Yes, you are wrong. He is nothing like Eddie Johnson. . EJ was faster, stronger, more dangerous in the air, lazy bum with a huge ego and soccer IQ of 6th years old. Zardes has much less athletic talent, extremely hard working team player, that learned how to play from Donovan and Keane. Nothing in common except being 6'1" black guy. Zardes is much more Brian McBride than Eddie Johnson.
much much better??! Based on production alone, Eddie Johnson was waaay better than aron has been for the USMNT. aron looked good his first couple games with Donovan but since then ....goose eggs! ArJo has the pedigree and is a great prospect at this point.....but for the USMNT...he hasn't shown that he will contribute anything meaningful yet. Besides, agudelo played a couple months in Utrecht and got offers all over Europe (including arjo's current club werder Bremen)....arjo, rubin, agudelo, altidore.....all used Netherlands favorably....don't think those 4 are on some other plane than zardes.
I'm not sure it is really fear. I think its more opportunism.....salary suppression is going on nation-wide in the US, in all fields...it's part of the business model in the US and it would be going on too in the NBA, NFL, etc...if those player's associations didn't have the star power/fan support/leverage/lawyers that they do.
at one point, they had to be stingy to survive. no longer. whats crazy to me is that I think it has actually gotten to the point where they are hurting themselves by being so stingy. MLS owners are now their biggest obstacle to their own success....what do they say...penny-wise, pound foolish?? they are damaging their players' reputations/careers worldwide by underpaying them so drastically. they've gone so overboard with limiting their players' freedoms that it is preventing them from fully developing into the players they could be...which only hurts the overall brand in the end. theres a disconnect in how American/mls players are valued and corresponding values on the world market for other players....theres no way the usmnt is worth 40 million and mexico is worth 129 million. it filters down to how fans/players think of the league....a lot of fans/observers go strictly on player valuations to determine how good a player is....and MLS players suffer big time as a result. we will see how the zardes situation plays out....but forcing him to the highest bidder/or to submit to economic concerns might not be what is in his best developmental interest.
As you bring up another guy known even more for aerial ability. Nothing like Eddie Johnson is some kind of hyperbole. I brought up the significant ways in which they were alike, i.e.: above average athletes, poor touch, ponderous on the ball, and fw/wing hybrids. The poor touch and ponderous on the ball attributes are particularly relevant here as we're talking about projection to the Championship which is fast and technical. But no, they're nothing alike, and it's only influenced by skin color. You're high-minded to mention McBride instead, as he's white. As we know he was a pretty good winger back in his day and Championship player. McBride was a good target player and decent scorer as a starter in the Premier League. If Zardes does that I'll eat my boot. Even with a huge artificial assist by Klinsmann, he's being targeted by the same Championship team as a borderline national teamer like Danny Williams has already been pretty successful at, and Powers appears to be on the path in spite of being completely ignored by Jurgen. Eddie Johnson is more than fair as a comp, and he's a hell of a lot more like him than McBride.
I just have to say this with all respect to Zardes vs EJ comparisons. I watched EJ warm up before games at the cottonbowl and his touch was absolutely atrocious as in I don't think I have ever seen a field player in MLS with that poor of a touch. I definitely think he is someone who achieved well for his skillset and yet could have been so much better with more time on the ball and perhaps better coaching at a young age. Zardes is so different. He has likely had better coaching and is likely way more skilled than GAM, but there is no guarantee he will be as successful as GAM on a national team level. I mean...I can't imagine there being a tie game vs Italy at the world cup and the stadium would be chanting for Zardes like they did for EJ.
Frankly, this is a pedantic breakdown of a comparison. "Yeah, Zardes' touch is bad, but EJ's was really bad". "Yeah, Zardes is a good athlete, but EJ was a really good athlete". No player is exactly alike? You don't say. And if they aren't exactly alike, no need to make the hyperbolic claim then they are nothing alike. The reality that no 2 players are alike doesn't preclude comparisons from being worthwhile for perspective. They are there to add it. Otherwise you have less info as a predictor, and I don't know why anybody would want that.
You are overestimating the Championship. It's a nice 2nd division for sure, but the many games I've been to are not at a level so high that good MLS players can't play there. If he doesn't make it, it will be because of his head or perhaps the style of play, if anything, and not because the league is too high a standard.
Took Brian McBride many years to have a decent year as a winger at Championship he was 28 back then. He started late about the same age as Zardes unlike EJ who was a golden boy at Bradenton and got to MLS at 17. McBride wasn't spectacular at Columbus and everything that you hear today about Zardes was told back than about McBride: slow, not skilled, talentless hard worker. Exactly the same shit. He had a good world cup at 30 and went to Fulham after that. He was improving whole career (exactly like Zardes is doing now) was ultimate team player was able to play target forward and winger. Zardes is a copy of young McBride and totally opposite to EJ.
copy? not quite. McBride was not a winger. at all....he was a target forward with great spirit and heading ability. ...mentality-wise zardes is closer to McBride (I still give the big edge to McBride in the intangibles)....style of play/strengths zardes' close to EJ(winger/forward, good athletes, questionable reading of the game)...I don't think anyone has said zardes is slow of foot....slow thinking? yeah maybe.
Zardes is a very good target forward that is playing winger. He isn't slow thinker and reads game well. He isn't that fast. May be slightly above average, Bradley level. He can and will un all day long. Intangibles yes, but at age of 24 McBride's main intangible was an ability to get freaky injuries. When in Columbus he was a good player, but everyone was salivating at Jeffro.
copy? not quite. McBride was not a winger. at all....he was a target forward with great spirit and heading ability. ...mentality-wise zardes is closer to McBride (I still give the big edge to McBride in the intangibles)....style of play/strengths zardes' close to EJ(winger/forward, good athletes, questionable reading of the game)...I don't think anyone has said zardes is slow of foot....slow thinking? yeah maybe.
Your pitfall is hand-waving important differences between the two. It's not simply that Zardes has a marginally better first touch; he's overall a more skilled footballer than EJ, which is why he's been able to acclimate to the wing better and already has more assists than Johnson did in his whole NT career. Zardes is a better passer, better dribbler and is generally better handling the ball and working back to goal or in tight space. His first touch can be iffy, but he's not a donkey. He beat Miguel Ibarra in the crossbar challenge. On top of that, he's got very good soccer IQ. It doesn't mean he will be better than EJ, who had different strengths, but those are important differences. There seems to be a narrative stereotyping Zardes as getting by on his athleticism which invites this comparison to EJ (who was also a player of underrated skill/instincts) but that isn't really evident in his play. I think whether he succeeds abroad will depend on if he gets time (at least a half-season) to adjust to his new level, which isn't unheard-of. If he can adjust to his new level, his skill and ideas will be evident.
I remember reading an article about EJ where he stated that he didn't begin playing soccer until age 9. I don't think you could find many pros who took up the game that late, and I imagine it had a lot to do with the touch he showed as an adult.
This is from the BBC, as it relates to the median salary in MLS. The average MLS wage - inflated by 50 or so designated players - is £187,000 but the median wage, the actual middle salary across almost 600 players, is £73,000. Gerrard earns £4.2m and Brazil's Kaka gets £4.7m at Orlando City That's a far more realistic picture, which puts us slightly above Algeria.
Well, that's a dangerous game to play. Take PSG out of Ligue 1 (or formerly AS Monaco) and see how things look.
i've recently changed careers and moved up tax brackets, but i'll shed a tear when i no longer have any hope of earning the average MLS salary. i imagine it's 5/10 years off when almost all the players will be earning a prettier penny than me/us average joes.
Of course, MLS salaries are usually pre-tax numbers, which complicates comparison with other leagues because those are usually quoted as post-tax.
I think the best comparison to Zardes is Danny Mwanga if only Mwanga was somehow mentored by Donovan & Keane & was a US citizen so he could get called up by Jurgen to represent the stars & stripes.
Well Garber assisted LAG again with an 800K spike in TAM for 2016/17 so magically, LA now have the ability to likely keep both Omar and Zardes. Funny how that works. Bet Zardes stays.