That was a fun game. It was a goal fest in the first half. FCD had four goals by halftime. Defense was optional. DCU got a red card and that killed the fun completely. FCD won 4-3 in the end. It was old-timers day for Dallas. Lletget had a goal and 2 assists. Arriola had a goal. Tafari had the first one. That guy has a nose for goals on corners. Ferreira has returned from injury, and came on as a sub in the 2nd half. Its been a tough season for him physically.
Not a super fun game for this DC fan, but goals are good. Lletget had a really slick pass for one of the goals, Dallas worked some good stuff.
Steffen is a penalty-stopping final boss. Stops the first 2 and gets finger tips on the 3rd. By the 4th the taker hits the crossbar and out with Steffen guessing the right way. Remarkable.
The future of the centerback position is really Akinmboni, Neal, and Banks. And they can’t develop soon enough.
Steffen has been on an incredible opta run, His sofascore numbers have been: vs 1-1 Leon: Sofascore(8.4)MOTM: 3-2 Juarez: Sofascore(8.8)MOTM 2-1 Toluca: Sofascore(7.9)MOTM 0-0 America: Sofascore(8.7)MOTM 0-4 LAFC: Sofascore(7.2)1st 2-2 Union: Sofascore(8.1)1st Big Chances(12-17) Shots on Target(26-60)
This was exhibit A on whether a coach makes a difference. That may have been the best passing performance I've ever seen from FC Dallas Burn. What a night and day difference between the Frenchman and the Spaniard. If Steffen can play like that in MLS he will vault up the US keeper rankings as the competition is so weak. Perhaps he's finally healthy for the first time in years. Let's see if he can stay that way because if he had back problems I would think the things keepers do will aggravate that if he's not completely healed.
Dallas is kinda the epitome of averageness. Mediocrity. After all of these games, they have a GD of 0. Lletget still shows glimpses. Arriola still shows glimpses. They just really have missed Velasco and Pomykal. And of course, Ferreira, has been out for long periods as well. When you have three of your highest paid players out long-term, that's hard to recover from. But the depth wasn't good enough. Every team has injuries. Pomykal may never play again. Who knows? Some guys just don't have the bodies to be professional athletes. He's had siginificant surgery on both knees, major surgery on his hip, hernia and abdominal surgy, a series of ankle problems. At some point...................you just wonder. Its laudable to keep coming back over and over. Paxton Pomykal opens up about rehab process: “The mindset had to shift” | FC Dallas
I’d be curious what the shot stopping stats look like given Colorado gave up 17 goals in their 6 Leagues Cup games.
Many European clubs think that the MLS has no idea what kind of gold mine they are sitting on in terms of domestic talent and that they have no idea what to do with it. https://t.co/mkmIsJeMT4— Marcus Chairez (@chai_asc) August 26, 2024
That twitter feed has just become more blathering anti-MLS nonsense. There's literally nothing in the comments from the Frankfurt sporting director indicating he believes "MLS doesn't know the gold mine they're sitting on."
I mean what is it that MLS teams should be doing that they aren’t currently? Not every MLS is great at youth development but the main problem we have is in a country of 330 million we don’t have enough professional clubs developing players. The second problem is we don’t have enough good youth coaches. Most of the MLS stuff is all second order issues behind those two big things.
I would suggest asking Marcus Chairez, a guy who pays more attention to prospects in MLS than all of the rest of us combined, and who wrote the tweet above. As for me, I agree that the two issues you listed above are two of the biggest ones currently.
us-eligible mls stat leaders Goals (assists) White 12(2) Mihailovic 10 (9) JoMo 10(1) Bassett 9(6) McGuire 7(2) Ramirez 7 (4) Gutierrez 6(3) Harper 5 (1) Luna 5 (12) makes the goals leaderboard for the first time this season Assists (goals) Luna 12 (5) Gressel 12 (1) Mihailovic 9 (10) Stroud 9 (3) Sullivan 7 (3) Lletget 7 (2) Rodriguez 6 (2) Bassett 6 (9) Delgado 6 (1g) no tallies in 2 weeks A. Morris 6 (2) no longer in MLS Lennon 6 Arriola 5(4) Tillman 5 (4) McGlynn 5(3) Gray 5 Combined Mihailovic 19 Luna 17 Bassett 15 White 14 Gressel 13 Stroud 12 Ramirez 11 JoMo 11 Sullivan 10 Tillman 9 McGuire 9 Gutierrez 9 Arriola 9 Lletget 9 Ferreira 8 A. Morris 8 Rodriguez 8 McGlynn 8 Delgado 7 Harper 6 Lennon 6
MLS is allll to happy to pay okay foreign attacking players DP money to squat on a position that a promising domestic player could be playing. And, if that's an acceptable approach, they have no proper way to develop guys in the 20 to 23 range.
Leagues with money bring in foreign attackers on big wages. It's a global market. And that global market has the best American attackers playing in foreign leagues. MLS is doing nothing wrong in such regards.
I don’t think there’s a better value to a MLS roster than a homegrown starting attacker, I don’t think teams are intentionally blocking kids at all. The promising domestic players are playing.
Its simple. The bar is higher in MLS to get significant minutes than we sometimes give the league credit for. If teams have young domestic attackers of a certain quality, they play them. If the youngsters aren't deemed ready, they're not played. Caden Glover of St. Louis or whomever. Its also true that the advent of the growth of MLS Next Pro means there's a place for the borderline youth to play full games. Would folks rather the kids play full games in MLS Next Pro or sit on the bench (and maybe get into games) in MLS? Like.........................I was reading somewhere that CJ Olney of Philadelphia has been on their first team bench 7 times without playing. That's not really what we want. I think the same about Nimfasha Berchimas of Charlotte, Julian Hall of NYRB, Cavan Sullivan of Philadelphia, and the list goes on. We want them playing. That list goes on and on. And you can think of it like MLB. The top prospects sometimes come up, show they're not quite ready, and go back down. Jackson Holliday of the Orioles. Came up early in the season, struggled, learned some things, and was sent back down. Then he comes back up later in a better position to succeed.
No MLS team is developing any homegrowns to sell jerseys, they develop them to help the team, and to sell them. As far as helping the team is concerned, a domestic attacking player is more useful because if you have one (eg Luna or Bassett or Sullivan) who is good enough, that's less money you have to spend on a foreign attacking player (the most expensive positions). And because attacking players are more valuable, you can also sell homegrown attacking players for bigger transfer fees than you would get for other homegrowns.
The proof is in the pudding. How many homegrown attacking players are there in the league? It takes a lot less infrastructure and labor to sell jerseys.
Imagine thinking that MLS -- which has built a professional development system from scratch and routinely signs players to pro contracts who would've been playing high school soccer in generations past -- is stifling development. If you want to see more domestic attackers in MLS, go ahead and root for them to outplay the more productive players they compete with everyday in training.