I don't think I'll ever think of Petke as a cancer. This is the guy that wore the "Revenge is coming" t-shirt under his jersey on behalf of Mike Ammann. C'mon I think your memory is a little too short.
Petke's high school antics of a few years ago aside, it doesn't really surprise me to hear he was not the most popular player in the locker room. He always seemed to me to be too enamored with himself. I'm sure they will love his face-down-in-the-box antics in DC.
I'll go out on a limb here and say, you know nothing about the inner workings of the Metro locker room. Neither do I. I'll give the writer the benefit of the doubt on this. What someone does in Public view and how one acts in the lockeroom with his teamates is not always the same. For ever Tee Shirt Petke displayed, I can give you him kissing the soccer ball and getting 2 red cards 10 minutes into an important game.
As I stated in a posting to the love fest "Thanks to Mike Petke" board, the pin-up poster boys weren't getting us anywhere. I mentioned Petke, Jolley, Mathis. The pretty ones might seem great to the marketing guys, but some of us spend our money to see the soccer on the field and not silly haircuts and dye jobs. It wasn't happening with these guys and it's about time we're beginning to clean house. Hopefully, Clint will grow up under Arena on the National Team and Bradley on the Metros and will excel for us. This is the year he will have to prove his worth. As far as "addition by subtraction" is concerned, I'm certainly not for giving anyone away. There's no reason we can't continue to swing good deals like the Petke-Moreno/Pope trade.
Pulling some contrived PR stunt may win over gullible fans but it doesn't mean that the rest of the team loves him for it.
From what I understand Petke and OZ didn't get along too much and that showed in the locker room. Also during the trade deadline when Petke's name was mentioned a lot their was more tension there. Despite this, Petke did get rid of the blond hair and when asked why he said something along the lines of that it's not about the look it's about the play.
Can anyone think of a season (other than 2000) where the team didn't suffer some significant degree of locker room implosion or meltdown? It's been a big problem for the Metro since 1996 and so far no coach or front office honcho has been able to prevent it. As a fan I really never quite knew who was in charge or responsible for anything in that organization. I hope that Bob Bradley has all the authority he needs to run the operation and that Nick butts out.