Why do so many on bigsoccer.com hold this guy as the standard for everything that is wrong with MLS and American soccer? He had a good season for KC this past year and a good run in the playoffs also. I don't get the logic.
Because no one had ever heard of him before this season and his name sounds a bit funny in context. Funny - as in obscure and slightly geeky. Clint Dempsey is a cooler sounding name than Jack Jewsbury. Its like saying you team got beat yesterday by Chicago QB Craig Crenzel. It sounds worse than getting beat by a guy names Drew Henson.
Krenzel with a K I think some people want to see all developmental players as just fillers with no talent and because they are a certain age can't "develop" into decent professionals.
I don't see anyone but me who has a problem with him so I am the major culprit here. I don't even dislike the guy. I don't even think I could pick him out of a lineup. The reason I have a problem with his is because I often see his name come up when people talk about the success stories of the developmental player program. I don't know about anyone else but I don't think finding low salary commandos (not my term) whose sole purpose is to fill out a roster should be the goal of any program called 'developmental'. The guy is a decent player but I am disturbed that MLS is increasingly turn to inferior players to simply fill out rosters as opposed to player who can become top level contributors. Did you see the up final? KC didn't have its two best players and lost all ability to be creative. That is an indicment of the shallowness of our talent pool. And Mr Jewsbury contributes to that. He is an extremely average palyer and the ability to bring forth such players should not be considered some sort of victory.
No I see most of them like that. And I think MLS should be pursue players a bit higher up the ladder than "decent professionals". But that is the core of the problem. MLS fills the league with palyers just good enough to play and when people get injured or national team call ups occur the quality plummets. I think this is a problem.
Wait a minute. I'm missing something. There were only 9 other players on the team with more games or more starts than Jewsbury. Last I looked, KC made it into the finals, and he was a fairly significant contributor in their run at the end of the season. In all honesty, for what the league is paying developmental players, where would you suggest finding the developmental player(s) who would have played for what they paid Jewsbury and contributed what he did to KC's success? Every team needs journeymen, and Jewsbury probably fits that description. I'm inclined to be much more disturbed by the routinely miserable performance of Nick Garcia.
Jack is not Jewish - not that that matters. Rating someone's ability and career on one game is a bit ludicrous, but then Tony Meola is still judged on one goal he gave up some ten years ago, so I guess I shouldn't expect any different treatment for Jack Jewsbury. Likewise, Nick Garcia seems to be getting the "he sucks" treatment because of one goal scored by the MLS Cup MVP Alecko Eskandarian despite an MLS career of absolutely shutting down everyone from Landon Donovan to Carlos Ruiz to Taylor Twellman to Luis Hernandez and so on. Anyone that doesn't consider Jack Jewsbury to be an MLS success story has no ability to "see the forest for the trees."
small point but Jewsbury wasn't a developmental player this season. after Wolde Harris was waived, Jewsbury got moved up to the senior roster and Stephenson took his place on the developmental squad. MLSNET never got it right on their player listings
I man-marked the guy at a summer soccer camp when he was playing high school soccer down in Springfield, Missouri. He seemed to be a very nice guy, and although he's not the most insanely skilled player he has earned his place on the field at the pro level through hard work. There's nothing wrong with that. In any and every league, teams will have "star" players with skill and creativity, and they will be surrounded by "hard-work" type players who hustle, play safe balls and don't screw up. Guys like Jack Jewsbury are the "role" players of MLS, and they are ESSENTIAL. In many ways they are the difference between teams. Why is Barca superior to Real Madrid? Real Madrid is too stocked up on the "creative, star" types but it doesn't work as well as a team b/c Barca has superior role players (and a defense). Teams need Jack Jewsburies, and maybe he shouldn't be billed as a big-time "success story," but he's certainly not all that's wrong with American soccer and he certainly has earned my respect on the field for the Wizards.
No. There's more than one goal in that "he sucks" treatment. If that weren't the case, he'd have garnered a lot more looks by Arena than he has. As it is, Chris Albright (a converted forward, mind you) rates higher than Garcia in the pecking order of US defenders. I will give him credit. For a guy with no speed, little technical skill and who can't play a decent ball longer than 15 yards, he's made a career where most others couldn't.
Bad comparison, as Albright plays arguably our weakest position (right back) and Garcia plays what I believe to be our best field position (central defense), if Pope's play this year was a temporary loss and not a permanent loss of form.
And Garcia was a right back before Albright ever was. Do you honestly think that Garcia will ever see time with the Nats as a centerback, if he couldn't as a right back? Help me out on this one.
But you talk about Jewsbury like he, right now, is as good as he's ever going to be. And, while I don't think anybody is going to disagree with you that it would be nice if MLS started grooming younger players, Jewsbury's probably still got room to develop. Take for example two other Wizards, one Davy Arnaud, another developmental player, who was about as Jewsbury was this year in 2003, but is currently one of the league's best forwards; two, Kerry Zavagnin, who plays the same position as Jack, and was demonstrably worse until, at age 26 in 2000, he proved himself to be a starter in the league - as we all know, he's currently in the nat pool. Will Jewsbury develop as well as either of these guys - we don't know, but it's not like all (or any) developmental players are dead-ends who are, at best, going to be marginal MLS players. And, your other tactic is to act as if carrying players like Jewsbury is impeding MLS teams from acquring other good players. However Jack currently accounts for just 1.4% of KC's salaries, and actual developmental players account for half that. To take a risk on a guy like this, who's probably going to be a good MLS player next year, or a guy like Taylor Graham, who provides KC needed depth in the case that Nick Garcia leaves the league, is clearly a good investment.
I guess we'll just have to disagree on that. I think for the most part "Develpmental" players on the MLS roster are too good for the A-League/USL1, but not yet ready for regular MLS play. For the most part these players represent the top 1% of American soccer players. Coaches draft them because they think those players will become good professionals with a little work. So they are put on the DR for a few years to grow and learn in MLS. When they get their shot like Jewsbury or Leitch or Arnuad a good many of them rise to the occasion. The one's that don't are flushed out. The exact same thing goes on in every single league in the world with Reserve teams or mionor league teams. Is it economical, sure it is. You get players with talent for 850 a month, plus some living expenses. However, I think MLS makes a good trade off for that. Instead of paying those players coaches THINK will be good professionals, but not SURE the minimum salary of 28K, MLS saves about 178K per team that can go to finding and signing foreign players coaches THINK will be good, but not SURE. Once again the exact same thing is done in every single league in the world. Or do you think reserve team players in the EPL for the most part are payed the same amount as the final player on their first team roster? Also you may not want to register the success of the DR and the Dev Player based on how many have been able to come in and make a real contribution, but you should at least take note that the coaches and GMs continually have asked MLS to expand the "program" to include more players. Also as to when the national team players leave and the quality of play when that happens, do you really think that if Arsenal or ManU or any other top clubs in any league lost their internationals for games, the level of play wouldn't go down? That's why they don't play on those dates and that is a problem with MLS. Also if Arsenal lost Henry and Viera to injury at the same time, it wouldn't be the same club either.
I expect (and hope) that one or two SLU folk will turn up here and provide better info, but when I saw Jewsbury in college, he was playing forward. He did well that day and clearly had a good soccer IQ, but at the time, I didn't think he had the first touch or the mobility to be a good player at the MLS level. I'm still not sold, but it's worth emphasizing that he's learning a new role. Also, regarding the "one emblematic play" conversation that's going on, I agree that it can sometimes be unfair. Roberto Baggio missing that PK is one example. Even so, many defining moments are entirely in character ... the young Meola had no clue how to position himself, but the mature Meola put it all together in 2000 ... Dwayne DeRosario's individual flair settled MLS Cup in 2001 ... a Franchino giveaway followed by a lethal Ruiz finish did it in 2002 ... and Landon Donovan on the counterattack iced things in 2003. Sometimes, though not always, you can say a lot from looking at just a few big plays.
Wrong. Before 2004 Garcia has always, to my knowlege, been deployed primarily as a center back. This goes all the way back to his days at Indiana, where he was (i think) played mainly as a sweeper. The ONE exception you could make to this is 2000, where he played on the right side of a 3-5-2 formation. But even then his main responsibility was man-marking, which he did a damn good job of. He only switched to being a right back for the start of this season. Although he wasn't horrible at it, most would agree that he wasn't exactly stellar either. However, it wasn't exactly easy to move him into the center when you had two very good center backs playing very well (Shavar Thomas and Jimmy Conrad.) That all changed against San Jose halfway through the season. We replaced Thomas with Nick in the middle just to mark Donovan out of the game. Which he did, contributing to our victory, and, i believe (i cant remember the score), our shutout in that game. We never switched back, and made it to the cup. As for his chances with the nats. Like I said, if he gets another chance with the National team, it will be as a center back, not a right back. In fact, he already HAS gotten a chance or two with the nation al team, and i believe he even played as a center back in THOSE games. But, as Superdave pointed out, he IS in competing for what is arguably our deepest position, with Bocanegra, Gibbs, Pope, Berhalter, Onyewu all competing right now, along with people like Chad Marshall to come on in the future. Does he have the ability to do it? Sure. Right now, I doubt that there is a better man marker in MLS than Nick Garcia. That almost puts him at the same level of Cory Gibbs right there. That said, do I think he'll actually establish himself somewher? I dunno. That, to sound as vague as humanly possible, all depends.
though Arena has a very deep radar, I don't think he's competing at center back for the USMNT anymore. You also have Pope, Sanneh established. Conrad would get a try first IMO. Whitbread and other young guys overseas in the mix. I'm not saying there's no chance he won't compete again for the spot. But currently he's just not in the mix IMO I thought he was tried at outside back with the national team. Hard to research but here's what I have 2/12/03 vs Jamaica http://www.soccertimes.com/usteams/2003/games/feb12.htm likely CB 1/18/04 vs Denmark http://www.soccertimes.com/usteams/2004/games/jan18.htm http://www.soccertimes.com/usteams/2004/jan18.htm CB 2/8/03 vs Argentina http://www.soccertimes.com/usteams/2003/games/feb08.htm http://www.soccertimes.com/usteams/2004/jan18.htm sub for Victorine, 1/18/03 vs Canada http://www.soccertimes.com/usteams/2003/games/jan18.htm sub for Victorine http://www.soccertimes.com/usteams/2003/jan18.htm 3/29/2003 vs Venezuela http://www.soccertimes.com/usteams/2003/mar29.htm sub for Pope so the subs for Victorine may have been outside back, I'm not too sure. I don't think I ever watched him closely, likely not seeing him as having a real shot to play in Germany 06 or just had low level of concern so far out from next WC (early 03). I think I have that Denmark game on tape to watch still, so can't really comment on his international play since March 2003 unless I'm missing some of his caps. update: has 6 caps http://www.sams-army.com/index.php?Mlist=player&Pid=327 so I'm missing one and looking down that page, it's 7/6/2003 against Paraguay http://www.soccertimes.com/usteams/2003/jul06a.htm sub for Gibbs so mostly CB I guess, not sure about the subs. For some reason I always thought his only "chance" to make the team had been at outside back since Arena hasn't been too satisfied with these positions and Pope has had the middle locked down and Berhalter, Bocanegra, and Gibbs seem to often get the call
Jewsbury's a good player. He scored a great goal in stoppage time to send KC to the Western Conference final. He also scored one of the best goals of the regular season. He's definitely a guy you wouldn't mind having in your starting XI.
Thats all well and good. But we hear this developmental player program is supposed to produce the stars of the future. If journeymen are the success stories what has this game realy gained. Its not as if I have a problem with him being in the league but we need stop kidding ourselves. These developmental players are there to fill out rosters.
1. These players are roster fillers and are one of of the reasons why the creativity in this league is going down the tubes. This league is more than happy to foist role players on the fanabase and many are happy to thank them for it. These guys do nothing to raise the talent level of the league. 2. no disrespect to Mr Arnaud but he is one of the best forwards in a league that is not exactly brimming with offensive talent right now. I don't know about you but scoring 9 goals in 30 games in a third tier league is not exactly my idea of greatness. Fact is this is a league that lacks great numbers of creative and skill players and being one of the better ones in this league is not the honor you make it out to be. Which is the argument I always hear about these players "Well they are cheap!" If these players were such solid professionals this would not even have to be brought up. It would be possible to let their games speak for them selves and the fact that they cost next to nothing shouldn't even be a factor. Its a good investment I assume for people who want to see it that way. But all I see is a league with a declining level of play that is plain for all to see when qualifiers take place and will be even more obvious now that we have expansion. Good for Jack that he can be a pro but don't expect people to get excited about these players. MLS clearly believes cheap roster fillers are its future but it shouldn't be surprised that people are increasingly less interested in the product.
The difference is that those players have been exposed to professional tutelage froma young age. Thos eteams actuall want to produce skillful players whereas MLS is looking primarily at price. They are simply looking for players to fill out rosters. I am also convinced that they are able to do this primarily because the level of talent in this league is on the decline. The product on the field is proof enough of that. I can assure you that the decline would not be as precipitous as it is in MLS.