This. The revs from 2003-2008 (with Nicol as coach) were a formidable squad. The org was decent at player acquisition. They brought in guys like Jose Cancela, and Avery John and made some great draft selections. In 2007 they hired Mike Burns as VP of Player Personel, who essentially replaced (Tornberg?) as GM. Since then, the players this team has brought in have been absolutely awful. With all respect to Mike Burns as a human being, it really appears as though he is one of the weak links in the FO. Maybe the Krafts are ridiculously cheap; maybe they aren't. But given the reports of all these failed signings over the last three seasons, maybe they're somewhere in the middle. They've obviously given Nicol a big budget for player signings (freeing him to look for 7 figure salary guys), but because of poor negotiation skills, Burns/FO have failed to sign anyone decent. The only thing I take issue with here is; if Burns really is the weak link when it comes to player acquisition, the Krafts need to hold him responsible. They need to tell him to get some help and learn the trade OR send him packing.
I'm not surprised he went for the D and D-mid first. It seems to be his philosophy. His defense may be better. I'm not convinced the whole possession plan is going to work without more upgrades at other positions. We may be respectably boring.
To be fair, I was OK with this. In general, especially recently, the number of attacking players that have succeeded have come more from outside the draft than in. My thought was that we'd use the draft to help shore up the defense, but use the international signings for the other end of the field. They've (so far) failed on the latter.
But Nicol clearly did prioritize a striker. He offered a 7 figure contract to TWO strikers. It's not his fault that those deals fell through (its the org's fault).
Isn't it in the ownership's self-interest to make sure the guy they are paying to do the job is competent?
No. Do you think Kraft knows anything about even top players in Turkey? Kraft gives the team a budget for players. he trusts Nicol to identify a list of players, then Burns and the FO try to get them signed. Reports over the last few years about dozens of "failed high profile signings" could indicate that Kraft provides a budget, Nicol identifies players, but the FO fails to sign them. Kraft has even set aside huge piles of money to go get these players (1 million+), but for some reason, the negotiations always fall through. Why?
Look at how international acquisitions are often done--through personal connections. Philly's Colombians come about with massive help from Diego Gutierrez. FCD acquires a promising young Colombian thanks in large part to the skills of Oscar Pareja. San Jose brings onboard a 23-year-old Tottenham AM because of their deal with Spurs. We have no "deals" with another team, we don't train abroad anymore (where FCD first started the deal that brought in Ferreira a couple years back while training with CAP in Brazil), and there's no one on staff who has significant connections with a country where players come relatively cheap. We're always talking about DVDs instead. The Revs are some awkward kid standing in the corner at a middle school dance. We want everyone to come to us, which is why we've got so many out-of-contract old guys shuffling through the bubble. Making a "deal" with a foreign club might mean offseason travel to that club, heaven forbid, which would be expensive...
Are you kidding? Nicol and Co went on scouting trips to 5 different countries this off season. Clearly, this organization is willing to pay for staff trips abroad to acquire players. Stop ignoring the facts, the Krafts are willing to spend the money for a good squad. It's the FO has failed to sign any good players. Edit: Also, if Kraft is willing to spend $1 million on a player, you really think they wouldn't be willing to spend the extra $2000 for a trip to Turkey to finalize the signing?
I've been out of the loop for a few days, has there been any speculation or an actual signing since that of Augustine?
I stopped reading right there, where your reading comprehension clearly failed. What part of DEAL and TEAM don't you understand?
well... Adriano just got his contract terminated at Roma and is officially a free agent. Before anyone says "the turf would kill him" (which is true after his injuries) .... He is 29 and would still be a good ST in our league. Ofcourse NE needs a damn ST too. It is a decent chance for NE. Slight risk, but I think NE would still benefit if he can regain form.
My point still stands. If the revs are going around offering million dollar contracts to players, this isn't a Kraft being cheap issue. It's a the FO/Burns is useless issue. And you're point is ridiculous. Preseason training in South America is cheaper than preseason training in Orlando. Hotels are cheaper, food is cheaper, and field space is cheaper. The only thing that costs more is the flights. So my point, "this isn't a money issue," stands. Would developing a buisness partnership with foreign clubs help? Probably, but it's not the Kraft family's job to identify potential partnerships, it's the FO's job.
Interesting article about French players coming to the MLS. According to the article Dabo may be making 160-180k per season which if true is a lot cheaper than I expected. http://www.boston.com/sports/soccer/articles/2011/03/08/finding_foothold_in_mls/
Actually, Burns does have experience negotiating with foreign clubs. Who could forget his legendary foray overseas between the 1997 and 1998 seasons? He was getting paid $80,000 by MLS, which was pretty good at the time, but he wanted to try his luck and fatten his bank account in Europe. He went on trials with Utrecht, Bolton Wanderers, Hearts and I think a Danish club. All of them paid significantly more than MLS, and he arguably would not have been out of place. Unfortunately for our man, he may have been comparable to a domestic player at his position, but when bringing in a foreigner, clubs want a guy with skills significantly better than what they can get at home. So Burns comes back to MLS with his tail between his legs, only to see that Sunil Gulati was pink-slipped for renewing the always-injured Tab Ramos' maximum-salary contract with the MetroFilth, against the club's wishes. Some guys get all the luck... Oscar Pareja....Hmmm, where have I heard that name before? I wonder why we never could get a player like that. Yep... The thing is, other clubs have people scouting players in Europe and Latin America. We don't. One of the things that worries me is that if we don't sign one of the two strikers we've allegedly identified already, then that's it. We got nothing, and we won't be getting anyone else at all. Steve Nicol is the only one capable of scouting, and now that the day-to-day season has started, he needs to be with the team, not off in Ouagadougou or Yerevan looking at some player. If we had a FT scout on the payroll that Nicol trusts (not to say we're cheap, but one extra warm body has got to cost something, especially if he's smarter than Burns) then he could go look at players during the season. Yeah, but they couldn't close the deal. If they had a scout, then the pipeline could be filled, or at least the seeds being sowed for next year's big acquisition. The Red Bulls have been quoted about how it took them more than a year to get Henry to come. If we want a major star, we don't just introduce ourselves and expect him to sign a week later.
Yes. There are a lot of possibilities, any of which *could* be realized. Dube had 8 goals in a season where he missed a good portion of the season with injury. He had a tough season last year, but then, so did the whole team. With a better midfield behind him and restored confidence, he could return to and improve on the '09 form. The Stolijca/Perovic partnership just started to get rolling late last season. They seemed to be developing a great partnership which led to some fairly easy redirection goals. I can see that working well for both of them this year, if they get better support behind them. Schilawski hasn't shown much ability to create on his own, but he's quick enough and seems to have good sense about getting to the right place at the right time for redirections. With good service, there's no reason he can't pick up plenty of "garbage" goals. There's potential with Nyassi, Dabo could provide Joseph the freedom to get in the attack on a fulltime basis, etc., etc. Yes, these are all "possibles". Sarcasm noted, but nobody said August. Say, maybe watch one game before making up your mind? I totally disagree. He's been like a broken record about giving the ball away too easily, being unable to hold it, etc., etc. With just about every major new player (Domi, Dabo, Coria, Soares), the first thing he always mentions is how good they are with the ball. And, if that's not enough evidence, just look at the players he's brought in - all possession-oriented players. No, this is an incorrect assessment. Nicol always wants them to play possession ball. The "kick it away" occurs because players are unable to do what he wants them to do - either because they don't have the ability or because their teammates aren't supporting them well enough. The fact is, every [smart] coach has his team pressure the Revs in the midfield and defense. So, the task of playing it out of their own end is doubly hard. Until you've established that you can move the ball away from pressure and go on the attack, the tactics will remain in place. OTOH, once you establish a basic ability to work out of pressure, that tactic is no longer effective and teams back off - then everything becomes much easier in the back 2/3's. Until they get to that point, there is no striker that would be good enough up top. I disagree. Most of the season, I think our defense was pretty good. The problem was that it puts enormous pressure on a defense when the team is creating only 2 or 3 decent goal-scoring changes per game. That means that if you do give up the first goal, you have to take way too many chances to try to generate more offense. And, that happened quite a bit - almost anytime we gave up the first goal (when we scored first, we tended to do pretty well defensively). The defense was good enough to go into most games and hold a team to 1 goal. Unfortunately, they also knew that often that wouldn't be good enough. Add to that, late in the season they juggled guys around (Osei on the right, specifically) and the cohesion they had in '09 fell apart. Because even when you're willing to pay DP money, you still need players to take less than they could get elsewhere. You need some other selling points (read the comments by Domi and Dabo). There are few "successful" DP players who came to MLS as distinguished pros who couldn't have made more elsewhere. I haven't following him, but I'm pretty wary of investing in a DP who is considered a "risk". For that kind of commitment, he needs to be a fairly sure thing - or at least as sure as you can get. Yes, but ... when you're looking for DP-level players, you shouldn't need to scout in person to at least find top candidates. You may want to have someone see them in person (as Steven Myles did with Coria), but for that kind of player you'd be looking for someone who's been playing regularly in a major league somewhere.
The fact of the matter is that we don't have a proven striker in camp and the the start of the regular season is rapidly approaching, and considering the Revs have demonstrated a willingness to offer seven figures for a player there should be a sufficient pool of available players to work with. We need someone now, not later.
And yet I can remember watching SN have fits on the sideline when Osei would hold the ball and look for a pass, as one example. As to support, you are on to something. But, so far, they've added one guy of note in the midfield to provide that support. So basically, we hope Phelan sits and his relief stays healthy? I am certainly all for that but is that sufficient improvement in the support department?
Exactly, this team is not good enough to throw away points from March to July and hope to win enough games at the end of the year to sneak into the playoffs
As sarcastic as my post may have seemed, I'm actually quite serious. There really is no need to judge any MLS team until mid-late August. Everything leading up to that is basically pre-season. -------------- One thing you may want to keep in mind for yourself though. If you are going to ask people to wait until they play games to judge, then you can't come back at them for being revisionists after the season ends, nor can you complain about them overreacting if they don't make the playoffs.