Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart As a Jersey resident with wife and family, yes, I can say that 85k is not that much. But for an 18 year old with no dependents and one who may have many expenses covered outside of the salary [travel to and from Germany on some combo of USSF and Redbull]. Also, it should be noted, our national team players are compensated for their appearances, iirc. Juan played nearly 15 times for the US team this past year and a half.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart Dude, TWICE that in NJ is not enough these days. It's the main reason I don't move back up north....too damn expensive. But if I was 20-something living on $85k/year that would be a most very decent start.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart Juan Celebrates his 19th birthday in Stuttgart. http://www.vfb.de/de/aktuell/meldun...stag-agudelo/page/3089-0-3-1322062181.html?f3 Quotes from Juan: "It is unbelievable and wonderful to be here. The level of training is higher than in MLS. Here they work more with the ball and on technique. It is a great experience for me to train with Bruno Labbadia. From day one he has spoken to and helped me a lot." "I am going to have to do without the a birthday cake from my mother. And because of the time difference, they were all still sleeping this morning. When they wake up, they will surely all call me and spend a lot of money on the calls," he says with a wink." "I can speak spanish with Maza dn Cacau, most of the rest can speak English or are learning it from me. I was in the stadium on Saturday and was impressed by the passion of the fans. Soccer is the #1 sport in Germany. Since I was a kid I have dreamed of one day playing in Europe." Note: there is also a video interview with Juan, but you have to be a subscriber to VfB TV to watch. http://vfbtv.vfb.de/de/aktuell/meld...lo-im-portrait/page/3505-0-26-1322061993.html
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart Handsome Bruno is a friendly guy. Mrs. Trochowski said so, before she lost her husband, and Bruno her husband's team and his job at Hamburg.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart Regarding Agudelo's compensation, his endorsements likely add a significant percentage to income. Pepsi likely pays well, and addidas and DSG (both MLS sponsors) tend to compensate well when they choose MLS players for their ads. Additionally, his US Soccer pay is likely high. He most likely received a nice base figure amount for making the Gold Cup squad, and appearances in that competition added to it. Appearances outside of official competitions generally result in lower compensation, but still a nice sum. And US Soccer tends to be a rather generous federation when it comes to compensation. I'm guessing he pulled in about $200,000 total this year.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart his statement on training is another telling statement on the poor affairs in the MLS. Everyone says the same thing including my son when he has been overseas. Agudelo has to man up and take his potential to Europe. He may disappear from public for a while they beef up his play but the dividends will be 10-20x his present salary in the long run
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart Donovan and Cooper and others have said the same thing over and over again. Yet somehow there are folks more in the know rolleyes who say that can't be the case. I remember summer training....it was WEEKS before we even touched a football we ran so much.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart I don't know where your outrage at MLS comes from. I'm sure the most ardent MLS defenders would admit that training in the Bundesliga is at a higher level. Its a much better league- no-one disputes that. Your not adding much to the discussion by bashing MLS. And if he can get on the field in the Bundesliga right now, he should probably go. Considering his mLS coach hasn't started him, that's certainly not a sure thing.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart It'd be wonderful if our problem was fitness, but it's not.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart I find it ridiculous how over in the MLS forums, fans act as if young American players with talent and promise should not consider going abroad, because the training here is just as good. That comes up surprisingly frequently. I love MLS, for what it is, our domestic league, which is getting better. But it is not anywhere near the point that younger guys should pass up KEY development years in superior training atmospheres with superior coaching/competition on a weekly basis. Have to be objective. I disagree with most NY fans, who seem to still think NY is a great place for Juan. It's not. He's not starting. Not getting consistent minutes. So, when that happens, you have to look at the level of instruction and training he's receiving, and ask is it worth it, even if he's not playing much. The training/development/atmosphere at a club like Stuttgart could be much more beneficial for Juan is the long run. I have zero confidence in NY to actually develop him as quickly and effectively as a club like Stuttgart would. It's no mistake guys like Juan/Brek/Jeff Lor. have already commented on how much better the training environment is at the clubs they're training with. Speed of play is huge, and often looked over by MLS fans. Playing at such a slow speed every week really hurts development. Facing a much higher tempo/pace in practice every day will only help. For christ sake half of MLS teams don't even have wingers who can send in a cross. Can't play the ball out of the back. Don't stress possession, and not giving the ball away. Can't play anything resembling one touch. Just not a good place to be in key development years, unless you're getting a ton of time, which a guy like Juan is not.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart I guess my question in his case is why? He has a Euro coach at RBNY. Why doesn't his coach train his players like they do in Europe where he is from?
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart "Fitness" means many things. Just being able to run does not = fit. Being able to run for 90 mins does not = match fit. When someone with MLS experience (like LD, Cooper and others) say that the training regime in the 1.BL and 2.BL is more intense than in the MLS, I would think they are including "fitness" in their evaluation.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart Well you'd have to ask Juan what exactly he means, but considering there are American fitness coaches across the continent, but few if any coaches in other areas, I'm venturing a guess that fitness regimes aren't the dominating factor.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart 'Fitness' isn't only about the running. W/re to the difference in training I'm guessing there is a difference in size of coaching staffs and the amount of time coaches have to spend with players. I've never read players raving about different are things are in leagues such as Austria, Norway, and Sweden. AC Milan has 22 on the senior team staff[ from wiki]. Houston Dynamo for example has 8. NYRB looks the same[from the team websites].
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart I agree with you. Fitness is not a dominating factor. Everything is about TECHNIQUE. They work on the simple things all the time: clean first touch, pass form left and right, taking the first touch out of trouble, speed of play, real match situation shooting, receiving the ball at 1/2 turn with both feet etc. Landon was in Europe during this crucial time and if he had stayed, we could be talking real top class player especially with the pace he has. Stuttgart is one of the best places for a young player and I hope Juan gets the chance to stay.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart Really? No-one claimed this in this thread, nor have I seen it stated with any sort of regularity, anywhere.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart Juan - Here in Europe, they work more with the ball. Bajan - MLS sucks!!!!! You - I know. As I've said repeatedly, here in Europe they work more without the ball.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart Look harder. It's there. Same guys who want our NT guys to come back to MLS, now. Recently there was a poster claiming there is no reason for a top MLS player(Brek was the topic), to leave MLS before the age of 25. Well, that's surely ignoring key development years, and the impact a better training environment can have during those years. This poster implied Brek could get the same level of day to day training in MLS, during key development years, that he;d get abroad. Ridiculous. Same applies for Juan. I've seen the same argument a number of times. Where does these reputations of great MLS academies come from? There are some good ones, RSL probably leading the pack, but that isn't the norm, nor is it regularly a better option then having the opportunity to learn at a club like Stuttgart. I mean, the technical ability, and soccer IQ in MLS leaves a lot to be desired. We see that all the way up to the NT. It's the way Americans were taught, here. So we wonder why the technical ability and IQ isn't as high, and then we hear about the training, and how in Europe they actually spend the majority of their time on the technical ability, whereas MLS doesn't. Imagine that. That's not a knock on MLS. I watch just about as much as anyone. But some get carried away thinking that the training and coaching is as good as it is at some of these Euro clubs.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart It is a knock on MLS. Someone asked why Backe doesnt apply European method of training since he is from there. Someone plz give him a ring and ask him WHY? so we can hear from the horse's mouth.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart Yous folks are arguing a 10 year old case. Believe it or not, some folks here (and they are/were mods) were stating that MLS players were superior contributors to the 2002 USA run than the YA's.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart Don't know about superior, but Eddie Pope, Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley, Brian McBride, Pablo Mastroeni, Clint Mathis and Cobi Jones all varied from integral pieces, to regular starters and subs.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart Yes, of course, they were. In that WC, Bruce lucked into a perfect mix of Euro guile and the US legs, at least based on the overall talent available to him. It's reasonable to argue that the YA's alone wouldn't have accomplished as much. I, however, tend to believe that the MLS'ers alone would have accomplished far less.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart The key phrase in that sentence is "some of." I think we're at the point now at which the level of some MLS coaching matches that of the halfway decent European (and Central and South American) teams. I'm unconvinced that the average quality of managerial sophistication in, say, Norway, Austria, or Colombia exceeds that of the average MLS coaches. All of them will have different strengths and weaknesses, sure. But probably not different levels. For example, I feel pretty confident that DaMarcus Beasley got more sophisticated coaching from Gus Hiddink while at Eindhoven than he got from Bob Bradley while with Chicago. On the other hand, I'm guessing that Beasley learned more about soccer from Bradley than he's learning from Juan Carlos Osorio at Puebla. Osorio would tell you a story about why he's doing better with Puebla than he did with the Fire or the Red Bulls (it would involve the "unsophisticated American player"), but I'd say he just got outcoached in MLS. And yet he can hack it in a better league, at least so far.
Re: Juan Agudelo training with VfB Stuttgart Well, aside the fact that JCO hadn't gotten any work with Puebla yet, yours is an interesting but hardly provable assertion. For example, Clarence Seedorf lavished high praises on Sven Goran Eriksson's knowledge of the game, saying that SGE had taught him as much about football as anyone .... and that's the same coach who has badly failed in his last two jobs (Mexico and Leicester). I mentioned before that Jogi Löw was relegated from Bundesliga II with Karlsruher. That hasn't stopped him from being Jogi Löw. Alan Pardew was fired from West Ham for his inability to coax decent performances from Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano. Dick Advocaat and Jupp Heinkes were fired from the underperforming Mönchengladbach teams. Which brings me back to Bob Bradley ...