I have been hoping that Limpere would be a target for cutting in order to accumulate some salary space for next year. However, he played pretty well in the match last night against NE, and then this morning I happened to stumble upon the fact that he is the assist leader for our team with 7. He also has 2 goals, and in only 1419 minutes played. For comparison, Zusi has 5 goals and 6 assists in 1952 minutes (these stats don't take into account the last match) I realize that Zusi is easily a vastly more complete player and that Limpere is getting older and slower with every minute he plays, but..... does he make the roster next year ?
I think Duka is better than Lindpere on the wings. Duka's pace is a huge bonus, as is the fact that he is young. They are both valuable to have around though, especially since Nyarko is bound to get injured at some point. Hopefully one or the other can be resigned on a better deal. I can't find contract details for Lindpere other than he signed a "multi-year" deal at the beginning of last year. If he's up for a deal at the end of this year or next, we should try to get him down a little bit. He'll be 32 by the time this season is over, and he's the one I'd pick as back up. So even just like 150-175k over his current 205k would be nice. Duka's deal has to change. I don't know what our arrangement is with Columbus, but if we have to pay his whole salary anytime soon, he should be coming down to 200-225k tops...
Maybe, but Pappa was only making 140k when he left. Do we really think that Duka is worth almost twice as much?
I'm not denying it, I'm just pointing out that just because somewhere else might pay more (if both some team and Duka are interested, which isn't a given) doesn't mean the Fire should. We have a cap to deal with, and right now, Duka is making more money than he should be. He is the 15th highest paid midfielder in the league (not counting Alvaro Fernandez) if you include DPs. He's all the way up at 8th if you take out the DPs....
Supposedly, I don't know how long that deal lasts for though, whether its just this year or through the life of the contract.
Duka has the potential to be a much better player then Pappa.He already does a few things better.His attitude has seemed to have changed and something is beginining to click.Right now his salary would be the least of my concerns.
As long as it doesn't impact our salary cap and ability to sign players, I'll be ok with it. But he, Lindpere and Nyarko are eating up almost a quarter of our cap space (if you count his whole salary, which we might not have to). If you threw 2 max salary DPs in there, and you've spent 49% of the $3m cap on less than half of a starting XI, much less subs. So lets hope we have a lot of allocation money saved up.
There must be a reason why Columbus/MLS gave him that money, it usually means interest from overseas/Gen Adidas players, remember Bone used to make almost 100K. Albania is not a EU member right? So he probably does not have a EU passport, that passport helps players get into EU leagues. Maybe Duka had interest from overseas after college. I really do not know.
If they are then that Oduro trade worked out even better than just the numbers. I doubt that Columbus is getting for any of Duka's salary, since the trade was at the begging of the year. Columbus? Well 3 DPs use up about 40% of your budget space, so 5 players with 2 DPs looks normal for them to use up almost half. I am assuming Santos will be gone next year, maybe Pause.
I remember reading the league thought he was a great prospect and they were afraid/certain he'd get offers from overseas so they locked him up with a good deal.
That's debatable. Pappa has better health care in the Netherlands, Clarence Goodson and family had more paid vacation and health care and child care than in the US, Alex used to have the ability to stash his assets and could have had super-long paternity leave in Switzerland, Chris Rolfe didn't have to eat any genetically modified food in Denmark. I take your point though.
Nah, I am pretty sure I saw him on Saturday when the players were walking from the practice field to the stadium.
There were reports Santos had signed with a Colombian club, but then word came down that move was delayed. That was a week or two ago, so that might have fallen though or been bullshit.
I would keep Lindpere. His stats are not bad at all for his games and frankly if the first ten games we had a player that could actually Score (i.e. before Magee's nuts arrived) he'd have a few more assists. He is IMO by far the best passer on the team right now although he is clearly not half as fast as Duke or a third of Nyarko's speed. If we reworked his and Duka's contracts down some I would still keep them all for depth and US OPEN Cup.
None of those are 3rd world countries. Still, maybe Rolfe should have ate something with some preservatives.
I thought you were talking about the British isles. England/Scotland/Wales/Ireland/NI are all 3rd world.
I am not sure that Duka will be great, but he has exceeded our (admittedly low) expectations from the beginning of the year.