better choice to develop? Europe or MLS?

 

I really don't think he backtracked, revised, or obfuscated, and that's part of why I feel he was unfairly treated. Since Peter has held numerous chat sessions on the Fire board using the same login - well, it's pretty clearly him, though obviously it's not your responsibility to know that. You are welcome to your interpretation of his comments, but even using your interpretation of what happened, I still don't think it's something for which a poster should be "rightly reamed."

 

For some time I've been trying to get someone else to start a thread exploring this 'market' concept. I'm not the guy to do it, because I "don't know the player pool well enough" and because I "bring out the worst in other posters."

So let me start by apologizing for all my short-comings.

Actually, I haven't started a 'smart market' thread because I don't understand the concept well enough and I don't want to lead others astray. But SFS has made a start, above. Maybe someone who understands the concept well can share that understanding.

You have a worldwide marketplace for soccer players. As I understand the smart market concept, all the actors are familiar with all the available information and make rational decisions accordingly. A smart market will take into account all the known subtleties and complexities of a given player's situation, and his salary will reflect his value in the market.

The soccer market is imperfect, and their are presumably barriers, e.g., permission to play in England, the MLS salary cap, restrictions on signing young players. But over time the market should provide a rough guide to how players are rated.

That doesn't mean the USMNT coach should pick our 23 highest-paid players. It does mean that the club market has made a series of judgements about our players, and that judgement is useful information. It also means that when one of our young players signs a big contract, we should all sit up and take notice.

What does all this mean for our young players? Well, they should hire a good agent for one thing, someone who knows the international marketplace. They should realize that there's no 'one size fits all' solution, and that in most cases playing is more useful than sitting on the bench, no matter what the salary is.

Mostly, they should plan their careers and their lives. It's easy enough for us to send LD off to Europe again, but if he's happy here and unhappy there, well, it's his life.

Going to Europe is certainly not going to work out well for every promising young player we have. But I'm encouraged that more and more are choosing to go. That's where the money is, and the more our young players are able to thrive in Europe, the better for all our prospects.

 

Cool. You don't need me to tell you have a right to your opinion, but I will just reiterate that I don't feel he was mistreated by me, and I actually think he was a bit of a dink in his authoritative posting. But that's just me. And I never assume screen names are the guy named - and most often don't care.

But again, I will simply say that I think he was wrong in posting that not "any" mid-level MLSer will go to Europe and then try to define down "mid level" as #14 on the roster. If it really was Peter Wilt, then I think he's doubly duplicitous, as he knows #14 on an MLS is not really "mid-level."

And if he can't take the BS heat, what the heck is he doing with the Fire. (see what I did there? huh??)

 

I don't know how you put it in a situation of "all else being equal." For some guys, MLS is great. I would say, save the most elite players, it comes down to ancilliary concerns: where you want to live, maturity, money, etc.

From a pure developmental standpoint, I have always held it is too individual to generalize. Would JOB have been the player he became in 2002 if he had finished at Brentwood, gone to UCLA or Brown or Duke or wherever, then the Gals? I don't know for sure, but my advice is if you are making a move at that age, you are better off at Ajax than Bradenton. But if you are going to go to Amsterdam, be miserable, eat dope and get fat, then you are much better off in the states (save the eating dope part).

I guess we could ask will the "non-mls" academy players do better than the college to Euro guys (another route, btw, and one taken by more guys than the straight to MLS route) or the "straight to MLS" guys. I'm going to guess you end up with a mix.

I think more and more guys are going to have to ask - where do a I play and how does that fit in with the club I'm looking at. Often this kind of analysis is a wash as injuries, coaching changes etc. change the landscape often and quickly, but there are a few MLS clubs where you could languish in a given position for a good long time, simply due to the personel in front of you.

 

DK - I think you usually have a good perspective, so if you think I was OTT, I'll accept it. Didn't mean to be. Still feel the poster know as Peter was being a bit holier-than, but I'll apologi(s/z)e and get on with it.

But I reserve the right to respond by post and not screen name.

 

Absolutely, but ... if there's very little improvement in a player's skills over the years of him being in MLS - and let's face it, both Eddie Johnson and Josh Wolff can be judged to have no skills at all by the World Cup standards that even include Razak Pimpong - then it's MLS that is responsible for the players in their mid-20s and beyond.

To quote Brad Friedel, "A player can learn more in one year in the EPL than in ten years in MLS."

This is not to say that Brian had learned everything at Fulham but that he is probably a mutt of Wolfsburg, Columbus, Preston North End and Fulham, with the last team giving him the opportunity to succeed more than his previous four.

Yes, both the credit for taking him from a clueless big guy who failed to make the league on the first try to a forward who can score eight goals in nine MLS games ... but also blame for keeping him without an ability to hit a quick turnaround shot, a long distance shot, dribble for a shot, be an effective target player on the ground for a wall pass, etc.

Convey was sold for about $1.3M to Reading where he was considered a bust his first year. After two years at Reading, his speculated valuation went to £2-3M or beyond the "magical" $3M threshold that I thought was a good standard of judging a league's ability to develop its prospects.

In other words, four years in MLS got him up to $1.3M (and that may have been his value after the U-20, regardless of MLS) while his two years at Reading triple his value to ~ $4M. If so, I know what I consider to be a more effective model of development.

Well, Jim "Chrissy" Everett was not known in the NFL for having intestinal fortitude (ie., the "phantom sack") while Brett Favre is.

MLS needs to copy a quality soccer academy (Europe or South America) and concentrate on teaching first the basic skills - trapping, passing, crossing, heading, shooting - and then move on to the offensive tactical aspects of the game - movement off the ball, triangulation, etc. before forcing the team game tactics on its players. At the present time, the game tactics are limited greatly by the players inability to execute anything more than a rudimentary strategy. With improved skills, one could assign more complicated tasks to those on the pitch.

And, as a side (footsitter) note, some MLS coaches clearly offer a different approach than others. The DCU isn't storming the league by accident.

Ah, but that's the catch and the main point of my MLS "bashing". You don't need anything extraordinary. A good touch is learned by practice - get a JUGS type pitching/football throwing machine (600 kicks/hour) and get your players to work with it for 4-6 hours per day. I guarantee you after taking 10,000-15,000 kicks at 30 mph, your boys will be able to settle a headbutt from Zinedine Zidane.

 

Individual markets are imperfect but overall it's hard to argue that there are long-term mistakes (insofar as the individual mistakes of signing players who can't adjust to a team or a league, this happens all the time since the decisions are made by humans) at the middle to the top of the soccer pyramid. In other words, you don't get any Ronaldinhos playing at low-tier leagues for long.

Now, as you decrease individual quality, the difference between players gets smaller and smaller and that's why you don't see many Euro purchases of the MLS performers -- a chance that someone like Nat Borchers may turn into a star isn't worth a lot of money. You take those players if the transfer price is low or there're no transfer fees at all.

Right. Price in and of itself indicates a degree of interest from the market participants, an assumed quality. Some of the accusations against Raymond Domenech before the Cup was that he chose not to select some of the better paid French stars like Nicolas Anelka and Philippe Mexes.

There's really no "bench" for young players. They may not play for the first squad but they then play for the reserves or are loaned out to lower leagues, etc.

It's different fo the stars who really want the first team action and don't consider anything else acceptable.

It is ... but you can judge him as a footballer without judging him as a person (unless this spills over into his football life) and, as a footballer, he did something extremely rare.

And I'll leave it at that.

 

First of all, thanks for the thoughtful reply. I don't think the market tells you everything you need to know, but it tells you a lot. We should all learn to listen and try to understand what it's telling us.

I agree that my use of 'bench' was imprecise. I meant it in the sense of not-starting (or playing regularly) for the 'first' team. I realize that no one is actually sitting around.

And I would reiterate that there is not one answer that fits every player. How much can LD develop as a player in Germany if he's miserable there? I think he might have done well to look at opportunities in other European leagues before 'giving up on Europe,' but that's his decision. Also, in the case of 'star' players, however defined, we have to add endorsement opportunities into the mix.

Klinsmann is another somewhat unusual example - a coach who might be offered a big contract to coach the USMNT and decline for personal reasons. [I'm assuming he doesn't 'need' the money.] Presumably the market would argue that we increase the offer until he changes his mind, but it might not be rational for us to go as high as it might take to convince him.

Back to our players, can someone give me a reliable source for salaries? I know the MLS salary list/scale was published this spring. Is the salary information for our Euro-based players also readily available? Thanks in advance.

 

Endorsements add to his wallet. They don't add to his football skill/savvy.

As to him improving, if a player decides that he reached a comfortable level in his play and that's where he's going to stay, there ain't much an outsider can do.

Well, the US has to first place a value on Klinsmann as a head coach. If they think he's a $5M/Y performer but he's willing to settle at $2.2M/Y, there's no reason to bid higher.

If he turns $2.2M/Y down, then they should negotiate until the amount reaches $5M/Y. After that point, they should bow out.

I posted various salaries (as speculated, in some cases) on past threads. The info trickles out from time to time.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2006/teams/england/5148730.stm

was posted in Youth Soccer but a great read and perfect for thsi topic/

 

Don't have the Euro salaries, but here is a list of MLS salaries:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/mls/longterm/2006/mls.salaries.html

 

Thanks, Clark. I remember skimming the list when it first came out - it was a definite reality check. Some of the salaries are so low - the season is six months plus - I would think many players in the league find it necessary to supplement their MLS income.

I'm happy to see a very young player like Altidore making decent money, but there must be any number of Noah Palmers out there - actually playing for the league minimum ($11,700!).

Some other quick impressions:

1) Not all the rosters are exactly the same size. Who can explain?

2) Salaries on some teams are much more 'unbalanced' than on others. Normal in all sports, I'm sure, but the ratios (of top/bottom salary) are startling in some cases.

3) On most teams, fully half the players are playing for 50K or less. Some rosters seem to have 10+ players playing for 30K or less.

4) While playing pro soccer beats 'working,' many young players would be well-advised to get/finish their college degree asap.

Althletes normally have a relatively short professional career, and they're lucky to get one 'fat' contract. In a European team comes calling with a nice offer, a player would need a pretty good reason to turn it down.

 

As to Euro salaries, Tim Howard went in on about $1.7M with another $1.7M in bonuses for PT, which he earned the first year with ManU.

Brian McBride, Steve Cherundolo and Claudio Reyna must be in the $2M range.

Kasey Keller probably went to Mönchengladbach for about $1M but re-upped for ~ $1.7-2M.

I'd assume Cory Gibbs's new deal is in low-mid $1Ms, as is Bobby Convey's.

Eddie Lewis is on $650K with Leeds. Jonathan Spector should be in the same vicinity at West Ham.

Marcus Hahnemann's - my guess - is in the $400K bumped up to $700-800K with Reading's promotion.

Beasley is likely on about $700-800K, with the young'ungs Lee Nguyen, Mikey Bradley and Benny Feilhaber at ~ $400-500K.

The Norwegian and Danish based ex-MLS'ers (Califf, Borchers, West, Corrales, Brown) are lower, in the $200-300K area.

A young Colaship perfomer like Frankie Simek or Danny Karbasiyoun is at ~ $150K or so.

Young Danes Pearce and Zewe, I figure, are at $100-125K in the SAS, as was Peter Philipakos at Oly.

Charles Kaslauskas, as an "amatuer" with TOP Oss last year, was on maybe $1K mo in salary with his apartment and food costs picked up by the club.

 

I contribute this as more of a factoid than fact.

This season, the EPL will have more alumni from MLS than any league not in the EU.