And Rad has had the extended test drive with the USL team, he's played 38 games with them, most coming over the past 2 years. He's obviously impressed enough to get a full first team contract. But there's still a step up to this level and you're still going to have growing pains when they start playing at a new level. EPB had them, Busio had them, Besler, Zusi, Espinoza, they all had the growing pains as they developed. You can't just expect a player to come from the academy/college/second team and not have some level of bumps when they make the jump.
I don't know why there is a bunch of hyperventilating over Rad. He's not the reason the game was lost. It was lost in the coaching, it was lost in the midfield, it was lost in the wing play, it was lost in the back line and it was lost because RSL was the better team on the field. Truth be told,,, I think Rad has a present and future in the league.
Buzz got excited about me including Rad in the group that wasn't up to par yesterday. That's why there was hyperventilating. Keep in mind I didn't say anything negative about the kid or single him out in any way. I just included him with the with the group of players that wasn't good enough. PV said the same thing when he mentioned that Pulido should be pissed because he was one of the only players who wanted the ball. He's right. Pulido should be pissed. He should be pissed because of the roster that PV put around him. If a player is on the first team, I don't care if they are 15 or 40, the expectation is they can play. Apparently, there is a minimum age and minimum number of MLS starts before one can critique a player's performance. Buzz, let me know what those miniums are. I'm surprised some are willing to accept two developmental teams, but its great for the front office and coaching staff. We've now changed from expecting to compete for silverware to advocating for play the kids and hope for the best. When did MLS start handing out participation trophies? I guess its now harder to miss the playoffs than get in and there is no threat of relegation. This why Euros pick on American coaches and players for not understanding "pressure". Because there is none.
If you do want to know, MLS has since day one had a playoff field built from over half the teams. Once it was exactly half but it's flitted around 60-80% for much of the league's span. Managers get fired a lot less than in major European leagues because that's an expensive way to operate. Threat of relegation as a performance incentive has... mixed values. There definitely is a side to it that's as you see it, though. To me, this is all on ownership and contract decisions they've made. Too many average players sitting on long, fattened contracts. The league has improved quickly, so Sporting needs to be far more flexible and aggressive than they are. Clearly, ownership is telling Vermes "we've invested a lot in this academy--let's make good on it." But so far our academy hasn't really impressed a ton, and in fact I'm seeing youths at many other teams dramatically outplaying our young stars. Vermes has his hand in the failures here. The players have their hands in the failures here. But I think this goes higher than all of them, to a team that feels it's "paying enough" and wants to see success squeezed out of an unbalanced roster.