I love how he is totally willing to engage in discussions about tactics and different players' strengths. It's the stuff that many of us love to talk about but you rarely hear a coach willing to engage in depth on it in public. He obviously has great passion for and knowledge of the game, and getting players to be the best they can be. It might be a little too soon to draw conclusions but hiring Losada might be the best thing this ownership group has ever done.
I'd give 'em the Rooney signing, too. I'll admit I was a skeptic (and he left early) but I was pleasantly surprised at the passion he brought, and the international name recognition has real value (not just for signing fading stars but also for young up-and-comers). While I do like Audi Field and give Levien and company credit for it, I wish I loved it (it is, nonetheless, a quantam leap forward from what we had). The demerits list for this ownership group is pretty lengthy, though.
The week before United signed Rooney, Seattle invested in a young promising Peruvian striker, Raúl Ruidíaz. The contracts as reported by the players union, were very similar. One team invested in a spectacle, the other in a franchise player. Seattle went on to win or be in the MLS Cup Final like 3 of 4 years (didn't do the fact check there). So you tell me. Was Rooney a good signing? I thought it was an insulting joke then and I feel the same way now.
Rooney was definitely a joke of a signing and a waste of money. I don't think he brought in nearly enough money like Beckham did either, not even remotely close on a year to year basis.
To compare and contrast two specific signings and act like you have made an airtight argument is BS, frankly. I could list dozens of things that Seattle's ownership and management have done better than DCU's (resulting in winning or at least getting to finals). None of these moves exist in a vacuum. Yes, on balance I think Rooney was a good signing (even though I didn't at the time). For a brief moment that team was fun to watch and unquestionably he brought in new fans. But that should not have been a mutually exclusive event from signing a player like Ruidíaz (more than one, actually). Or getting a better coach. Or developing in a strong academy program. Or investing in data analytics. Or having a professional training facility, etc. Whether is it a shortage of capital, poor scouting, a failure to have a strategic plan or all of the above DCU had not done these things. Maybe with the new president, GM, and coach this is changing. Time will tell. Debating whether or not Rooney was a "good signing" is a pointless exercise. I think it was; you don't. Whatever. Millions of sports fans have had tens of millions of these same debates.
I think Rooney was a good signing. 23 goals and 15 assists in 4000 minutes is pretty impressive by DP standards, when you consider how many DPs have totally tanked. We didn't pay $10M for him. On the field he was clearly less effective in the run of play in his second season. Having Rooney certainly helped elevate our worldwide profile, and gave our players a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We cut bait when his personal life started to come apart and let him go back to England, which was the right thing to do. If I'd do anything different regarding big name players, it would have been to approve Acosta's January transfer. Then I'd use the proceeds to pick up a promising young Peruvian striker.
I was pro-Rooney, he at least made that team entertaining and I don't care at all about how much he cost. But then I was really disappointed when he bailed on the team. All that talk about how classy he was, I didn't believe it after that. He was supposed to be a leader and instead of inspiring Acosta, et al, to get their heads out, he ran off way too easily. Worse yet, he quit on the team while he was still playing, totally dogging it. What a joke.
If his wife said I don't want to live in Manchester while he's playing in Champions League, I'm sure he would have dropped them for wherever she was most comfy. Eyeroll
Well, at Manchester, it was a lot harder for Rooney to go out with the boys after the game and be photographed in the company of women, and a lot harder for his wife to find company to commiserate with. He clearly wasn't the commensurate professional in that second season, and it's reasonable to assume that contributed to some of his poor form. Even for professional soccer players, saving a marriage ranks pretty high on the to-do list. I think signing him was good for us, but it wasn't good for him and his family, which I'll grant is a good rational for not signing him in the first place.
I think you can make an objective argument that he wasn't; ticket sales and jersey sales and whatnot were underwhelming, and his tenure largely ended in a somewhat embarrassing anti-climax. It's true that he showed a lot of genuine passion for playing when he first got here, and the highlights were often quite entertaining--'entertaining' not being something we often associated with DCU after years of drudgery. I've been guilty of forgetting that he actually played pretty well the beginning of this second season here, but still--considering his pedigree and what a big name he was, I think it's safe to say he underperformed as a celebrity DP.
In some ways, the Rooney signing is filtered by the damp squib of its end. I wasn't a fan of the signing originally, given that he appeared to be well past his sell by date in his last stint at Everton. However, in 2018, at least, he was on fire. I was at the Orlando "Buzzard Beater" game where he busted ass, tracked down the Orlando player on the empty net break away, tackled the ball away cleanly and then put in inch perfect pass on "the head of the smallest guy on the pitch" as JPD said. I think was finally did him in was his somewhat lackadaisical fitness habits and the extreme culture shock of his family living in America. He and his wife were kids from the projects in Liverpool who moved about 30 miles to Manchester when he was with United. Moving across the ocean to an English speaking but very weird country where drives are measured in hours, not minutes, must have been unsettling.
Seattle also wisely invested in 10 other starters and at least 8 to 12 reserve players. Rooney, on the other hand, was brought in to sell tickets at the then-new Audi Field - and most of the other players on the team were either mediocre or somewhat below mediocre. Judging by that standard, Rooney exceeded expectations. Judging by the same standard, we can fairly assume that our owners lack the financial resources to put together a strong top to bottom team.
or the willingness. or they are just being they d-bags they are in not actually caring about winning because all they are doing is riding the inexorable tide of increasing equity for selling.
Levien was an NBA player agent at one point and put together the investor group that bought the Memphis Grizzlies and named himself CEO. He lasted like 2 years there before they ran him out of town. He was described as a cancer on Grizzlies fan forums like this one. He's a great spender of other people's money. He wasn't big enough for the NBA and I don't think he's big enough for MLS. He belongs in the owner's box at a Major League Lacrosse team. They've run this team bare bones since building the stadium that was going to fix everything. Remember the machete? The same basic ownership group has run Swansea from a solid mid-table EPL team in to a not quite good enough to get out of the Championship team. I wasn't in favor of the Rooney sighing and only thought he was marketing spend. And I still think he was marketing spend. Year 1 (half year) Rooney was spectacular and I continue to eat my crow on that. Year 2 Rooney was who I thought he was coming here as. As long as we have this ownership, we will never have another player even remotely of Rooney's caliber. We will never be LAFC or LAG and I don't need us to be, but I'd sure as hell like to see us run more like Seattle or Portland who continually make good decisions on how they spend their money. Seattle and Portland only spent $2M more than us on payroll last year. And the shocker for me, is the defending champs, Columbus, are #10 last year with about a $12M payroll. And here I thought they gritted out a championship with a bargain roster. Not so much? It's now been a decade since Colorado I believe won the MLS Cup with payroll outside the top 10 spends. Those numbers are pure payroll and don't include player acquisition costs I believe, as they're total payroll, not MLS cap numbers. Heck, if you throw out Toronto ($24M), LAG ($20M), and Chicago, yes Chicago with a $19M payroll as well as Vancouver at like $9M and the whole rest of the league resides within about $5M. Hope Lucy Rushton has her shit together.
Wasn't Thohir "machete"? Anyway Thohir or at least his family had the money the DC United Holdings partnership and I don't think he's been replaced with anyone who has money.
Najar, Flores, and Moreno have all been called up for their respective countries' World Cup qualifiers early next month.
Ah the limitations of posts on the internet... I agree completely a lot more is in place at successful clubs AND I believe Rooney was a mistake to sign. A distraction from building a franchise at best. The knowledge of how to build a team around young, upcoming, exciting franchise players is one of those things that before Losada our management seemed to have no idea/experience how to do.
Huh? Outside the draft (held three days after Losada’s hire) who exactly would you term “young, upcoming, exciting franchise players” that has been identified by our management because Losada is here? I don’t see anyone who fits that mold. If you’re trying to say Paredes-Nyeman-Yow are those players, they were already here. Thx, Jay!
This is as good of a place as anywhere. I am starting to think that @pr0ner belief in Ola Kamara was correct. I think he got off to a slow start and all I need now is to see him convert the way ones.