For the life of me I cannot figure out how LAFC have such a high quality roster yet always room for more quality. To see them at the same level of spending as the Dynamo is just crazy. I really wish someone of these national reporter guys would do a deep deep dive into their roster build. Explain how they get there.
If you’re talking about Bale and Chiellini I just think it’s a right place right time sort of thing. Bale wanted to retire after the World Cup and probably figured LA was a nice place to stay in playing form for 6 months. Chiellini wanted to be in LA to because it’s a good spot to be and I think he knew another former Italy NT player that had a business venture. For the salary charge, a mid year signing doesn’t count as the full amount of salary against the cap for certain signings. I think they were both TAM so that might have qualified. This isn’t to say there wasn’t anything under the table, but there were mechanisms they could use to make it work. If they did run afoul of rules it’ll probably be years until we find out.
What is fascinating to me about this is how relatively small the TAM portion of our roster is. Basically says we're spending a good amount on DPs now, but from there the roster still skews towards low cost players, the old finding bargains approach. In theory means an overall lower quality roster compared to other teams. Which I think, in general, is probably true. Still feel like their point total this season so far is above their pay grade, so to speak.
I'm not actually. I don't consider either of them that big a deal. It is more about the overall quality of the balance of their roster. And I'm not suggesting any rule violations, though I know those sort of things happen. Are they just out-scouting everyone else?
I think this is a big part of it. Media has praise the GM and the 2nd in command (until he recently got hired at LAG) a lot. They also hit a HR on their DPs which makes the rest of it a lot easier
Olsen says he considers FCD head coach Nico Estevez a friend and called him “an excellent human.”Olsen adds Jesus Ferreira seems to be always in good form. He does so much defensively and he understands where space is. His quality comes through, very complete player.— Bayou City Soccer (@BayouCitySoccer) May 19, 2023 Maybe the way it’s paraphrased doesn’t do justice, but Olsen talking about a striker and mentioning their defense first is almost too on the nose
are you f*cking kidding me suggesting cappis? as in the kid who deliberately end ran our academy to FCD? additionally i make an annual list of foreign players to chase, which i get stick for, and that's your idea of salvation? "haji wright mckenzie EPB*** cannon fossey pierie bello j. gomez reynolds*** johnny*** aribiyi ledezma llanez*** mendez rokas pukstas*** duane holmes*** julian green*** patrick koffi tim tillman (malik's older brother on green's team) pefok*** hoppe balogun*** tyler boyd konrad sebastian soto***"" btw since i am accused of cap busting with my suggestions here are some 2023 MLS salaries on recent returnees i listed t. tillman $500k (USMNT provo list) gioacchini $380k moore $725k (all star) ledesma $350k (USMNT provo list) oh they so broke the bank didn't they. and all clearly disappointments as you feared. or performed fear? some others of note haji wright had a goal at the world cup after i listed him balogun is the next big USMNT shiny object fossey is on the USMNT provo list johnny got called in the spring gomez had the winning goal in the U20's first world cup game. just remember, "juve is an idiot." say it a few times. block me. then post how cappis is available. are people kidding me.
That is a very good run done list of players to go after for our club Juve. When Coach Olsen speaks his Pennsylvania accent in the team locker room, it translates to garra for our Spanish speakers!
i am going to keep repeating myself that if we are even struggling the slightest bit, even slightly unsure we will make it, we should be reconsidering DPs and more of the roster. arguments get made about "50 points" but then we do this power fade every year that questions our competence to do so. arguments get made about moving the business/fan needle: https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/top-selling-mls-jerseys-lafc-s-carlos-vela-leads-in-2023 (no players on the list) https://soccerstadiumdigest.com/2023-mls-attendance/ (27/29 and roughly a 33% or more drop from peak) when other teams have guys with 10G or 8A or truly dominant DMs i find your "but he's a classy player (sometimes)" comments cute. he might even be better than last year but that's treating him like memo numbers and solid but not leakproof defense are worth $5.2m. the i call bullsh*t statement is compared to some other stars in the league at what point do you ever feel like our big investment is in the dominant player on the field -- for both teams -- who is such an active and productive stud they are going to tear victory from the other team, all by themselves? otherwise, we have had DmB and figueroa at the end of their careers, doing the odd classy thing every so often in their advanced age but not quite dominant, and they both had the self restraint to do it for cheap. where is our vela, valeri, mukhtar, etc.? this used to be the team with dero, davis, ching, etc. i recognize we will likely have at least 1 new DP but i think that is a 50 point attitude. a winning attitude is we have no dominant DP healthy and a list of malfunctioning support players, particularly in defense and up top. i do not think MLS rewards timid.
that was the winter list. some players have found new places or taken off. current list would look something like: gio reyna pulisic musah steffen horvath pepi weah dest (as attacker) mckennie (i am including this set because we have at least one DP -- or could call it 2 if we had cajones -- and this may be an unusually rich window to chase unsettled elite domestic talent and redefine who we are) (or we can convince ourselves real hard HH is equivalent anymore) josh cohen schwake ochoa sam rogers (CB from january camp) Philippe Sandler tomkinson j. gomez bello vines pierie reynolds fossey EPB okoh che dietz cannon hilton tessmann pefok koleosho wright julian green osaze derosario (as in.....) gall kayo hoppe hawkins de vries rokas pukstas Eduvie Ikoba (US passport, Dartmouth soccer, 13G 2A in hungarian league at rate of G/185') johnny Jonathan Gonzales llanez maurice malone benji michel mighten mihailovic sabbi ouro-tagba sanogo a. sonora sebastian soto zendejas keyrol figueroa (maynor's kid) amir richardson trade for efrain alvarez
https://www.houstondynamofc.com/dyn...c-loan-fw-roberto-avila-to-charleston-battery another player where it was like how did he make the team after last season. you make these decisions correctly in the offseason and we're 5 months down the road to sorting this out. you make the wrong decision and we carry a guy 1/3 of the next regular season who doesn't play a minute. and the clock on fixing this mistake only starts now and depending which source we tap may not be addressed until summer. same thing van der kust. olsen obviously isn't interested, i thought he was a horrible defender, and we've signed schmitt and gasper since then for a position where we already had others eg smith. move on. clear the slot and bring in someone who has any hope. pat to me has a batting average problem that is only compounded by the post-kinnear propensity to either deny or delay admitting mistakes.
I mentioned this in the St. Louis game thread, but what exactly are we trying to build? My analogy is like we are collecting a hodgepodge of Lego minifigures from various themed sets (like one Bobo Fett, another from an Indiana Jones set, etc) and trying to turn them into some sort of cohesive package. For example, HH is playing better this year, but we blew a load of money on him for a rebuilding team (not an "over the top" veteran leader guy). Was it because Segal wanted to make a splash or because Onstad really thought HH had several years left in the tank? and was a DM really what we needed? Look at Sebas' game log for this year, you've got a team not scoring and its "scoring-type DP" can't get on the field. Why is he even still here other than trying to retain some of his value when disposing him later. I would be happy after nearly a decade of incompetency to be proven wrong in the second half of the season. I think there has been a noticeable improvement in resource commitment by Segal - our total payroll is about 10th in the league, top-third or so which is reasonable. Funny I think Onstad and Mendleson come across great when interviewed, responses to questions, game model, scouting, etc, but the results aren't there and frankly you have to question if they will come.
could give a f*ck less how pat interviews. i will note pat is often diplomatic and ambivalent, will mention choices A and B, say he is weighing them, be applauded on here as a sage, only choose B after the interview, and B doesn't work. pat is then not accountable later on to his B choice. eg should we have a 10. i think a lot of this is the absence of a neutral or confrontational press. my general impression is pat is incompetent to pick decent players consistently much less pick to a scheme like his old coach did. i am curious how much of this overreliance on stats and analytics to the detriment of scouting ie actually seeing how they play. i can watch a few minutes of van der kust playing PSV and be like this guy is trash. ditto that quinones is sloppy AF. how does a pro GM who does this for a living not see the same? to me this needs to be rebooted in favor of scouting again, which they swore on a stack of bibles was the new winter emphasis and then we batted a poor average again. this needs to start with, can he ball. scouting. then use analytics to confirm what the scout saw wasn't a one-off.
i do not see any value in our GM/HC split. this has been a mess ever since then. it is never some hand in glove operation where coaches ideate and GMs deliver for their ideas. it tends to be a sh*tty GM dictatorship pushing poor fashion plate schemes without the budget to beat teams playing end to end. i don't think the GM should be deciding scheme. i think our problems start there because the schemes often don't work and the org chart structure then presents a dilemma where one either bucks the GM and risks their job (perhaps nagamura) or feels like they can't adjust between games or within one -- normal coach stuff. to me part of the value of coaching is the ability to go off-plan as the game presents. or to decide in a particular year tactics need to change. we have instead like berhalter reified scheme even while scheme offers little reward. a normal team would then do something else but not if your boss said not to. the GMs have taken that outsize power -- effectively coaching power -- and often used it to push fashion choices instead of fundamentally sound soccer, despite having weak rosters to work with. how many years do i have to watch us get burned up the wings before we drop it? it ceased to make any sense as offense once elis was sold. so we no longer have dominant wings but we don't cover out wing defense well either. hire a coach to run the soccer. the GM's job then needs to be to find faces to fit the demands of the coach. i don't trust pat can even do that much less be the coach behind the scenes ordering scheme. hence the LB revolving door you mentioned. kinnear could blame the players when he signed people because often enough he got them right. when we suck and the GM can't sign one good back out of a pile he brings in, that's blatant incompetence. i mean, not even one. you'd think you'd trip over one by mistake.......by pure chance...... what i really want is eradicate GM, hire a winning coach, hand them the soccer side, and then have them hire personnel people they want as subordinates. i think it is idiotic to hire green GMs given godlike executive power over the franchise despite limited or no experience as the top personnel guy. i see a lot of this sort of DQ/ sebas/ etc. destructive interference where the coach clearly does not like the players being signed for him. i see a lot of just basic incompetence where the roster just flat sucks and the coach is almost f*cked day 1. it only makes it worse to then tie their hands and say, ok, see that pile of junk, here are your scheme orders how it can play. cuz to me to take junk and make it work you need a coach flipping every tactical dial and switch they can find.
i half wonder if we analytically have elevated some bad ideas of soccer because how to explain the fact we sign wrong players over and over. two 8s, weak wings, vulnerable wingbacks, sketchy center backs. like that some numbers filter someplace is literally configured in a way that spits out trash. otherwise a halfway competent personnel room should be tripping over the odd elis or quioto by simple accident if nothing else. to literally be this incompetent i think you need to have some wrongheaded intermediary someplace saying do the stupid thing. like i said above, i think we need to revert to humans watching players and dump the analytics as a primary tool.
I mean, we've built a pretty stout defensive team that can sit mid-low block. With our midfield (in theory) we've built a team that unlock the defense in multiple ways. The biggest problem we have is our best defensive lineup has backs that can't get forward AND forwards that can't make plays.