Ah hah! There it is. I was trying more specific terms like "first DC United logo" or "1995 DC United Logo" etc. And getting the first official badge. Also the crop of the image that appears in the grid has the red part at the top mostly so I was skating by it as I remembered it was mostly black line without fill.
Whoever we play in the playoffs, they'll have to stop the LuchoRoo. Many say if a stingray didn't kill Steve Irwin, this thing probably would have.
The chart below contains salary information for all MLS players as of the date shown. In the survey, all player salaries are broken down into two numbers. The first is the player’s current base salary. The second is characterized as annual average guaranteed compensation. The annual average guaranteed compensation number includes a player’s base salary and all signing and guaranteed bonuses annualized over the term of the player’s contract, including option years. For example, if a player has a base salary of $50,000, has a two-year contract with two one-year options and received a $10,000 bonus when he signed, his average annual guaranteed compensation would be $52,500 (base salary plus signing bonus ($10,000), with the signing bonus divided by the number of years covered by the contract (4)). The average annual guaranteed compensation number also includes any annual marketing bonus to be received in the current year and any agent’s fees annualized over the term of the contract. The average annual guaranteed compensation figure does not include performance bonuses because there is no guarantee that the player will hit those bonuses. These figures include compensation from each player’s contract with MLS. They do not include any compensation from any contracts with individual teams or their affiliates As of September 15, 2018 Luciano Acosta DC United F-M $550,000.00 $652,000.00 Vytautas Andriuskevicius DC United D $250,000.00 $271,875.00 Yamil Asad DC United M $436,363.56 $520,522.65 Paul Arriola DC United M $624,999.96 $663,999.96 Steven Birnbaum DC United D $500,004.00 $525,004.00 Frederic Brillant DC United D $264,999.96 $299,999.96 Russell Canouse DC United M $247,500.00 $247,500.00 Nick DeLeon DC United M $275,000.00 $275,000.00 Chris Durkin DC United D-M $80,000.00 $89,166.67 Kevin Ellis DC United D $150,000.00 $158,333.33 Oniel Fisher DC United D-M $68,906.25 $68,906.25 Ian Harkes DC United M $104,500.00 $137,737.50 Bill Hamid DC United GK $67,500.00 $93,175.00 Jared Jeffrey DC United M $114,996.00 $124,996.00 Taylor Kemp DC United D $140,000.00 $140,000.00 Dane Kelly DC United F $67,500.00 $69,500.00 Darren Mattocks DC United F $400,000.00 $416,666.67 Junior Moreno DC United M $120,000.00 $139,500.00 Joseph Mora DC United D $90,000.00 $104,250.00 Bruno Miranda DC United F $67,500.00 $71,976.09 Chris Odoi-Atsem DC United D $54,500.04 $59,500.04 David Ousted DC United GK $350,000.04 $369,166.71 Kofi Opare DC United D $118,125.00 $133,125.00 Jalen Robinson DC United D $75,000.00 $75,000.00 Wayne Rooney DC United F $2,769,230.88 $2,776,730.88 Ulises Segura DC United M-F $136,999.92 $136,999.92 Zoltan Stieber DC United M $999,999.96 $999,999.96 Travis Worra DC United GK $68,906.25 $68,906.25 https://mlsplayers.org/resources/salary-guide
I don't know his other options and that money isn't everything but going to FCM looks worse and worse. I recall Bill turning down $2.1/3 to leave the club last winter.
He's also not on contract with MLS as far as I know since he is on loan. The amount may be the remainder of his salary this season with Midtjylland. Maybe no one knows how to convert krone to dollars.
Goff says Hamid will earn a lot more next year: "Among the other midseason signings, goalkeeper Bill Hamid is collecting only $67,500 in base salary and $93,175 overall. However, because of salary cap limitations, his income was backloaded, and he’ll earn considerably more next year. Hamid was reacquired on a 1½-year loan from Danish club Midtjylland. Before leaving for Europe last winter, Hamid was earning $350,000 (base) and $400,000 (overall) in MLS." https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...-mls-thats-just-start/?utm_term=.5934889cf85a
Looking at Vytas, Mattocks, Jared Jeffrey and Ellis, there's close a million bucks right there. And does anyone question Zoltan @ $1M?
I've said before that Stieber will be gone after this season. He's disfavored by Olsen and $1M is too much for a bench player. According to Goff, Vytas is largely being paid by Portland so we really don't know how much he "costs" DCU. Mattocks likely will be traded for GAM or TAM in the offseason. Ellis was an emergency pickup and who knows how long his contract runs. Probably will be offered the chance to make the roster in the spring. Jeffrey likely will captain Loudoun United next year. However, after looking at those salaries, I would say Mora, Moreno and Segura are being paid less than their value. Mora and Moreno a lot less.
Moreno, Canouse, Mora and Fisher look like real bargains. I think Steiber is that good, but not a good use of resources if he isn't going to start. And while I wouldn't call his current salary peanuts, they should be thinking about giving Acosta a raise.
Depending on whether Asad goes anywhere. I don't expect him to, but yeah $1M is a lot for a 12th man. If the team wants to contend they need to have really good players like him coming off the bench a lot and starting 10-12 games. But... you could probably find a player with similar production that costs under $300k. He actually played better before Rooney arrived. He just hasn't quite clicked with the new offense. I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to go back to Europe to start somewhere like Austria or BL2. Especially if he's gonna play regularly for Hungary, Europe is probably a better option. I suppose we might be able to trade him within MLS, but at that salary, he might be too expensive for a lot of teams.
Zoltan has the best salary number ever. 4 cents shy of that next scary tax bracket I want to be (or use) Jared Jeffrey's agent. I retract my Asad may not be worth his $$ theory since he makes $200k less than we thought Canouse is the winner of Dave Casper's greatest bargain signing for 2018.
Great bargains on Moreno, Mora and Segura. This is why you shop in Latin America. As for Stieber, I think his numbers the first half of the season justified his salary. But the team identity changed now and I'm not sure if Stieber's skill set is what the team needs. Stieber excelled when he had someone to cross to, since I think he has the best service on the team. But with Rooney we seem much more interested in short combo play up the middle. IMO these are team construction problems. This squad was not built with a clear identity in mind over the last 24 months. They were pretty much making it up as they went along. Now they landed on some good chemistry, but some of the pieces like Stieber and Mattocks don't seem to fit anymore. Ben may pay for this in the long run. A little too hesitant to rotate and a little too unwilling to use subs. You fall in love with your preferred 11 too much, and your depth players are left out of the chemistry.
The problem is Ben needed to win now in order to have a long run as the coach. Bad situation with no real right answer but he leaned hard on his best XI and it paid off in the short term. Mattocks and Steiber who were both essentially cast aside are likely out after we win the MLS cup anyways.
Arriola to RB may just be his saving grace on the national team. He's not shown to be particularly effective as a mid for them lately, and he's never going to play there as an 8. Meanwhile, the RB situation looks muddier and muddier.
Attention, we've got a code blue in the Long Strange Trip thread. Trauma team to the LTS thread stat!
Its longer than the last 24 months that this team has been adding players with no real plan in mind. Its at least the last 5 years that we've been adding whatever player from the bargain rack, who we though could fill a necessary role. I'd say that even now, a large portion of the team is still mismatched with respect to what the plan appears to be and there is little to no depth in supporting that plan. Any coaches goal would have to be, to make the playoffs at a minimum. Perhaps the bar might have been lower for having played the whole road schedule in the first half of the season with a limited roster, but if you're not playing for the playoffs, its a big fat FU for the paying fans. So he had to ride the best 11 horses he had. Thats why Ousted was up for that corner against Orlando. He's got a week to prep for Chicago and then 3 game in the next 8 days, hopefully, which is why Rooney had the day off from practice. Given how we're playing, its not unrealistic to expect us to win a home play in game, even on short rest, its the same rest as the opponent. I think the playoff format is to our favor right now, with the lower seed hosting the first game of a home and home playoff. I think we've proven we can beat anyone at AF. Its a different animal if you go into that 2nd leg up a goal or two. We've beaten Atlanta recently and we're really due, with respect to NJ and shown that we can hang in the 2nd half of the season. The window to win with Rooney is the next 2 years and probably not much beyond that. Not to say we couldn't build a winner in other ways in the short to mid term, but right now that Rooney we're building on.
Given the points we needed and how well we were rolling, I don't think we had a whole lot of choice. Sure, he could have subbed Steiber and Mattocks in a little more (especially this past Sunday, but also in other recent games). He did, however work DeLeon, Durkin, and Segura in well recently and has done so all year (when they've been healthy/available).
Yes, Zoltan is a bit excessive at his salary for $1 million. Talented enough player, but not at that salary, especially if they want to give deserved raises to Mora, Moreno, Acosta, etc. I think it was a playoff push so you go all out. He did use Zoltan to start in two matches while rotating. In fact, he may have expected that all along given we all knew when the international windows would take place. it is easy to say he should have rotated more... now after the fact that we qualified for the playoffs with a match to spare... but who would know if we had that luxury two months or even one month ago. Anybody know the last time we had a nine match unbeaten streak?
To be honest I haven't had much of a problem with Ben's starting lineups lately. If anything I feel like he underuses his subs. He either doesn't use them, or when he does use them he's not resting Rooney and Acosta. My only explanation is that this is a calculated risk considering the anomaly of this season, and all the home games. But if he goes into next season with this same pattern, we'll have energy/depth problems by late summer. It's just not sustainable long term.
As others have said, Ben had little choice on resting players. The most you could say is that he should have taken Rooney out of some games in the 80th minute or so. And that's not really a rest. And would anyone have advocated taking them out of any of our recent one goal victories? I think the recent ironman substitution policy is a Wayne thing. He set the standard that nobody gets a rest while there was still hope for the season. That certainly isn't Ben's MO. He's a players coach who in the past has often rested starters in situations where points were crucial. From the beginning Wayne set the effort bar a lot higher. And, miracle of miracles, all these twenty-something year old athletes haven't keeled over from occasionally playing two matches in a week.
I think Ben should use his subs more, but to be fair, there aren't a lot of great options on the bench. The drop off after our best 13 or so is pretty steep. And no, I wouldn't take Rooney out of a close game - he is the best player out there.