My question is if Freddy Adu is rumored to be in next year's draft. Will the bottom teams in MLS tank the season in order to get the Top pick, like some NBA teams did to just get a shot at LeBron James.
kind of off subject, but when do you guys see the MLS dropping its right to control players (single entity i think its called) and letting clubs own them? and will clubs ever be allowed to sign players like they do in other countries or will it always be through the draft. ps, i dont know much about the MLS.
I think if MLS is successful with the SEM they won't ever change. It keeps cost and player salaries down. Also, I hope to never see the Draft end. I'm not averse to teams signing free agents, but the draft allows all the teams to stay competetive by having equal access to new talent.
agreed, although it would be nice to have affiliated youth players be draft exempt should the team decide to want them
Freddy Adu is very advanced, there's no doubt about it, but if he is in the draft next year, it's not certain that he'd be the top pick. Clearly he's going to be a very good player, but not next year. He's not even an MLS starter next season. In MLS, the teams are very close in talent, and a coach rarely has a lot of job security. They generally think about 2 seasons as the "long term." Freddy's window of success in MLS is brief at best. He'll likely be out of MLS by the time he's 18, and maybe before then. So, he's going to sit the bench a year and possibly experience growing pains as he learns the ropes as a sub. Then by his second year he'll compete for a starting role, and at best win it. It will almost surely take until the 3rd year before Freddy is among the best in MLS, and who knows who will be coaching that team then. Many coaches (i.e. Gansler and Hankinson) want immediate contributors from the draft. They expect a first rounder to be an instant starter. If he comes out for the 2004 draft, he surely will not be. He's just nowhere near ready, despite Hudson's platitudes. So, he'll likely go to a coach that is OK with developing youth, such as Bradley, Schmid, Jefferies, Sarachan or Hudson. I expect MLS to acquire him before the U-17 World Championships and place him in DC via a "weighted lottery" now that the Metros are no longer eligible for any more this season. That way he'll be able to live at home, he'll have some young teammates to hang with, and he will have a coach with whom he already gets along. As far as attitude and progression, Freddy's very much a self-starter, so I think he'll be fine anywhere. -Digital
What really bothers me is that MLS has to go through shenanigans to get players to the most logical team, whether it's Quaranta to DC, Memo to LA, Gaven to Metro, etc. It's a shame there isn't a way for clubs to be able to spot and groom local talent and not lose them through the draft. Sachin
I met one of the 9 FIFA agents living in America over the past weekend at the Dallas Cup. I asked him if he thought Freddy would be in MLS next year and he said no. While Freddy is an amazing talent he still needs to mature physically. He made a great point that Freddy needs to be able to withstand a hit from a defender and continue a run. Over the weekend there were a few time where I thought I was watching Carlos Ruiz with the way he would fall down. I'm not saying he was flopping but he drew a lot of fouls.
Can someone please explain Single Entity to me because I think I am confused. In my understanding if Team A is very good and Team B sucks, the MLS can take a good player off of Team A and place him on Team B, in otherwards the team has no control over a player. If this is true it would make no sense to keep it like that. If a team finds a player on their own, trains them, and then signs them it should be their player to control. I am hoping I am wrong, so please correct me.
I'll let someone else explain single entity but I will tell you that it's not THE MLS, it's just MLS. I think that's my new pet peeve.
the only thing i know for SURE is that MLS owns all player contracts... i could be more specific but i probably would be misleading you...
No one really understands SEM, not even MLS officials I think. But what you described isn't right at all. With SEM, MLS owns the players contracts, but the teams own the players rights. That's why in MLS we have "trades," between teams instead of transfers. Money doesn't change hands, just a player's rights. I don't know any other way to describe it to you then to put it like that. I hope you understand. I guess what you have heard is probably the backlash of what MLS's "salary cap" has done to a couple teams in this league. I guess it happened with DC and Chicago. What happened with those teams is players on those teams were so successful they kept getting higher contracts until the teams couldn't stay under the cap unless they traded some of those players away. I think that's the biggest challenge MLS faces with SEM. How to keep those great teams together, but still maintain parity.
Hmmm... you could just as easily be commenting on Run DMB's games this season... My gut feel is around a 60% chance that Freddy will be in MLS next season.
As no one else has answered your question, I'll give it a go. Single Entity Management (SEM) is running a sports league a little bit like a corporation. Much as fans can by "shares" of clubs in England, the owners in the US actually buy "shares" of the entire league. Each team has an Investor/Operator (I/O) that runs the team and is essentially the largest shareholder for that team. The league as a whole owns 51% of the team, and the 49% minority share is held by individual owners. The largest individual owner is the I/O and he runs the team as if he owns it. The advantage of SEM, is that the owners work together to grow the league rather than spending all of their time and money trying only to make their club a winner. It avoids one rich club from driving the prices of players so high that the other clubs go bankrupt trying to compete with them. The way SEM works, it gives each club a specific dollar amount to pay their roster of players ($1.7M) but the clubs do not actually own the players or pay their contracts. The league owns all player contracts and if a guy is a complete loser the league can prevent the club from taking him. Seldom does the league do that though. Generally the league lets the individual clubs make whatever foolish choices they wish. The league collectively negotiates TV contracts, loan terms, transfer prices, etc. They get the input from the club, but they do what they can to make sure the league itself is surviving financially and growing talent-wise. Without SEM, it is entirely possible that one club by now would have paid its players $5M and several otehr clubs would have gone bankrupt. The league would have some decent teams and quite a few bad teams and the overall level of play wouldn't be as good despite spending significantly more money. With SEM, it is in every owner's best interest for every team to break even or earn a profit, so the I/O's are more understanding of other clubs' problems. In this way, the league cooperates and ensures that it doesn't go bankrupt. It also helps maintain parity, so every club has a legitimate chance to challenge for the title. In England, for example, there would be no way a West Brom could compete with a Man U because Man U buys far more expensive players. In MLS, there are neither West Brom's nor Man U's, just a whole lot of Blackburns, Charlston Athletics and Tottenhams. With a few key additions and in a good year, they're as good as anybody. But a few injuries or a bad year, they may be at the bottom. Hope that helps a bit. -Digital
He is already physically bigger than Chivas Martinez and Joselito Vaca on the Burn. He is also somewhat comparable to those two in that he is much better offensively than defensively. He would already be a decent late game sub. He might have better moves and foot quickness than any player now in MLS. His problem is he needs to be better at passing to give himself more room or the defenders will clamp down on him and play him much like Tigres did in the final - foul early so as not to give up a penalty. He would also be a crowd draw. Anyway it may come down to a game of chicken between Freddy's mom and MLS where if MLS waits too long he may bolt. If they sign him early and retain his rights and sell those rights they might make a huge sum down the road.
Adu right now would be the #1 pick and could score in this league.Any team not picking him would be idiots because even if you lost him to europe you would get a major allocation.Of course the league will fix it so he goes to dc,ny or la heaven forbid the fire gets some help.
One thing that is getting confused with SEM in this discussion is the salary cap. The salary cap is a different animal, altogether. (All: The salary cap is a different animal...c'mon, hasn't anyone seen Airplane?) Teams can trade players, but team moves must go through MLS HQ first. And while teams can suggest players, MLS HQ actually goes out and negotiates for these players. Parity is one thing that can be derived from SEM or from the salary cap. Since SEM controls, to some degree, the movement of players, it has power there. Under the old "allocation" system --is it still used anymore?-- MLS HQ actually assigned "star" players to the teams to evenly distribute the talent around. I'm not sure it is done that way anymore, though. MLS HQ can also control player movement, to some degree, by the manipulation of player's salaries, which runs smack into the salary cap. If MLS decides to up the salaries of all the players on one team--then the team would likely have to deal players away to stay under the cap. So parity is also achieved through the salary cap. The reason we don't have any ManUs driving salaries up is because of the salary cap, not SEM. But remember, you can have a salary cap without SEM.
DigitalTron got the essentials above so I won't do a rehash, but there are a couple points he could have emphasized, to wit: The one thing that SEM does for the owners that outweighs all the others is that it allows them to legally collude to keep wages down. In the usual American sports league, the courts have ruled that players can negotiate the best deal they can with any club they choose. Furthermore, things like standard contract terms, health insurance, retirement, minimum salaries etc., etc. must be collectively bargained for through a properly certified union if the players so choose. In MLS, the teams are not separate entities but rather a kind of branch office of a SINGLE ENTITY (hence the name). As a result, it is legal for the corporation to decide on salaries and terms and stuff like that without collective bargaining. If the teams were SEPERATE entities this would be illegal restraint. WHile this sounds somewhat sinister, it's the only way the league can afford to stay in business right now. If there were seperate ownership, how much would a guy like Mathis or McBride or Donovan or Howard or Kreis bring? Maybe someday we can pay these guys what they're worth but for now if they did that they'd be out of business in a month. And that helps exactly nobody. Also, because all the teams are collectively owned, teams cannot pick up and leave town every other season whenever they get a better offer someplace else. Franchise stability is a crucial issue in the legitimacy of the league as a whole. The original plan called for the elimination of the SEM system in 5 - 7 years, after the league had established itself. Nobody has mentioned this in years, and until the league begins to at least break even it will not likely change. As to the player acquisition or "allocation" procedures, they have indeed undergone some changes from the early days of the league. Originally, Sunil Gulati sat in New York signing players and sending them along to you. Gradually, the coaches began to gripe about this, but it came to a head when Sunil, without bothering to say a word to the coach or GM, signed Tab Ramos to a big contract extension with the Metros. It ate up a bunch of cap that they didn't want monopolized by a player they weren't sure they wanted anyway. At the next league meeting the teams, led by the Metros, got together and managed to fire Gulati and get some more control over their own affairs. All player contracts still DO go through New York, because legally they HAVE to in order to maintain the SEM system and avoid having to collectively bargain or offer free agency. Now, however, it's more a case of the team telling Gazidis that they want a player and how much they think they can afford and then Ivan negotiating the deal.
Not picking Freddy in the draft would be like not taking Labraun James this year in the NBA or a few years ago not taking Eric Lindros. Yeah other guys look like they may be better pros to some people (Carmello Anthony now, or Peter Forsberg then), but the marketability of these guys is off the charts. You would have to be a jerk not to take him because Freddy already has more hype than all other American amateur soccer players in history combined. He will be in the MLS by opening day next year.
No chance freddy adu will play in MLS. Picture this: age 13 and offered 6 figure deal to top european club. You reject it to stay and train with US Team. If he said no to Inter, he will say no to a MLS team. I just don't understand the logic behind wanting to play in MLS if you get european offer.
The reason to sign with MLS, IIRC, is that Freddy cant play first team football with any European team until he is 18 years-old. The USMNT program (U17, U20, etc) can only team him so much. He needs to play with a pro club in order to get better. If he goes to Europe, he's playing reserve team football for five years, against other teens. If he goes to MLS he can play against adults, everyday, and get first teams/first division action now. Then he can go to Europe at age 18.