Luchi Gonzalez. A forward. Ex-Herman award winner as best player in the NCAA and bench sitter for San Jose all season. Sure he mayscore some goalsfor us, but does anyone else react to this with a confused shrug of the shoulders/squint and wonder "What the hell?" http://www.mlsnet.com/content/02/mls1106waiver.html edit: Sorry, didn't see Krypto's post. But I think Luchi deserves his own thread, don't you?!
He's a quality player. Hermann Trophy and MAC Player of the Year. Sounds like a good pick to me. I guess with Donovan, Graziani and De Rosario, the Quakes had no use for him. Now we certainly have proven quality up front also. Jeff, Edson, McBride--so this does make you wonder if there is a trade looming in the future?
Or one of our other forwards is leaving and Luchi becomes our 4th forward. Given that Luchi made it to the 7th poick of waivers I doubt we'd get much in return for him as far as a trade goes.
I can think of two things the Crew might be thinking. 1) Goodbye Dante. A lot of teams are looking for a target forward like DC, Colorado, NY/NJ. Dante is a proven scorer and would start with any of those teams. 2)The crew maybe looking at him to push West in the midfield. Luchi is fast and what I saw in College was a good passer, maybe they want him for a right mid
I cannot believe no one picked up Ibsen, Chronopoulos, Saavedra or Titus. Didn't Titus even state he wanted to play in Columbus? What gives why didn't we at least pick up a defender. I mean it couldn't hurt.
#1 for sure. pity, i liked him and think he was a great contributor. dante will do well for DC. and he'll be closer to his family.
its is a good pick, i think dante is getting traded... i wouldnt have minded seeing us pick up saavedra. he is still a very young kid, what? 18 or 19? and he could be learning the center mid position with martino. although you gotta wonder why a kid with so much promise would get tossed to waivers by the fire and then not get picked up...interesting.
are you implying that the fire organization is intelligent? i actually have luchi's autograph around my apartment somewhere....one of my students went to the ncaa award ceremony that he was honored at a year ago and brought it back for me. she said he had 'cool hair.'
Does this mean that San Jose's "LucciAfficianado" or however it's spelled will start posting here now? I think she still owes Zak some pictures of her with her sister or something. I don't get too fired up about the waiver draft. MLS has so many ways of acquiring players - signings, discoveries, SuperDraft, allocations, because-we-feel-like-it - that I just pretty much wait until the final cut-down day. Trying to figure out what the Crew organization is doing oftentimes makes my head spin.
Titus was rumored to want to play here, but I don't think anything solidified that. Also, he still is an SI, and I have a feeling Greg has a few cards up his sleeve while scouting down in Guatemala..
This is true, however it sure does help fill in the void between the seasons. I for one would hate to see Dante go to DeCrepid. First off it's a division rival, someone the Crew plays four times a year, I would much rather see him go to Colorodo or a Western conference team. However, if he goes to DeCrepid, as much as I hate those bastards, you won't find me yelling he sucks when he comes to town. He was one of my favorite players here.
I'm with MyShap and Scott Tann on this one. Although, my immediate thought went to trading Cunningham, but I don't see him going anywhere. Especially since Scott sees him as the team MVP. Cunny's not going anywhere. So, that leaves Dante to move. And everyone has already figured out where he's going. Since when did this league become so damn predictable?
Keep in mind though that not being picked up through the waiver draft does not mean nobody wants you. The waiver draft requires the drafting team to pick up a players' CONTRACT. In other words, to pay him whatever he is currently getting. Because MLS refuses to let us in on the secrets, we can only guess as to those guys' current salary levels, but Teddy for example probably has a pretty good rate of pay by MLS standards. The good news, of course, is that after not being picked up they all become some form of free agent. So about all we can say about any of those guys for sure is that a)They're available and b) If they plan on playing in MLS next year, they're going to have to cut back on a few things.
Congrats on Luchi. He can play both forward and midfield, so while I also think it means Dante may be headed to DC United (I hope so at least), it might also be cover for Andrulis moving Perez. Think about it, if Mais and Martino start in the center, the Crew would need another midfielder capable of running the offense. While I'm a big Harkes fan, I don't know that he's dependable at his age and given his injury history. While Luchi does have skills, I wouldn't call him fast. The Crew have some darn fast guys already, but I'd think Luchi is probably the slowest forward they have. -Tron
Same here. He was a positive force in the locker room and a good PR guy for the team. I still think JC is potentially tradable and the Lucci (with GROUPIES) acquisition makes it even more possible. Does Lucci have good technical skills , or is he just another burner?
Apparently the Crew are going to use him out wide more and for times when our forwards are away for Nat duty. http://www.1460thefan.com/tf.php?story=dispatch/news/sports02/nov02/1477207.html A very good article, that helps fill in the reasoning for picking Luchi.
here's some more you all may have missed: Younger brother Christian, a goalkeeper, was under consideration for selection to the current U.S. Under-17 National Team's residential camp before a knee injury forced him to withdraw. His dad comes from Peru. Yeah, he has the sport in his blood. He should help a lot. MLSnet's bio on Gonzalez.