I gotta give props to Payne for doing this and Goff for delivering the goods. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A291-2004Oct26.html However, it is a take it or leave it offer: Also: talks a bit about Adu not playing last Saturday, Carroll and Esky will lose their protected status, and Gomez missed practice yesterday with an illness
Great coverage. If only every team had this kind of reporting. Re-signing Nelsen is one of the top (I'd say 5) player personal issues for next year. Is there a better free agent? (considering age) "Adu, Nana Kuffour, Jason Thompson and David Stokes will retain their developmental status" so pay up anyone who took my Adu remaining dev wager a little surprised about Thompson since his "trade" seemed to include some sort of re-signing and I think some said it meant he'd come off dev. he'll be 24 next calender year (but 23 until MLS Cup so maybe that's the cutoff, there are 24 y/o "senior devs" but can't remember many 24 y/o p40s).
With all the good stuff going on these days, and my own insistance that we do everything possible to sign Nelsen I wish I didnt have such a bad feeling about this article. Maybe its just because I have seen Kevin Payne play the salary cap game one too many times before, but you kind of have to wonder if this isnt a calculated PR move to show that the team has made an effort... I think its the one week dead line pressure sale that has me smelling rat. We don't need to move that fast (for god's sake how long has it traditionally taken this team to sign people???) And you have to feel KP KNOWS Nelsen will not take such a pressure sold offer. Why should he? Even if he doesnt get a great offer overseas, a decent offer pretty much anywhere will pay more then DC United is going to pay. BTW... Who IS the top paid defender in MLS? Pope? The Korean loser in LA?
Bo or Pope. We have to know whether or not we need to protect Nelsen for the Expansion draft. If he's leaving, we can protect someone else, but if not, we protect him and hope he doesn't get an offer in the preseason. I think he's allocation worthy, which also plays a role in whether or not we try to protect him or risk getting nothing in return.
Sad truth is MLS can't afford to compete with Europe for Nelsen. They can only give him such an offer (~200k). That's a significant share of whatever cap space DC will have available next year. They can't just keep it open for Nelsen until the start of next season. The money could be used to extend Gros's, Esky, or Gomez's contract. Could be used in a variety of moves for new players. I think MLS should do everying it can to keep Nelsen, but unfortunately there's only so much it can do.
I hope Nellie stays with the club. His exploration of overseas offers revealed nothing last year. New Zealand crashing out of the World Cup means fewer Int'l absences, but it also reduces his market value. There was also that tournament where New Zealand got absolutely spanked, but I can't remember which one it was. I think the results of that tourney made European clubs cautious. Bocanegra has been a mixed success at Fulham and he's younger and faster. Take the bird in hand Nellie. The maneuvering at MLS HQ has already begun. They use the designations as another way of giving selected clubs value -- example: Countess staying P40 after playing almost all of last year. It will be very interesting to see the status of all of the scum internationals, Gaven and several other young players around the league. Things that make you go hmmmmm (like Adu). Only being able to protect 12 is a big ouch to me. Let's win this game on Saturday and focus on winning the next one and so on to soften the blow. The salary cap is (rumored?) to be going up, but if everybody gets a decent raise, you've basically consumed a max salary. It's a crying shame, but it's the economic reality of getting MLS out of infancy. Maybe we can find a security company to sponsor Nelsen off the books? GM
Bocanegra has been an unabashed success. Starting with healthy. Playing well. Almost never at fault. Goes forward well. Free transfer. But that has little to do with Nelsen. Cap likely 1.8 from 1.7 next year which covers the 5% boost most contracts get.
i haven't keeped up with this whole nelsen saga so can anyone tell me which euro clubs are interested in him?
Well let's just hope that we can figure out a little more complex way to get rid of Stokes since we can't leave him available in the draft.
Totally agree that Payne's gotta-know-by-Nov.-21 edict is silly and probably posturing. He and Kasper repeatedly said before, during and after Convey's two transfers that the club saw no need to move quickly r.e. the allocation. Just a hunch, but if Nellie goes, I bet Eddie Pope is back in Black next year.
Damn. I'm in like complete agreement with you here. Scary. But seriously, I don't like this coming up at the most important part of the season. I don't want Nellie to be distracted by anything. Like, McOwen, I've seen too many games played by Payne over the years and I don't like the timing of this article at all. And, yes, I understand that we really do just have a week for melsen to make up his mind AFTER the playoffs. We have the expansion draft and, obiously, if Nellie were to re-sign then we'll protect him. But we all know that poor offers from overseas will trump MLS' best offer and it would be a shock if Nelsen's agent doesn't tell him to gamble on a Euro contract. But all of this could go down AFTER the playoffs. Argh.
Yes, but there's a lot more quality in the midfield than in the back on this DC United team, I'd say. Without Nelsen what remains is a handful of adequate or worse defenders. Maybe that's harsh... noble
Assuming Nellie decides to do te Europe thing (can't blame him if he does), is there any talk of who were are looking at? I remember there was talk of Alex Yi, but he is more of a project than replacement (though he has to be further along than Stokes). Also, if Nellie does leave, that means we would have 2 or 3 allocations (didn't the Marco allocation go to Dallas?) so that should be two quality players. Maybe if an American decides to come home, we could use the allocation to get one of them, but the only candidates seem to be Mathis and Keller, both of whom would be cool, but neither we really need (though Cletus was born to play that attacking mid roll in our system).
Keep in mind that a lot goes into this. I think Nelsen is head and shoulders above 95% of this league, something that would become even more apparant with expansion, but there are a number of issues coming into play. First, Carroll and Esky are coming off of P-40. You've got to believe Nowak will do what he can to keep the two of them around, which is already a lot more of a cap hit than the two of them were this year. Jaime Moreno is making practically nothing against the cap. The guy should be the league MVP. This will change drastically. Moving Nelsen up $120,000 or more makes a huge impact on the ability of this team in the transfer market. Gomez is making a decent chunk, about what Cerritos made I believe. What does this all mean? The team would really be helped by Stewart taking a pay cut, or if he leaves completely as the rumor goes. Obviously, this frees up 270k in space and that would cover Nelsen and Jaime's raises, as well as Carroll's graduation in all liklihood. Maybe we should start a thread soon on the cap figures for next year, because there is going to be a lot of speculation coming around now with more pointless posts like mine. Obviously the expansion draft will play a huge part in this. At least with DC on a solid run and that stuff coming up in the next few months, it should make for an interesting fall, something we haven't seen in a few years around these parts.
I'm not sure I like the fact that Payne made contract negotiations with one of our STAR players public. Not that I don't think KP is serious about keeping Nelsen but I think its an outword sign to the fans that hey, we tried to keep him within the restraints of the MLS Salary Cap etc. I do hope the offer entices Ryan enough to keep him here. The draft is going to be interesting, but right now, I think the energy of DCU players, staff and fans is better spent on our best playoff prospects since 99! VAMOS UNITED!
This is almost 100% wrong. 1) His exploration of overseas offers last year showed that there were a number of teams interested, but not necessarily willing to pay a transfer fee. Now that he's out of contract, he's free to go on a Bosman to any european team. That makes him extremely attractive. 2) His value is not tied to the All Whites international success. As a matter of fact, it's almost the inverse. Because he won't be flying halfway around the world for qualifiers and such for the next 2 years, he's a MUCH more attractive prospect. He has enough caps to get through any work permit process (not sure if its needed in England for another Commonwealth country) and he's guaranteed to be there. A great example of this is Nolberto Solano. Because he was constantly picked for the Peru squad, Newcastle let him go to Aston Villa as they didn't want the headache of 2 years of qualifying. Euros scout players, not teams, and they want players who will be there for games. 3) Bocanegra stepped straight into the starting lineup and has stayed there. That qualifies as success.
I wouldn't bet on it. And I hope not. Spending a max salary slot on a defender who is going to miss a zillion games because of qualifying is pretty dumb.
Why do you not like the "edict?" If we don't know by the expansion draft, how do we properly protect players? If we protect him and he doesn't take the offer, we may have lost a player we would have preferred to protect. This is good business. He's been preparing for a possible move for a year now. He pays his agent tohelp him make a good decision. If they can't make it by Nov. 21, that's their problem.
Not true. New Zealand's FIFA ranking is too low to qualify for the process. Some Commonwealth citizens do qualify for a work permit without the usual restrictions, though. If Nelsen doesn't, he'd have a difficult time securing a job in Britain. He'd be safer coming back to MLS.