This sux. Brian has been a pretty steady worker overall. He can also Happy Gilmore the livin' hell outta a golf ball! Via Con DIos B.C. Mark
Best of luck in San Jose, Brian. I'll long remember your left-side half-field run and chip into the box for Emilio's finish this season. Too bad I did't get your signature on my flag back at the SE meet-the-team event in Bethesda, but at least I have it on some other United memorabilia.
Worked at Panera over the summer and Brian happened to come up to my register to pay. Seemed like a nice enough guy. best of luck.
Right now Id put the odds of Carroll making it to San Jose at 50/50 at the best. Personally I think hes already been traded. Yallop in introducing the players stopped right in the middle of Carroll's introduction to let everyone know that not all the players would be with the team come opening day. Goff made a cryptic comment in his blog that indicated dont assume Carroll will be a Quake.
obviously there are a million reasons why the draft is rediculously stupid. don't even know if this is in the proper thread. 1. already mentioned- taking players that other teams trained into decent professionals. 2. any other country in the world if you want to start a club, you gotta get your own dmn players. why not give an expansion to seattle or rochester, and let them be "promoted"? 3. it's stupid. 4. who came up with the number "11" as the number of players that a team can not allow to be signed by the expansion team? so if every MLS team basically protects their top 11 players, that allows the expansion team to start a club based on the 12th best players from the MLS teams, it's going to be a shite team anyhow. ie. RSL. 5. The player pool is already thin in professional soccer in the States. ie. starting fowards out and kpene or Cal U product Addlery coming on in place of them. now take away the back up CDM from a team and that leaves them hurting bad incase a starting CDM gets hurt. sorry for the rant. but i'm a big advocate of- "you want your own club, build your own club" if MLS is going to be respected then it needs to start taking some pointers from what works in other countries... atleast the clock is counting up these days.
I don't see how any fan of Major League Soccer could fail to understand the need for an expansion draft when new teams come into the league. I especially don't see it when mention that the player pool in the USA is thin. How the hell can a new team "build their own club" when they can't get experienced MLS players from other MLS teams? It sucks that Carroll is gone, but it's a fact of life in this league. The expansion draft is a necessary evil. You don't have to like it, but you have to acknowledge why it exists if you claim to have any understanding of how the league functions.
1. If you look at the approximately 60 players who've been chosen in the preivious expansion drafts (before this one), if you exclude TFC's pick of Jason Kreis, there is only ONE player who has gone on to become somewhat of a star in MLS: Zach Thornton (and I say "somewhat of a star"). You have better odds getting a star player by using the MLS waiver draft (where SJ got Brian Ching) than you do in using the expansion draft. 2. The only sensible rationale for expansion draft to me is that for an MLS team, it's a way to add some bodies since you can't fill 24-28 slots with draft choices, allocations and free agent signings. Here's my suggestion: the year before an expansion team enters the league, allow them to draft players. Those drafted players can be loaned out to other teams (either in MLS or outside of MLS) for a year. Allow the expansion team to form a reserve side that plays in the MLS reserve team league a year before the club forms. Between the rookies and the reserve team, you'd have enough bodies to produce depth (and maybe a star or two would emerge) than when you combine with the draft of their first year of play, waivers, free agents, and allocations--they'd have the potential of a coherent team. Instead, while the fans lust over the picks ("hey--we got Pozniak--he's supposed to have great character and can play 8 positions!"), the reality is that they're other team's leftovers and subs. A guy we value isn't necessarily a fit for SJ.
Well, San Jose actually did build their own club, can we have our players back from Houston, the only team in the league you could argue have been as successful as DCU, instead of a buncha castoffs?
That's actually a pretty damned fair point. Houston got a great team when the Quakes moved there, and San Jose has nothing to show for it.
BC was a rock in a 5 man midfield. I hope he stick in SJ Obviously, because it only benefit's LA. . .