Portugal can easily beat itself, cf. Lichtenstein and Greece. I'm not underestimating our nats, but the mls. I spent my time at Giants Stadium from April to August. I can tell you, there is a big difference with Europe. The NYMS - DC United I saw was funny (first goal of Adu) but both defenses were boulevards. I'm the first guy here to be sorry about that, but MLS games look like training matches. I hope you do not think the scores often end with tennis-like numbers 'cause of the forwards quality.
I apologize as I do not have an actual advice on Gibbs. The only two US DC I regularly saw the 6 last months where Pope and Gooch. For me, if Pope is in then....
Is it me or are Gooch threads replacing Landon threads as winner of the Most likely to go South in a hurry award? I'm going to remove the Regis tangent to USA Men. Let's please stick to the topic and keep it civil.
I don't know DK, I thought the German history lesson in the Dolo thread was about the best left turn around here in a while. At least Gooch and Regis are both backs who at one time were owned by Metz and have gotten USMNT call-ups. Heck, that more of a connection than most threads have! I asked this question a while ago, and it seems like the clubs haven't released anything, but anyone got rumours and or facts on the deals. It is not unusual for a team to keep a piece of a player on a sell through. It is certain that Metz has retained no future sale percentage?
No, the clubs never release anything about money deals. That's how they play the game in Europe. You will never have a payroll comparison between clubs like the one you have in MLB. I think more transparencies should come through media pressure. If I meet his agent, I'll ask. But don't expect something 100% reliable, soccer agents like black boxes.
Gooch has 3 interviews this Monday on US Election. Belgian press wants to know his feelings about the Bush vs Kerry match. I think he will be pushed to give the politicaly correct answer in Europe; Democrat.
Never is not quite right. There are plenty of clubs that release deal terms and plenty of agents/players that leak them. And I have illusions about agents and their reliability. I haven't even seen any educated guesses (mostly 'cause it's not a big deal move, except to us here.) I heard some 2nd hand, but probably decent info on what Gooch's move to Metz involved, last year. It was good by MLS standards, but by no means rich by Euro standards. I wonder if Standard came up with enough dough to make Metz feel good enough to sell Gooch outright, or if they hedged their bet by keeping a piece of the sell through?