I have been unwavering in my support for Pablo Mastroeni to be part of this team now and in the future. I cringed when I read some peoples criticism of him wondering how we could see things so differently. My belief in Pablo's skills and ability to contribute continue but I join his critics in calling for the Rapids to trade him. I call for a trade not because I think he "plays down" when playing for the Rapids or cannot help the team. I call for a trade because I think he can bring, in a return, a player who can help the team more then he can help the team. I view this move as I viewed the Chung and Henderson moves except I think the Rapids can add even more value (at this point they've received no value from the Chung trade). What are your thoughts and which teams/players do you think, realistically, would be a good match for a trade? I've only come to this conclusion since last night and haven't thought a lot about it yet so I'll add my thoughts a bit later.
Well my first thought after last night's game is ... We have a moron taking dumb yellows and reds ... Pablo's roll is being filled while he's with the Nats!! (little joke there)
Well, it's obvious that the Rapids are desperate for a creative midfielder of some sort. But unfortunately, there's a lot of teams in the league looking for the same thing. There's pretty much two choices--either trade Mastro for one of the younger midfielders currently sitting on a bench like Szetela or Grabavoy or else try to get some draft choices and an allocation. No teams going to part with a gifted, experienced midfielder at this point in the season. Yeah, Pablo has the portential to be a great player but he misses way too many games. Not only that, it's becoming obvious the team plays better without him. He's been on my hit list for some time. Trade him now and get some value for him.
I just did a little analysis to confirm what a lot of us are thinking. Pablo has played in 8 of our 17 games. Not even half. In games where Pablo has played our record is 2 wins and 6 losses, for 6 points. In games where Pablo has been absent our record is 3 wins, 4 losses and 2 draws for 11 points. While Pablo's played we've scored 8 goals and given up 13. Without Pablo we've scored 10 and given up 10. I think it is safe to say Pablo is not helping this team. My hope is that he'll have a strong Gold Cup, get some interest from Europe, and MLS will agree to sell him giving the Rapids an allocation. That allocation could then be traded for someone or get us a gift from the league.
My first choice... Pablo to the Fire for Thiago Upside to the Fire: they've given up 26 goals, Pablo should be able to help. The Fire have scored an MLS leading 32, they can afford to take a hit offensively. Upside to the Rapids: A quick, skillful, creative midfielder.
I wonder if a three way deal can be worked out so we can get both? I don't know what the Gals could get, but the Crew look like a team who could really use Mastro.
I like Pablo, but I agree with your overall analysis. I think we need to sell him overseas and get the major allocation. The question is, can we get good value in return (from a team in MLS) for Pablo? I know that Pablo is a really good national team level player. But nobody is going to fall in line to give us the "number 10" that we so crave, or are we going to get a great player otherwise in his prime. I suspect that the best we'll get for Pablo is either (A) somebody else's headache (read: injured, older, etc.), or (B) a "package" of 2 lesser players and a draft pick, or something like that. I mean, Pablo is out at least 1/2 the time between injuries, national team and red cards. So who is going to line up and say "that's exactly what our team needs!" I just don't think it will happen. If we trade for an allocation, I want some certainty that the league will step in and throw us a bone. On the other hand, if we sell him, I want an iron clad guarantee from the league that they don't screw us with our allocation (ie, we are forced to trade for the rights to former Rapid great Henry Zambrano). I want them to get us to get some of that "somethin' somethin'" that LA, NY and DC get just because they are LA, NY and DC. That also means I want cap consideration like those teams get (ie, I don't want the player to count against the cap if they are a big dollar player). Again - we have a new owner with this league - something the league has supposedly been dying for. Come on, KSE, flex some muscle!
nowar99... I don't think "we" can sell anyone overseas. And personally, I think Pablo is exactly the type of player who can help to lead an MLS team to a championship. Someone needs to send him a tape of last nights game so that he can see how well the team can play without him. Maybe that will get him reinterested in being the team leader that we all know him to be...adios
I was very impressed when I read the comments by observers at the Gold Cup camp that Pablo is a team leader. That makes me think twice about his value to the Rapids, but as others have said, I am concerned about the three things that always seem to keep him off the field, injuries, cards, and call ups. I have great respect for him. I wish it was possible to know what he feels about these things, and even what he feels about the Rapids. I do know that we can't have a team leader who isn't there even half the time, and when he does return seems to always get in trouble. I would love to see an allocation, but like others have said, the league has pretty much screwed us to the wall every time. I wouldn't want to make this trade unless I could be sure that somebody else didn't get the player we want, and we ended up with Frenchman FiFi who doesn't really want to come anyway.
This isn't specifically directed at smudgey, but can anyone explain to me how the league, as in MLS, has screwed us in the past? I've heard it said a number of times and I have no idea to what anyone is referring. MLS didn't tell Grimandi to go home, sign Amokachi or twice cut the beloved Chris Carrieri from the team. Don Garber isn't keeping 20,000 fans from showing up on Saturday nights and Ivan Gazidis doesn't make Pablo Mastroeni play like crap for the Rapids. Sincerely, how has the league gone and screwed us? The way I see it, we're merely reaping what we have sown, the good and the bad. As far as anyone is concerned, I fail to see how the league "owes" the Colorado Rapids something, whether it be players, coaches or anything else. Sure, our owner does, but this idea that the league has screwed us seems unfounded. We weren't "given" Freddy Adu, Landon Donovan or anyone else, but DC United and the Los Angeles Galaxy surely weren't just "given" their MLS Cup championships. They earned them, and in most cases, their owners did what had to be done to assure it. I honestly don't understand this notion that we should expect some handout from the league for being eternally mediocre or that we've been screwed. Simply, we suck because our owner is indifferent, our coaches have been incompetent and our players are mostly mediocre (excluding Denton, who is crap). The league didn't do this to us, Charlie Wright, Tim Hankinson, Stan Kroenke, Fernando Clavijo and Marcelo Balboa did this to us. Its time to stop projecting blame to the league, as a collective, for our mediocrity and take some responsibility as an organization for our lackluster history. Look at Dallas. The "league" didn't rebuild their team to title contenders from last place or owe them anything, excellent player acquisition by GM Greg Elliot and solid coaching from Colin Clarke have made them a great team. The league didn't even plop Carlos Ruiz in their lap; Dallas jumped at the opportunity from the begining. Bringing in players like Mina, Goodson and Pitchlokan have led to their success, not some league-wide conspiracy. Let's face it: Being good in this league, like being good in any other league, takes smart management, coaching, direction, determination and performance. I can't see how we are being plucked like the strings of a puppet by the "league".
Moreover, look at San Jose. If any team can cry "We got screwed", its them. And they're still better than we are. They did it by putting together a solid team with some smart trades for - now listen to this one Hanki and Clavijo - PROVEN league quantities (Davis, Clark, Moreno).
When your owner for 8 of your 10 years owns 6 teams for a number of those years and you're obviously the lowest priority team in the bunch, not to mention the other two owners each getting their pet teams higher priority than you, you sure as hell feel like you're getting screwed by the league. It's a bit of a semantics game, but for many years Phil Anschutz (sp?) was the league, and we were obviously his lowest priority. While I agree that as much (if not more) of the blame can be put on the AEG side as on the MLS side, I find the lines between those two organizations pretty blurred when AEG owned 6 of the 10 teams. Under KSE the league has not screwed us, KSE has decided that all we are are a means to a stadium and let us twist in the wind.
Fair enough. But I maintain that Uncle Phil manuevering to get the best players on his teams is what a good owner should do. Unfortunately, you're right, in the single-entity format where he owns most of the league, we got the short-end of the stick. At the very least, however, that was not the league as an entity screwing us over, it was our owner by virtue of helping his other teams. Even still, are there any concrete examples of Uncle Phil screwing us? Sure, he didn't ship us a Hernandez or Matthaus, but I'm not sure I would've wanted him to and I'm even more sure they wouldn't have wanted to come. Did he suspiciously ship one of our star players off to another of his franchises? Even if our funding for marketing and advertising were significantly less than LA or the Metros (I don't know whether it was or not), it would most certainly be expected given their market sizes relative to ours; not necessarily screwing us. Nonetheless, considering this is KSE's second year, any screwing of us the league may have done in the past should have very little effect on our current abysmal performances.
I am not really concerned about who screwed who, or do I find myself conversely pointing fingers........I don't really care, whether it be an allocation, a trade, or a DNA transplant to one of our current players, I would just like once to have one of those players that I see go to other teams. Whether it be AEG, KSE, MLS, or Ronald McDonald who is at fault, I am not concerned about who is at fault, I just want to see that marquee name player that seems invariably to go to the East Coast, West Coast, or Chicago. Your point UxSxAxFooty about San Jose is exactly what I am talking about. Teams like San Jose, Colorado, never seem to get or keep those kind of players. Every year I am optimistically excited about the chance that this might be the year we have the player that all of Denver wants a jersey of, and it just hasn't happened. UxSxAxFooty seems to be entrenched in pointing fingers, and I am just as entrenched in the fact that once arriving at the guilty party, we still aren't any closer to someone of real star quality. I am sure that we aren't at the top of Mr. Kroenke's wish list, but if we were, and Silent Stan was willing to break the bank, would we suddenly have that kind of player? If so, then we need to plead with Stan to help us out. If not, then I have no answer. Would the league allow Stan to go out and purchase us a winning team like Jose Mourinho did for Chelsea? Do I want him to be able to? I don't know. I just know that I hope that before I die, we have a club that I can be truly proud of, that others will look at and say, I wish we had a team like the Rapids. I am not arguing with Footy because in finger pointing, Footy is probably right. I just don't care whodunit. I long for a winner.
"Look at Dallas. The "league" didn't rebuild their team to title contenders from last place or owe them anything, excellent player acquisition by GM Greg Elliot and solid coaching from Colin Clarke have made them a great team. The league didn't even plop Carlos Ruiz in their lap; Dallas jumped at the opportunity from the begining. Bringing in players like Mina, Goodson and Pitchlokan have led to their success, not some league-wide conspiracy." And I thought it was all just the new name and badge. ;>) More seriously I have to agree with "smudgeyjoe", finger pointing backwards isn't going to get us to the MLS Cup. (But then neither is this year's squad w/o some midfield improvements.) Whatever has been is irrelevant unless it predicts what will be. If (and it's a big one) they can find, trade, buy, steal, develop or materialize one player of Jeff Cunningham's caliber every 6-months (we're due right about now for the next one) for about the next 2 1/2 years we could be Cup contenders. Does that timing coincide with anything else?
With AEG, it was kind of benign neglect. We were like the good kid in the family who always did his homework, never stayed out late, never got into trouble but was always taken for granted and pretty much ignored by his family. Under AEG, the Rapids had decent attendance, a reasonable stadium deal, and didn't lose a whole lot of money for the organization. Had the Rapids been a problem child like San Jose or New Jersey, then we would have gotten a lot more attention.
EVERYBODY IS RIGHT! MLS has never done us any favors. And our team has been managed like crap from day one. COME ON ... we've got the reputation of being the lamest team in MLS. Of the 4 teams (excluding expansion) with negative reputations ... the Metros have been gifted failure after failure. NE is now strong and shed it's rep. KC won a CUP! That leaves little old us ... with our star studded history that includes Balboa and Cannon and Spenny. Back to Pablo - this news that Pablo is a leader on the Nats shocks me. Because, while I do think Pablo is very talented, I've NEVER considered him a leader on the Rapids - EVER. Spenny - yes. Cannon - yes. Pablo - no.
Just a quick question for anyone. What did Dallas give up this season in order to acquire Carlos Ruiz, one of the most proficient goal scorers in the MLS?
The rights to the next returning MNT player which ended up be Landycakes which really wasn't giving up much since his deal to return involved playing for LA. LA couldn't re-sign Ruiz sfor next season so they were giving up nothing either.
Thanks... That's kinda what I thought was the answer. That's the type of deep insightful decision that makes a GM look brilliant.. cough cough....
Right...I'm sure the guys in Dallas really thought long and hard about giving up the allocation for Ruiz. It is the kind of MLS black magic that I don't love.