Maybe: With Matt Pickens headed to Queens Park Rangers, many are wondering the status of fellow goalkeeper Dominic Cervi, who the Fire chose with the No. 12 pick in last month's SuperDraft. Cervi is considering options in Europe but was in attendance at Toyota Park on Tuesday. He will travel with the Fire to Bradenton for the pre-season. Link: http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/soccer_redcard/2008/02/cervi-i-would-p.html Big GK from Tulsa U. who jumped into the U-23 pool after his MLS combine performance: http://tulsahurricane.cstv.com/sports/m-soccer/mtt/cervi_dominic00.html
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? With Italian grandparents (according to the Trib's writer), that EU passport will create some options for him. At the very least, it should force MLS/Fire to pay him a bit more than most rooks to keep from seeing what he can get abroad.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? It's easier for GK's to sign with MLS since they have potentially longer careers.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? If Cervi has a EU passport it will be even more appealing to head for Europe where he can be developed and his contract can be marketed. Signing a multi-year deal with MLS won't help him unless he is certain to get playing time.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? Possibly, but he's relatively young and, from a professional standpoint, completely green. Dunno if he's likely to find a better shot at first-division playing time than he has with the Fire, where his competition is only Busch and Nick Noble at the moment. That said, I don't know what his European options are. He can be the #2 lots of places, and get paid more overseas of course, but as for PT I'd be surprised unless he takes a step down the ladder. (Which could be a good idea; who knows.)
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? I don't know. Quinten Westberg is in Europe and can't get a game. Tally Hall can't get a game. Luis Robles can't get a game. Each situation is different I know. Still, GK's who start their careers in MLS have gotten playing time much earlier than their European counterparts. Then they can impress and move overseas.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? Well, it's not like most young GKs play a lot in MLS, either. Zach Wells and Steve Cronin were planted on the bench most of the last few years and it took player movement to get them a shot at being a starter this year. Doug Warren was the top-rated GK coming out of college a few years ago and he's so stuck to the bench in New England it will take a crow bar to get him up. The person he's stuck behind, Matt Reis, was once in the same position, at two different teams. Ray Burse didn't play at all as a rookie and only played last year because the GKs ahead of him were hurt. Brad Guzan got to play a lot early in his career but that was as much because A) he was on an expansion team and B) the other GK Chivas USA had was both injured and sucked. But it's rare for GKs in MLS to play as much early in their careers as Guzan did. The point is that it's hit or miss in MLS for young GKs. So, some guys might figure if PT isn't guaranteed at either place, you might as well go where you can make a whole lot more money.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? It's hard to get PT anywhere because most coaches don't rotate their GK's. If it were me, I'd go somewhere with a well developed minor league systems like in England, Germany, etc. That way, there are more matches and you may get to play somewhere along the way.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? I believe Robles is in a good position. He is the number two goalkeeper, Fromlowitz is going to leave over the summer, on a club that maybe in crisis but is going to go up. He gets playing time with the reserves and trains with the best goalkeeping coach in Germany. His game has improved dramatically and he is going to be a very good keeper. If he had gone to the MLS, I do not believe he would be where he is now. Kaiserslautern breeds goalkeepers.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? I think Cervi is in a very good position in Chicago with regards to gaining a starting job in 1-3 years. Not bad for a keeper. Pickens is gone, and Busch is obviously a temporary solution. And MLS makes the national team a little more available. Now, as for what he gets paid, that's probably a completely different story.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? It might help Warren if he put the bottle down too... Well he'd still be behind Reis, so probably not.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? Why would he go overseas when he could play for the best club in the universe
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? According to a couple of reports, Cervi has said no to the best club in the universe. Presumably he'll be looking overseas now.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? Perhaps there were some scouts watching the recent Oly qualifiers who liked what they saw.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? Really? I would think they'd be chasing Seitz then, because he was the keeper worth watching.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? Cervi bs.is a free agent with an EU passport. Seitz is under contract to a league with a poor reputation for selling players and who doesn't have an EU passport. Even though Seitz looked the better of the two, right now Cervi is the more attractive option to the Euro clubs. Plus, when you're a free agent, it only takes one team to want you to make your life a whole lot easier.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? They must have been watching different games than I saw. I doubt very much whether Cervi will get a contract off his performance at the Oly qualifiers. Of course, just because Cervi isn't good enough at this point in time to play for the US internationally, that doesn't mean that he can't help many Euro clubs. He certainly might get a contract by trying out and impressing some side.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? His decision making was poor granted. But that's the easiest thing for a coach to correct. He has better than average to good reactions. He's got good agility. He's got excellent size. And he's not afraid to go after the ball. I would bet that most scouts considered him a raw talent at best and were willing to overlook the performance for the skillset/physical qualities.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? He has the raw tools. I'm not talking about ManU or Barcelona, but perhaps a club in Scandinavia, etc. would be very interested. If he has the Euro passport, maybe a championship team in England or a lesser team in Germany. I happen to agree with you. He didn't do a ton to impress scouts at the quals. I assume his agents have been in contact with clubs for a while now, if he's going to turn down MLS now. I'm a little surprised, though. After Pickins leaving, the only GK's Chicago has on their roster are Jon Busch and Nick Noble. Notice, that Cervi isn't listed on their roster: http://chicago.fire.mlsnet.com/players/roster.jsp?club=t100 If Cervi is as good as we've been led to believe, he'd start as the reserve keeper behind an injury prone Busch. Seems perfect. Oh well, I'm sure the money's better elsewhere. I've only ever seen the kid play during the Olympic qualifiers, and he didn't show a ton. Of course, he didn't have to. In the final he didn't have to do anything until Welcome's ridiculous goal beat him.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? MLS has a poor reputation on bigsoccer, sure, because alot of posters here want their players to go to Europe. And some posters can be pretty irrational about what MLS should do in its own interest. But really, MLS has sold a ton of players. And in just about every case where the league DIDN'T sell (Mathis for $1M, Joseph to Celtic) the offers were, in my opinion at least, too low; the league made the right call. Maybe once every 3-4 years MLS does something that it's difficult to defend, like the Twellman deal. For a 12 or so team league, that's not very often. On the other hand, look at the list of players MLS has sold. It's pretty respectable given the difficulties (lack of quality, frankly, the differing windows, the lack of EU passports). I can think of 2 cases where MLS was bashed (DMB->Southampton, Clint->I forget) where the league sold the player for more money a few months later. My point is, does MLS really have a bad reputation among the only people that matter, namely, clubs? I don't see any evidence that's true, and it would be pretty counterfactual if it were.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? I think the old MLS did. But the league's MO turned around 180 degrees in the last year and a half or so. Clubs get the 75% of the transfer fee and are motivated to "sell and replace" now. Some of the major sticking points however remain - the coaching quality can be very uneven and the contracts too long and too low.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? Cervi went to England a couple of years ago, during the summer, to Millwall I think. I heard he impressed, may still have connections there. You can't really fault these guys for looking overseas instead of taking minimum wage in MLS.
Re: Dominic Cervi to Europe? So no team for Dominic yet? I wonder if the door isn't completely shut for Chicago.