That would be the same Corey Wray that Haslam Sports told to pound sand and hired Issa Tall, probably because he is a pal of Wilfried Nancy, who proceeded to leave. A decision that.keeps looking dumber by the.month..
Arfsten's a bit different since he left college early to sign an MLSNP contract with San Jose. They decided he was of no use after that year (fools), which is how he ended up in the draft the next year. But, yeah, every year there's someone in the draft who ends up panning out. Still, I don't think anyone will be too saddened if the whole thing goes away at some point.
Still waiting to see what happens with our previous super duper draft TM pick, Zach Zengue, from a few years ago. Enjoyed watching him play for Vermont Green last few seasons in USL2. Dude has an engine on him.
Another Corey banger is that, inasmuch as MLS clubs could ever have truly been said to be in the running for Yan Diomande before he blew up, well, Corey had us in that mix. RBNY were one, IIRC maybe DC was the other. Anyway, we were all set to send someone down to Florida to evaluate him when his prep school (DME Academy, a Montverde rival) told the interested MLS parties at the last minute Yan had class or something that day and, anyway, was no longer interested in MLS. Fair do's to the kid in the end, but the point is Corey is kinda good at this whole scouting and recruitment thing.
Another potential banger would have been his brother Xavier. The Crew (2? I'm not sure) FO told a ton of 2022-23 Capys they were "important parts of the team", "very important to the future of the organization" and whatnot then dumped them all on their asses. That whole ordeal to invest entirely in the academy was a mess and now we have the coaching/GM mess with the first team. Perhaps the writing was on the wall back then.
I’ll say it again, Issa was picked by Bez. If we’d opted to invest in the 2 UK teams that were considered, Issa was always going to take over running the Crew while Bez went to England. He was Bez’s choice. I’m not saying it was a wise decision, but it can’t be blamed on ownership or Nancy.
Oh, well. Hopefully he can log some meaningful minutes. I'll be curious what we eventually learn about his compensation. Can't imagine it'll have any meaningful effect on the salary budget. Others have noted that he takes up an int'l roster slot. True, but I don't think we've ever encountered a situation in recent years where that's affected our ability to sign someone else, either. Finally, having him signed and seen as being healthy going into 2026 is probably a good thing when it comes to on-boarding our next head coach. We have several big holes to fill. Hopefully Camacho will at least buy a new coach a bit of time while that person figures out what to do at central midfield, how Gazdag can become a goal scorer again, who to recruit to come here and fill out a coaching staff, and so on. More important than any of the above is the club's attitude about our defense more broadly. With a head coach, I assume there's no definitive answer to that question. Regardless, Rudy Camacho cannot be seen as anything other than a stop-gap solution at CB.
Thats our ambitious front office for ya folks. I expect to see a season ending injury for him shortly.
We won't be a playoff team next year. Not because Camacho is back, but because Issa & Gazdag will be.
It's becoming an unserious franchise. Cracks have been visible in the foundation for over a year and the front office still sits on their asses with eyes closed and ears covered pretending everything is fine.
They’re moving too slow. With every single thing, consistently. It’s a major annoyance and an indicator of incompetence.
Seriously, they re-sign a veteran CB for a 1 year contract at probablty a few $100K and this is the response? Did Issa say that Rudy would be our starting CB next season? That he's the future of the franchise? Hell, Josh Williams made over $400K in 2023 and never played one minute. I'm really having a hard time seeing the apocalypse in this signing. Am I excited about it? No. Would I have re-signed him? No. But I can see why the FO would want to bring back a veteran player at a low salary on a team that's lacking veteran leaders. It's also not hard to imagine that they have their eyes on a CB signing who might not be available until summer. We'll see. Re-signing Camacho isn't a replacement for signing the talent we need. Hardly. Mostly, though, his presence on the roster really doesn't matter all that much, either way.
In a salary cap league, every dollar counts. If we are paying him any amount of money to be 2023 Josh Williams (who didn't play as you said) then what is the point? If he's not gonna play, what is the point? I'd rather save the international roster spot and literally sign anyone else, or sell it, because Rudy is washed and isn't part of the future. It's such a waste of money and an international roster spot. By the time next season starts, he will have played something like 15 minutes of MLS soccer in the last 15 months. And he's old, really old. What could go wrong?
In MLS, no, not every dollar counts. In fact, smart teams have players who don't count a penny toward the salary budget, or only count to a discounted degree. To whine about Camacho taking up salary space that, in the end, will be a rounding error on the overall salary budget (which, incidentally, increases by almost $500K in the base busget, and $260K in GAM cmpared to last year's numbers) is really just that, whining about something insubstantial. The int'l slot, sure, It's a thing. But even if no other int'l player's status changes next year, we still have an open slot. We can always buy one off another team for $200K or so. I don't really see the problem. And obviously, we have tons of open roster space.
Let me ask you this, ignoring the money, what do you expect Rudy to provide this team next year? I expect him to be a paperweight for the bench and to be a glorified practice cone with legs in training sessions, that's about it.
All the while other teams are getting better around us (just like last year) and we are still hoping to have concepts of a plan.