Ok, after reading more into the AppleMLS marriage, there is one thing that is strange if I understand their explanation correctly. Is it correct that the announcers will be centrally located and not at the actual games? From the MLS article: In the new media partnership, local broadcasts are going away and game productions are being streamlined via a centralized location. If true, this is one of the things that I believed detracted from the way the games are broadcast. Will there be on-site play by play or on field interviews?
This could be good and bad. On the one hand it might get rid of the weird homer announcers on some broadcasts. On the other hand it might make for a really weird atmosphere like some of the remote SKC broadcasts had.
Why? Because its Apple? Because you hate having to platform surf? Or, because life is busy and you are no longer as interested in MLS? I'm stubborn as hell when it comes to ponying up for a new streaming service. (Just bought a month of espn+ today so I can watch USOC quarters tonight). I hate it. But I don't understand the antipathy here. My read on this is that Apple is going to be offering a really comprehensive menu for all MLS fans, and give us stuff that we've always wanted (such as a more reliable NFL-like schedule). I'm having a hard time looking away from the positives in this. And, I don't like Apple myself. But frankly, Im almost happy to give my money and viewership to kleptocratic fascists at Apple instead of the kleptocratic fascists at Fox, ABC/ESPN, et al.
this is one of those deals where i totally understand why mls would want it, and i completely understand why many people are pleased with it; it just happens to be one that doesn't work for me personally. it's totally going to be my loss, and i'm aware of that. i absolutely refuse to give a dime to apple if i can help it... and i won't be making exceptions. overall, i think it's a good deal for the league, but not a great one. not allowing local broadcasts is a mistake, i think. hopefully, more details will come out about national broadcasts and we can score a bunch of those games so i can get a hit every now and then.
LAFC just made a deal for Gareth Bale right after bringing in Chiellini. The MLS arms race continues to escalate. I wonder if any of the deep pocketed owners of SKC will start spending that kind of money to bring in better talent. How much will they need to spend to get a decent 6, two CBs, and at least one outside back?
Part of the problem is and will continue to be that KC will have to add more to any deal to get that top tier talent to come to KC vs more ‘appealing’ coastal teams.
I'm watching a few of the other games this weekend and I think some of these other teams are cheating. Their center forwards are scoring goals. Some of them even multiple in one game. Surely the league will look into this.
the awkward thing is, even the other contenders for the wooden spoon have these sort of strikers - dc's striker has 9, as has san jose's, toronto's has 8 and colorado's has 7. the only exception being chicago's who only has 3. it's just not fair.
And the player escalation continues on the West coast. Word is that the LA. Galaxy are now trying to coax Jesse Lingard to their team. Must be nice to have that kind of money for players.
Midseason grades came out for the western division teams. You can imagine the grade that SKC got. Doyle gives them a D. He said it would have been an F if they hadn't made it to the USOC semifinal game. A quote from the article that has been kicked around on this forum many times: "What they could’ve done better: Like I said, most of their recent imports have been busts. It’s also been almost a decade since they turned a draft pick into a high-level contributor, and it’s been years since they clearly won an intraleague trade or made what proved to be a savvy intraleague acquisition. It feels like they need a complete reassessment of their talent ID and integration protocols."
Took me a while to even think of an MLS trade they made recently. I can think of the $300+K for Lindsey from Charlotte, but otherwise I'm drawing a blank on other trades. Obviously the Opara trade stands out but that's been over 4 years now (though we're still suffering from it). As for the draft, meh, I'm not torn up over it, the draft is incredibly hit or miss despite what MLS talking heads will say. Since KC last got a contributor from the draft (SAS in 2015) here's how first round picks have gone for KC: 2016: traded 11th pick to DC for Allocation money, DC select Julian Büscher, made 27 appearances over 3 seasons. Players missed on: Honestly scrolling through that draft, that draft was a disaster I don't see anyone taken after KC that amounted to much of anything in the league. Hell 4 of the players taken after spent time with SKC/SPR (Barry, Saravia, Appiah, Minter) 2017: 14th Colton Storm: Never played a game in MLS Players missed on: Jacori Hayes has had a journeyman/bench career. Same with Nick DePuy. Stefan Cleveland seems a fine back up in MLS. So some depth but nothing that really stands out in my opinion. 2018: 13th pick, Eric Dick: With MN now, made 1 appearance for KC. 18th Graham Smith. Spent most of his time with SPR. Players missed on: Alex Roldan and Brian White are the 2 big ones (Roldan was available for both KC picks). Also some depth players like Omsberg, Barlow, Movski 2019: 21st Kamar Marriott: Never made the roster Players missed on: Dotson, Sean Nealis is a solid squad piece for NY. 2020: This is the one that hurts. Traded what ended up being the 5th overall pick to acquire Nemeth in summer of 2018, NE selects Kessler Players missed on beside Kessler: A Johnston, Berry, Tafari 2021: 23rd traded for Vancouver for Hurtado, Vancouver selects Javain Brown who's been a good player for them. Other Players missed on: Honestly Brown is about it. 2022: 22nd Esai Easley: On SKCII Players missed on: Probably too early to tell, but none jump out as rookies. Certainly some misses, and it speaks to the larger issue when combined with misses in the international market and HGP related. That said missing in the draft on a handful of mostly depth signings at the MLS level isn't why they are where they are.
The college draft has never been a gold mine of future MLS personnel. With a few notable exceptions, most draftees don't pan out and leave the league or slide into USL or lower division teams. I don't think anyone really thought Alex Roldan would come out of college and be an MLS star and USMNT regular. Anyway, Seattle saw something in him that few other teams noticed. I think the best recent year for trades was between 2017 and 2018 when Dwyer was sent to Orlando for big money while SKC picked up JFR and Felipe Gutierrez. Unfortunately Shelton and Croizet came on board that same year. Going into the 2018 season SKC had these forwards: Kharlton Belmar, Gerso Fernandes, Diego Rubio, Johnny Russell, Daniel Salloi, Khiry Shelton, Zach Wright. That group of forwards was fairly good. On the other side of the trade, Dom Dwyer drifted off into relative MLS obscurity. Since that time, the trades and acquisitions has been a lot less than impressive. The really sad part of the trade story is what SKC missed on building a solid back line. Early in the life of SKC (starting in 2011) they were known for solid and tenacious defense. They carried that reputation for a lot of years until it all seemed to fall apart with Ike leaving and its never recovered. So, its high time to start building the team from the bottom up. If Cliff Illig is so confident in PVs long term plan, maybe he needs to throw him some money so SKC can keep soccer balls from flying into their net. The front line should take care of itself when Pulido and Kinda get back.
Wrong Roldan. Alex plays for the El Salvador national team. His brother Cristian is the USMNT regular call up that KC passed on 2 times in 2015. I mean how though? KC has used all mechanisms to spend outside of MLS cap/_AM rules. They have 3 DPs, 1 being TAMable so they can sign 3 U22 initiative players. All other signings have to fall under the MLS salary cap and roster rules.
Screw up,,,meant Christian. On the other,,,I just don't know how the other teams do it. They seem to come up with some way to attract good players while SKC tries to get them on the cheap,,,except for Pulido.
I mean LA, NYC, Miami are all for obvious reasons. Seattle I think is because of their status in the league. Other teams it's because they're doing like KC is with Pulido and over paying what would be considered "market value" like the Crew with Hernandez or Houston with Herrera. Even Toronto with Insigne overpaid what he'd get in Europe to help get him to come.
Louis Suarez is the latest big name guy who is looking for a club to keep him in shape for the World Cup. Suarez claims to be fielding offers from a number of MLS clubs, but he must evaluate each one to make sure they would be in the playoffs so he could continue to play closer to the start of the WC. That immediately takes SKC out of the running. And anyway, KC is not located on either coast.
I agree, and it looks as if the profile of the picks agree: If you're picking quite high up, the draft can add some quality. if you're picking in the second half of hte first round, even, you're lucky to find first team depth.
True, 3 DPs (salaries $2.2m, $2m and $918k) which count for a $1.95m budget hit. Three young initiative players, (Logan $396k, Volodor $427k, Tzonis $612k) make a combined $600,000 (or is it $500,000) budget hit. That means of the 18 senior roster players we have right now, 6 take up exactly half of the $4.9m budget. However, there are $1.6m in GAm and $2.8 m in TAM. Fontas ($1.2m), Isi ($1m) and Walter ($800k) I think make a combined $1.5m budget hit (TAM/GAM can only buy down 50 percent, right?). That means for the final 9 sr. players, we have a total of $1.1m that spends like $2.2m? Okay, clearly not because Melia, $529k, Salloi $506k, Zusi, $450k, Espinoza $300, Uri $475k, take us over, before we get to Ford $165k, Shelton $350k, Sweat $200k. Clearly, in 2022, SKC have budget issues. We have $1.2 m in budget tied up in injured dps, a lot of money tied up in players who really cannot and should not be everyday players, or even be on the roster, and we don't have a lot of young, cheap players making up the difference. MLS rosters really don't leave a lot of room for error, you can't miss on more than one top players, and only then if you're loaded with talented kids. I mean, as an example. we're paying $350k for shelton.Seattle are paying $110k for freddy Montero. Also, I love Melia, but he's more expensive than Frei?
Doyle has obviously been trolling my posts. Enough patting my own back. The important thing here is Doyle's conclusion: It feels like they need a complete reassessment of their talent ID and integration protocols. His take is 100% correct. The league has shifted to getting young players from S. America as its primary young impact players. How many S. Americans are on the SKC roster? They ignore S. America, are marginal at identifying talent from Europe, the academy isn't getting it done and they suck at MLS trades. WHERE ARE THE PLAYERS GOING TO COME FROM????? Cliff, I hope you also troll my posts.
The problem with identifying young european talent is that you either have to have an enormous scouting setup to outsmart the 1,000s of clubs (and 100+ with enough money to outbid us) over here doing the same thing, or count on getting very lucky all the time, or lose. It's like Woody Hayes old take on the passing game in American football: 3 things can happen and two of them are bad. I suppose S Am is also crawling with scouts, but the density is far less, and there aren't so many wealthy clubs, so people are looking to sell their young talent. SKC could become an interesting transit point. great facilities, easy place for an 18-20 year to get used to adulthood (not as much going on as in bigger places). OTOH, there must be someone coming out of la Masia soon?
BINGO!!! Again, going back to Doyle's as it pertains to player trends in MLS.... "It feels like they need a complete reassessment of their talent ID and integration protocols." MLS has obviously been trending towards more players from South America and Mexico. After USA and Canada, countries 3 through 9 in terms of players in MLS, are all S. American countries or Mexico. Argentina, Brazil and Columbia are each providing tons of players, with Venezuela, Uruguay and Ecuador each contributing nearly as much as Mexico and more than all European nations. Bucking this most obvious league wide trend, SKC has zero players from S. America, one player from Mexico, and gets all of its foreign help from Europe (10 players!) and/or Israel (2 players, and is Israel part of Europe?). SKC USED to have a strong tie to S. America through Zambrano but they clearly have no scouting presence in what is now the most important part of the world for MLS foreign player acquisition. So, back to Doyle's point. Has no one in the organization figured this out? Maybe, instead of trying to filter out the best rejects from the big European teams, they should put some scouting effort into identiying the next young prospects from S. America that they can develop and then sell to Europe. It's not rocket science Cliff. If you can figure out health care in America, certainly you can figure out that Peter has lost his way.
Just going to point out they do have a scouting presence, they utilize Santiago Hirsig, he's the one that brought Mauri to their attention (was playing with Talleres in Argentina before KC signed him). The success or lack of in that regard is a different story, but they do have a scouting presence.