good luck to him on his trial. I don't particularly think that he is the type of player that will fit in well and aid LAG this season. It would be interesting if he could prove me wrong on that.
They've obviously run out of over-the-hill Americans to bring in. Now they have to resort to over-the-hill Italians. Perfect.
a over-the-hill player in Italian league could be better than a in-prime MLS player, and more interesting to watch. the question is if he'll be worth the money to be paid.
Born in Italy. Raised in Australia. More importantly: 9 goals in 2 World Cups for Italy. That's pretty freakin Italian. That said: Oy vey.... EDIT: Since I'm here, I may as well spam my post from the LA forum:
If this is true, I can imagine how Vieri's thought process went on this: "Hmmm. MLS. Don't know much about this league. Let me read up.... Oh, Greg Berhalter is the latest league singing.... Expected to anchor backline.... Sooooo, Berhalter is considered a good center back for this league.... hmmmmm.... me versus a bunch of Berhalters............. SIGN ME UP!!!!!!!"
Vieri when he wants to can be a helluva player. He tends to be moody and very selfish from what you read. I think he still has it in him to play well. He shook the injury bug a few years ago so that shouldn't be too big of a concern. I just think keeping him interested is. Two seasons ago for Fiorentina he was good coming off the bench and actually banged in a few goals. Like I said if he's interested he can play and would be a handful for most teams. his size and strength are his assets. I am a bit surprised Vieri's interested in MLS considering he was raised in Australia and there have been rumors over the years he could be headed to the A-League.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66L1KsBHLIA"]YouTube - Vieri- Goal Atalanta[/ame] he is in LA already
I first read about this in Goal.com, which means it's completely made up. Does anyone other than me notice that every single big name Europlean player that gets linked to MLS always gets linked to LA. Do you think it might be because the "journalists" and agents in Europe only know the name of one MLS team? Vieri is sulking right now. I don't doubt that Vieri might be in LA. He probably went AWOL and decided to head out to Cali to get some sun, do some shopping and bang a couple of the retarded chicks from The Hills. Lets look at this from the rhealm of REALITY. No matter how cheap Vieri was willing to go to come to MLS, there is no doubt in my mind that he'd settle for less than $400k, which would put him the Designated Player category. A) the Galaxy don't have 400k in cap space and would need to cut at the bare minimum three players to open up the cap space. B) the Galaxy don't have a second DP spot and would need to trade for one. Currently the Galaxy has Donovan who would be worth a DP, but he has a no trade clause and isn't going anywhere. Buddle isn't quite at the level to be worth a DP slot (sorry one good season out of an entire career and he's currently injured). Other than that, the Galaxy has Bubkus. C) perhaps Beckham isn't coming back in July, thus freeing up the DP spot, but that still only frees up 200k in cap space, and MLS and the Galaxy won a battle to save some face in the Beckham fiasco. I don't see them letting their prized asset go for Vieri. I can't possibly be the only person who understand the concept of the Designated Player Rule and the Salary Cap. I also can't be the only person that recognizes that every single time a player or an agent tries to leverage MLS against his European club, the MLS team that always gets mentioned is the Galaxy. I would say that there are less than a dozen people on the continent of Europe that understand how MLS works, which is why it's so easy to figure out which rumors are complete and utter bullshit, and which ones hold a little weight.
So what I gather from that link is that Chi is the Italian equivilent of US Weekly. So the primary source for this is a tabloid magazine.
Even though he is old he was one of my favorite players to watch.....ten years ago. Regardless, I'd like to see him in MLS. Keep in mind when I say this I mean for the right price - he is not a DP fo sho. Also, I'm sure he has a lot to show players like gordon and buddle..........maybe he could be a great mentor......Baggio/Del Piero or Totti/De Rossi type thing?
All a hoax fellas... http://voices.washingtonpost.com/so...not_vieri_interested.html?wprss=soccerinsider
We have a winner. Sometimes "New York" is floated but never with the name "Red Bulls" by the source, the writer always fills that in in the next sentence.
this has to be a hoax, but if its not, LA will be in trouble. has anyone seen him play the last two years? terrible. last summer he actually turned up and played pickup here in NY for two days and was terrible against random pickup players. granted, im sure he was not too motivated, but what was the point of playing if he wasnt going to try. he is done. if LA takes him, better for the rest of the teams.