Remind me: Ojeda’s loan runs through the end of the full 2023 season for RSL or just to the end of Forests 2022/23 EPL season?
Imagine that kind of faith in players from our own academy… Not saying rsl shouldn’t give Nyeman a shot, but this club has a weird infatuation with players between the ages of 17-22 from other clubs
I was trying to use those columns to calculate DP cap hit (the 1s and 0s). I used some if/then formula to give me a 1 or 0 if the number was above 612500, but those numbers won’t sum together, so it’s useless. I haven’t bothered to look more into it. EDIT! Oh! Yeah, last column is the contract end date plus option years. (One thing I noticed with our new Colombian is that the add on year(s) are PLAYER options and not CLUB options. I think he’s unique in this, at least to RSL.) 2nd to last are the conditions of the contract being signed. This could be sell-on clause, if we traded GAM/TAM, how much of the salary we are covering if the other team is just trying to offload a player, etc…
Rumor (which I think is all we have) is that Braian Ojeda's purchase price from Notts Forrest is about $4m, which puts him right there with Gomez as the most expensive contract in team history.
I believe that was Twellman that initially dropped that info. No reason it wouldn't be accurate. The bad thing is that the connection RSL had with that club is gone. Dane Murphy (former RSL employee) stepped down as CEO. I don't know if RSL was hoping to negotiate that fee further down. I guess the best we can hope is that Ojeda makes it an easy decision to drop $4m on his purchase. I still want to know if he'd remain a U-22 player. Otherwise, what's the point of bringing in a U-22 player on loan only to make them a DP (even a young DP)?
Carlos Gruezo from Augsburg to San Jose is a nice transaction. Augsburg, now where have I heard of that team before . . .
I wonder if being intra-club is even worse, since the bigger team never really capitalizes when talent is moved down the ranks within the ownership group.
I really think we need to stop thinking about getting "deals" from teams within the Blitzer group of teams. He is not (to my knowledge) the majority owner of any team other than RSL. He can't make other teams give us preferential treatment. It's great to have the connections and collaborations, but they aren't going to give us a deal if there's more money to be made elsewhere. I'm really curious what happens with the kid from Beveren. Side note, glad Arango was finally sold (~$5m). RSL fans can finally move on.
Agreed, but the relationship should mean you don't have to "discover" a quality player who can be acquired, and you shouldn't need to build a relationship with the club. Both those things would be necessary for other teams outside the umbrella.
What do you mean by "discover"? With Gruezo, should RSL paid $3.5m for him when they have Ruiz and Ojeda? They should have more insight to current players at those umbrella clubs that external clubs don't., but I don't think they're entitled to some discount. Hopefully they work together in the scouting department, too. I disagree that they don't have to build relationships. The staff can change at any club at any time. Team needs are constantly changing. You have to have those relationships and you have to keep working on them. Look how they sent the kids across Europe in Dec/Jan. That's building relationships. A (possible) loan deal with Beveren for Nyeman after the transfer of Everton. That's relationship building. Expecting Benteke or Gruezo or Cordova on a cut rate deal just because your owner is an investor over there isn't logical.
Jazzy on loan to the Santos Laguna youth side is, well . . . I guess there's a hole between the Monarchs now being a true development side and the first team, so we're missing a chance for people to get medium level, high quality competition. But still, totally unexpected especially if we don't have a starting-caliber CB to come in and challenge for minutes.
Also, here's the link to the article: https://www.rsl.com/news/rsl-loans-jaziel-orozco-to-santos-laguna
So this doesn't fit the off-season narrative at all. The CBs on the roster are Silva, Glad, Holt, Farnsworth (? injured again, too), Pierre (HG, just signed, highly doubt he gets any minutes) and that's it. There's a trialist in camp Keller Storlie, 21, who last played in Costa Rica. https://www.transfermarkt.us/keller-storlie/profil/spieler/888792 That's only 3 CBs you can actually rely on. Why would RSL want to send Jazi on loan unless they thought he was going to be getting more playing time? The only answer I can come up with is they want him to experience a different environment. I really want to see Farnsworth succeed because at one point he seemed to be ahead of Glad's development. I know we bad on Holt, but he'll need to have his best year or RSL is in a lot of trouble. The games start for real in 3 weeks and they don't even have a clear starting level 3rd CB in camp. That, along with a competent backup LB is very troubling. The 9 spot is getting all the talk, but at least there's bodies (and probably better depth) than along the backline.
I haven't heard an update about Zack's injury status. I guess you guys listening and making podcasts know more about it?
I think there's a pretty fundamental disconnect here, in that Pablo considers Pierre more MLS ready than Orozco. Pablo is an old-school MLS guy who talks all the time about how he values the NCAA as a part of the developmental process. The truth is that Orozco has excelled at a higher level than Pierre has reached, but Pablo seems to think that Pierre is the guy he'd rather rely on. Who knows, maybe Pierre has been blowing people away in preseason and will take us all by storm. But this just feels so 2005-era MLS to me - Pablo wants the guy who is physical and athletic and played in the NCAA, instead of the guy who is technical and skipped college. I was just starting to get convinced that Pablo wasn't so bad, but this week swung me all the way back over to thinking that Mastroeni is just a bad fit for this team. He's not a bad coach, but he's not what we need.
I actually don’t mind Jazzy going out on loan - this should happen to the younger guys more often. What sucks is that it is happening to a guy that seemed primed to get a decent amount of MLS minutes for RSL. I guess both technically could be true but that would mean that the 4th CB (whoever that is) was not a huge drop off in the eyes of the club
I’ll say if for the ‘millionth time: this is a massive indictment of the academy. Top academies around the world don’t always have to ship off their best players before they become first team worthy. It certainly is a path for some players, but not every single one
I could be talked into Jazi going on loan, but it makes no sense to loan him up. If he's good enough to get minutes for Santos Laguna then he's good enough to get minutes for us. If they found a loan for him somewhere that was between the first-team and the Monarchs I'd grumble (because I think he's good enough for MLS minutes now) but it'd make some sense. As is, is he just going to sit on the bench or play for Santos' reserves? If so, what's the point?
Also - just want to note what it is about Pierre that Mastroeni likes. I had really hoped that American talent evaluation had finally moved away from "the most athletic guy is also the best soccer player". Both Fall and Mastroeni mentioned Erik Holt and Delentz Pierre backing up the starters and being ahead of Orozco in the depth chart as other factors in the loan decision.Mastroeni said Pierre was recently clocked as the fastest player on the team in a 30-meter dash. #RSL— Caleb Turner (@calebturner23) February 3, 2023