http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7521-2004Oct28.html The guy came in at the right time with the right skill set and the right attitude. Hopefully we can keep him around next year.
my bad. I had trouble submitting the first time, and forgot the link when I tried again. It's in there now.
Good piece from Goff like always. While I was a little doubtful of Gomez initally, he has been great...if he does the same fitness program as Moreno this offseason, that duo will be something else.
I guess coming from Argentina, having a paycheck - even an MLS sized check - come in ontime is a plus. Good to hear that soccer is truly an international language and Gomez is leting his game talk for him. I hope hear him speak again this weekend!
Thanks for the read, a good article. He seems like a guy that knows he needs to earn his position and it won't be given to him just for putting on the kit. As have a few other imports, he remarked about the physicallity of MLS.
No kidding. If his contract had expired, as the article says, why the loan arrangement? If we were only willing to take him (guaranteed) through November, maybe he thought it was better to sign a one-year deal with a team in Argentina and be loaned here for half of it? I can't guess why else.
Yep, another good one from Goff. Maybe the league should raid Argentina. It's a good league, and though they probably pay better, as Gomez pointed out, our paychecks always arrive on time (and in a real currency). With the troubles the Argies periodically have, that's sometimes more than you can say in that country.
It is sad but true, there are sooooooo many Argentinians that have immigrated to Puerto Rico because they can live in an American territory and speak Spanish at the same time. I don't mind having them around, fun people, some a bit crazier than others. The only thing I do not like is if they come to a new country looking for a new life and start to criticise their everything because its not the way it is back home in Argentina.
How could that stop him from signing a contract to work in another country if he's not under contract to work there? I could see why that'd stop him from moving to another team within the country.
I wonder if his complicated contract arrangement means we don't need to protect him in the expansion draft? That would be a plus.
We didn't use an allocation to get him. If we used a discovery, that limits how much money he can make. But, my understanding is, if he's a "loan" than we can circumvent some of the player acquisition limits as well as salary limits. Plus, given our cap situation, this could be an encentive to get him to sign with us. Here's how: --we agree to sign him for the rest of the year with an option to buy. --but we can only offer him so much this year b/c of cap limits. --however if another team in Argentina "signs" him and then agrees to loan him to us and sell him to us if we pick him up, than the team in Argentina gets some transfer money and Gomez gets a percentage of the transfer fee (a common practice) which compensates for him signing for a low salary this season. --and the club in Argentina probably signed him for only a limited period. So if we don't purchase Gomez than they can choose not to pick up his contract which means they're out nothing, just speculating on a possible fee for signing him for us. I don't know that is how it happened. But the pieces fit the explanation of the puzzle.
FIFA has rules about how long contracts can be, given the age of the player. I'm pretty certain Bosman is universal now.
There is something wrong with this statement from the article: "This summer, however, when Gomez's contract with the Argentine club Arsenal de Sarandi expired, United purchased him in a complicated loan deal." If his contract with the club expired, who did United get him on loan from? I didn't think the Argentines sign players for the league like we do. And if you purchase a players contract, how is it a loan? You can set up a loan for a contracted player but you can not purchase a players contract and have it be a loan. A little help here please. Of course, whatever the case may be I am sure the management will use it to their best advantage for the future.
I don't know anything about Argentina's league, when they play or anything, so don't be too harsh with your judgment when I say this. Perhaps his Argentine contract actually expires on 12/31, the way an MLS player's contract does, but when the season there ended they figured, why not cash in on him now while they could, since he would leave anyway?