http://www.dallasobserver.com/2012-07-19/news/brek-shea-and-the-making-of-an-american-soccer-star/ An interesting quote worthy of discussion. "Finally, in 2010, Shea went to his agent. "I wanted to leave," he says. But the MLS owns all of its teams and has the last say on player transactions. Shea already had hundreds of thousands of dollars invested into him through residency and MLS salary. He couldn't sit. So instead, Shea says, Hyndman got a call from the commissioner. "The league told FC Dallas, 'You have to either play him, sell him or trade him," Shea says. "If I had never said anything, I would've never played." (Hyndmann deflects questions about the incident, saying simply that Shea was a good player.)" Is there any truth to this?
I wouldn't be surprised in the least. Confirms what most of us suspect about both SH and MLS HQ, that the former doesn't trust young players and the latter is still meddlesome.
Interesting article. No one likes to hear that their team's star player "wanted to leave," but you can't exactly blame him. At least not before the 2010 season.
This article is only interesting from the standpoint that is clearly indicate his lack of respect for the club and his coach. This article was written over a month ago. So for him to tell the story about calling Garber (true or not) that long ago, its clear he's been unhappy for a while… But by gosh, how sad is it that a five year pro, even at 22, has to have a PR person open the door, intervene and manage an interview with the Dallas Observer? What I get from that article is that Shea is way more immature than I gave him credit for.
Per MLS Beat writer Daniel Robertson twitter Brek is not at practice today: https://twitter.com/Bigdsoccer?utm_...aign=GrantWahl&utm_content=226426286648729600 Here is another article by Jeff Carlisle on Brek's problems: http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/ml...-epitomize-tough-year-fc-dallas-jeff-carlisle
That was a great article. Very insightful. My sense is a better coach would get more out of Shea and help him through this.
My sense is that a lot has already been tried before now. I would also offer that a lot of coaches would have tried "tough love" before now . . .
What's odd is except for a few childish moments he has never been thought of as a bad apple. He always played hard and involved his teammates (although they didn't always reciprocate). This year has been different. Would be very interested in a viewpoint from a teammate as to whether it's a cumulative effect from overuse, Olympic team crashing, FCD also crashing and turf toe or whether he has become a swelled head like his new friend Dez.
I really hope not on the last one. I'm sure it's a combination of frustrations (like you said, exhaustion last season, how last season turned out, the turf toe, being left off the USMNT...). I know it's not an excuse, but I'm sure we'd all like reasons so we can make heads or tails of his attitude. And I'm sure he is a hard worker, that he didn't get where he is with his current attitude. We all just want to see it translate into something on the field.