Just coming here to see if this popped. Stunning. He is incredibly highly regarded around the league. He is brought in for a lot of the league run stuff like the annual Player Combine. I know we've had a lot of injuries this year, but that's one of those odd cyclical things. The wording is pretty terse and formal.
I'm actually surprised this didn't happen earlier. Between the multiple years of "Sporting Flat" and the fiasco with this year's early season over training, he's made enough peaking mistakes to justify this move. It's clear he doesn't fully grasp peaking or the need to build base fitness before applying advanced training methods geared toward manipulation of VO2 and hematocrit. He could learn a lot from studying the training methods of sports like triathlon and cycling. Plus, PV needs a scape goat for the stupidity exhibited during CCL.
It is rather terse. It sounds like a falling out sort of parting of ways, and maybe not so much about the injuries as more recent disagreements on the pace of returning players to the first team. That said, while highly regarded, one area in which SKC should be able to recruit about the best there are, world-wide, is in fitness guru. Pinnacle is pretty spectacular, and matches up well with the best setups in Europe.
Total speculation, and probably completely off base, but as someone who has worked in mixed corporate environments, it has the feel of what happens when someone is given large amounts of autonomy over long periods of time, then suddenly attention is drawn and management wants to "get involved" and "help". With all the injuries and issues, and the on field product struggling, I can see some awkward meetings and bruised pride and egos behind closed doors. Or it could be something completely mundane like a needed change of scenery.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019...s-city-sign-portuguese-left-back-luis-martins Best part of this news is we might have a reason to dump Fontas or Croizet.
We have 7 internationals right now. Fontas, Croizet, Nemeth, Barath, Gutierrez, Russell for sure I think. Who else, Gerso? Ilie?
Dumping either would be next to impossible because of their salaries and MLS roster rules on waiving players on guaranteed contracts (because let’s be honest, no one is paying a transfer fee for either). Much more likely we trade 2020 _AM for a spot.
This makes the trade for Feilhaber look even worse, since we had to give up an International Slot along with Abdul Rwatubyaye. Which was necessitated in part because trading for Kelyn Rowe was an absolute disaster. The roster management this year has just been terrible.
Took a few gambles - those went sour. Continued to depend on a ragged, aging core - that's gone sour. Built a roster with minimal salary and workaround flexibility - that's looking sour too. That said, some things that have happened are not roster problems. Salloi has gone completely cold. We had every reason to suspect he'd have knocked in half a dozen goals by now at least. He's been a general nonfactor since he got injured against Portland in the playoffs. Swagger just went awol.
We still would have to make a roster move for this signing cuz Rwatubyaye took the international roster spot we traded.
It's not just this year. I've been on the roster management soapbox for a few years. From the scouting that only hits on about half its non US players (Fontas, Croizet, Marin, Bieler, etc were so wrong), to the decisions to re-sign all of the old core group, to the reliance on MLS free agents that hasn't worked once. It's bad and why SKC are in a deep hole.
Only arguing that Bieler wasn't that bad. He was pretty okay. We just expected more as a hyped DP 9 move. I'd say he's our best striker import in SKC history, but I'm probably forgetting someone.
What teams hit on over 50% of their foreign signings over the same length of time? Yes, because of how KC builds their roster they probably can’t afford to miss as much, but pretty much every team is around 50% for their international signings over the same period of time.
There's a whole bunch of others I didn't list like Claros, all Hatians, half the Spaniards hes brought in and on and in. His hit rate is probably less then half. Plus the recent misses are all big dollar shit contracts. You can't have that. Not to mention he looked at Fontas and Ike, after Fontas had been year a half season, and said "let's keep the slow guy who can't mark a 40 year old and is paid three times what the former MLS defender of the year, who also scores goals". Peter has had a really bad two years with the roster. He's the anti Midas.
Who is out of contract at the end of the year that we can ditch? Fontas, croizet, zusi, nemeth, besler, espinoza are all overpaid and I can't imagine anyone paying for them. It really bums me out that we've seen our core become old and overpaid. I don't want to hate on them but man, the crash is happening hard and fast.
According to my information I have here are the contract expiration dates 2019 Sinovic Medranda (2020 option) Salloi (2020, 2021 options) Zendjeas (2020 option) Gerso (2020 option) Dick (2020, 2021 options) Smith (2020, 2021 options) Wallace Zelalem (2020, 2021 options) Hasler Feilhaber (2020 option) Nemeth Hurtado (2020) 2020 Besler Melia (2021 option) Espinoza Busio (2021, 2022 options) Croize (2021 option) Russell (2021 option) Gutierrez (2021 option) Kuzain (2021, 2022 options) 2021 Zusi Ilie (2022 option) Lindsey (2022 option) 2022 Fontas Freeman (2023 option) Duke (2023 option)
Yeah. So our worst deadweights are deadweights for a long while. Wallace, Feilhaber, and Nemeth are about the only overpaid guys who we might waive. I don't think anyone expects Benny to get another season. I felt like it was pretty sure he was gonna retire at the end.