What? Do you want people on the Revs staff to take precious time away from searching high and low to find newer and better players, just to tweet about players they've gotten? Where are your priorities? Though more seriously, if there is any kind of contract negotiation going on, I would totally understand the team itself not announcing anything until all aspects - including things like flying the player in and doing a physical - are done, and the deal, however small, is signed. There is no such reason to delay immediately stating that a player left your team.
So to summarize, the Revs' most well known trialist in camp is a college draftee who was (presumably) cut from Columbus, and if he's good enough to stick around, he could be a backup goalkeeper. The anticipation begins as excitement mounts. We should have at least kept that van what's-his-name guy (extra point for the lower-case "v"), because everyone knows you're not much if you're not Dutch.
This is good. We shouldn't be expecting big things from people trialing a month away from the season. 3rd string keeper and 4th string defender are the positions for trialists to compete for. I'm slightly disappointed we didn't sign a starting fullback after the alleged overseas scouting trip, but other than missing a defender, I'm happy with our squad right now.
I'm neither disappointed nor surprised to be honest. Heaps is really excited about seeing Hall at RB which tells us all we need to know. The revs are done shopping for their back line as they think it's in a good place with Farrell pairing JoGo inside, Barnes, Alston, Hall and Tierney rounding out the defensive corps. It's woefully inadequate but I doubt we'll see anything significant in terms of defensive help this offseason.
That's the problem in a nutshell. Stevie Wonder can see the things that Burns and Heaps don't seem to. We lose Soares, and whatever you want to say about him, we have not brought in a defender of close to the same level, untill Hall proves otherwise. Agudelo is a nice pickup, but we could have (should have) brought in one more starter this off-season. Standing pat is not how you win championships.
Now we know. The money to sign JJ came out of the scouting/travel budget... (Sorry, KADs, all this snow has me in a foul mood.)
No need to apologize. You're just giving voice to the legions of despair who have been wringing their hands here all winter. Given where the team ended last year, my hope for the off-season was that they could (a) bring back most of the first xi and the game day 18; (b) not get hurt too badly in the expansion draft; (c) find a quality attacker; (d) keep some resources (allocation money, roster budget space) to use as needed and as opportunity presents itself during the season. So check, check, check (really? Agudelo? almost beyond my wildest hopes), and check -- all around excellent off-season roster management. It has made for a boring off-season, but that's the price you pay for having a quality roster that is pretty much locked up contract-wise. Recapping the situation: the Revs were the best team in the league over the last 8 weeks and they went to the cup finals where they lost narrowly to the defending champs. They lost one starter and two depths guys and brought back the best attacker they've had since the days of TT. They have a roster that is admired around the league and viewed by bookies as one of the favorites for the cup. But don't let that stop the fun . . . carry on with criticizing and mocking the management that has built this team.
It's hard to avoid the fact that a large majority of the starting lineup is comprised of average at best players. The fact that the team has little to no interest in improving them seems to greatly excite you but it disappoints others. The fact that the roster composition isn't all that great doesn't seem to bother you either. Just out of curiosity, how long have you been following the team? Long enough to know that those resources "kept to use as needed" typically go unused, no matter the need?
Your opinion about the majority of players being average at best? That opinion is not shared much outside this discussion board. Take Tierney for instance . . . much maligned here, a constant target for discussion of upgrading, and then he pops up in various non-Revs board ratings as one of the better LBs in the league. Roster composition not all that great? Again, an opinion much expressed here and not shared elsewhere . . . see, for example, the oddsmakers who this week established Revs as third most likely to win the cup. How long have I been following? Since the beginning. My interest in soccer pre-dates the NASL. Resources going unused? Not in the Heaps era -- two years ago he bought Agudelo in mid-season and last year the team bought Jones in late-mid-season. I am 100% confident that Heaps and Burns will add to this team during the season, if that turns out to be necessary. People here were so distraught during the sad final Nicol years that they are missing the obvious: the bad times are over, and in the Heaps era the Revs have become a model for success (on the roster front -- SSS is a different story). Of course, acknowledging that would mean the people who hated the Heaps hiring ("He's not even a real coach") would have to admit that they were wrong.
Tierney is pretty good on free kicks and pretty good (but not great) at crosses and corners, but he's not much of a defender, isn't very fast and doesn't beat many people off of his dribble. If you see his highlights he probably looks good, if you watch most of what he does his overall game is fairly average. Our roster composition isn't all that great, starting with the fact that we don't have any natural wing players on the team. Many people figured out how infrequently the Revs use all of their resources well before the sad final Nicol years, in fact it was frequently discussed in each of the years he took the team to the finals. I doubt you would have noticed, as the team was pretty good at the time. Also, Heaps isn't that good of a coach. His lineups, tactics and substitutions aren't that great. Player development isn't unusually good and the team frequently isn't on the same page. The last time I mentioned that, someone argued that he's a good motivator who keeps the team upbeat and playing hard, which I won't really disagree with.
and yet, there are those inconvenient facts . . . the team built by the incompetent management and full of "average if that" players went to the cup finals and gave a good account of themselves in the title game. and while the non-baised view around the league sees the 2015 team as a title favorite, you and the other exerts here can see that the management, the coach, and the team really aren't very good. when Heaps' teams were losing, everyone here agreed that you are what your record says you are, but now that they have started winning, the metric has changed. now the team is whatever the Revs board soccer experts say it is. I can't argue with what you see and what you think you know. I can say that I'm glad the NNNs aren't running the team, because really useful, above average players like Tierney would have been shipped out long ago, and we'd be following the Toronto/Philly model, running around signing guys who might be good and hiring new coaches when that doesn't work out.
Most of us have stated that we want a defender. Interestingly, Austin Berry is a good defender and wants a new club. http://www.phillysoccerpage.net/2015/02/17/austin-berry-seeks-move-away-from-philadelphia-union/ Philly Soccer Page: We’re about two weeks away from the start of the MLS season. Has someone officially told you that you’re not in Philadelphia’s plans for 2015? Austin Berry: Yes. It’s been that way since a point in the middle of last season. This has been going on for about 6-7 months now, that it’s been moving that way. I’ve been trying to be a good professional about it and not make a big fuss or too big of a distraction, but it has taken way too long.
The bad times are over? Nicol's revs lost 4 cups. Heaps's revs have lost 1 cup. Does losing MLS Cup make you a real coach? As for the resources, you mentioned Jones. That's an ownership move, above and beyond Heaps or Burns. Give credit to the Krafts for that one and credit to the FO for the success and failures of the rest of the roster. I don't care about making the Cup again. That's not the goal. Call it negative or what you will but I'm skeptical the revs have done enough this offseason to win the Cup.
It looks like several Eastern Conference teams have shown interest but Philly didn't make any moves last fall. Who knows, maybe one was the revs. I can't fault our FO without more info one way or another.
Curious how your world works. . . . there are 20 teams. Is every team that fails to win the cup a failure?
IMO, any team that fails to win the cup in a contract cycle (say 4 years) has failed. No team (other than MLS's favorites) is really able to challenge every single year. Most need rebuilding years. But not every year should be a rebuilding year.
The argument that "they came so close last year, they should be able to do it again this year" rings as hollow as it did in 2005. Signing Agudelo was a great move. But scoring wasn't exactly the issue last season, the defense was. And that was before losing Soares (team defender of the year, 2014, as voted by his teammates). Dismissing NYC and ORL simply because they are expansion teams is as unwise as those who dismissed Seattle their expansion season (3-seed in the West, only 2 pts behind Shield winner). Toronto and Columbus re-loaded, Chicago signed 3 DPs. Yes, it remains to be seen if these moves will actually improve them or not, but at least the effort is visible to their fans. The concern is that if other teams improve and the Revs stand pat, the net effect is that they are worse than last year. I feel like JJ is gone after this year, so 2015 is the year to pull out all the stops and go for the brass ring. The current state of the defense tells me the Revs FO disagrees with my assessment. The Revs will be fun to watch this year, probably a lot of 4-3 scores. But there is room for improvement, and I hope the FO is motivated to make those improvements. I'm not convinced they are.
I didn't say the team wasn't good, I said the main reason the team was good was the play of a select few players, and that the team would be better if there was more talent around them. I'm not sure whether you don't understand that most of the players could be targets for upgrade or that the team would be better with more impact players, or (just as likely) you aren't overly interested in the team improving on last year's performance if possible. I don't really agree with your "other people said one thing so you can't say something else" argument, which seems to fit your goal of trying to silence any and all criticism of Heaps and Burns, regardless of the criticism. Sure, because as far as you know, all of the teams in the league who try to do more to improve their team than the Revs do fail miserably.
Heriveaux training with the Revs in Tucson. You can see him in the Revs training video they put out today.