http://www.bigapplesoccer.com/article.php?article_id=5079 I believe that this will finally be the piece to the puzzle that Metro can be a true championship contending side. It's Mo who demands loyalty for those who wear the Red & Black. This in my opinion is the push that can put Metro over the top.
How can our salary cap be tight at this point is only thing i do not get. We release Lisi, Leitch, Agoos, and SGR. Where did their money go? SGr and Agoos had to be near sal max for MLS.
Some players might have received hefty raises -- Youri, for one. That might account for at least some of the money.
In your opinion and others out there, who from 2005 did you view as not being loyal to the red and black?
Who else could he be alluding to? Amado goes hot/cold. Mo is not going to change that. So maybe Mo should trade him.
I'm not accusing the players who are on the side now of not being loyal. I'm just saying he is looking for players who want to be here. If I have to re-phrase it, I will. But at least Mo wants to bring in players who want to be here, like Youri, Amado, and many others. Not like Lothar.
I'm not saying you invented it or anything, but this has to be one of the most meaningless statements in sports. What right-minded coach makes a point of seeking out players who don't "want to be here"?
Did you want the last 7 years of rosters for the New York Rangers in like alphabetical order, or by year, or what? (Glenn Sather, hijo de ****). It is perhaps the case that we fans either incorrectly stress or incorrectly articluate our sentiments, which is why people raise guys like Jolley & Petke to diety status, thus giving Vistula a reason to get out of bed just to mock them. You can win a championship with guys that don't necessarily care about one team any more than another, they're just better than the competition. I don't think anyone ever spent a lot of ink on saying that Shaq bled yellow & purple for the Lakers, but when he was there he tried as hard as was necessary and they won, even if it only took 80% of his attention and not the 110% it took Patrick Ewing to not win for the Knicks all those years. While we'd like it not to be so, in MLS I don't know that history proves that the wins go to the teams with the best hometown chemistry, as it were. LA just won the double with a thoroughly forgettable squad. Razov wanted to play for Bob again, and he got off of Columbus and onto Metro. I don't believe that he cared any more about Metro than he would have about Colorado or some other random team, but it didn't really matter because he scored a bunch of goals when he got here....until....he stopped scoring. So, and apologies to Tina Turner, you'd be right in asking "what's caring got to do with it"? Agoos really did want to win here, but his tank was empty and we lost anyway. et cetera. Regarding Metro, we've had this unsuccessful history of guys that didn't perform. For whatever reason, over time, we fans translated that into a theory that whenever we lost, it was because guys weren't trying hard enough. That is probably an inaccurate way to look at it, but when you see some guys just jogging out there and not seeming to care, all fans do this instead of thinking of more creative explanations (like blaming it on the field, a la Mark Lisi). From baseball to soccer, from the US to the UK, all fans are guilty of this observational error. (and, if you don't believe me, go to bbc.co.uk, click on the radio player and listen to any Sunday episode of 606. The amount of "geezers" calling in to say they're "gutted" cos the team "didn't play for the shirt" is truly amazing). The end of the Clint Mathis era seems a particularly fitting case, where somewhere in the end of the 2003 season he just seemed to disappear. Did he not care, was he not trying, was he still injured...who the hell knows? Regardless, he was balls that year. 11 years down the line, our 8th coach is sitting here again, looking to find a way to build a winner. For those that sit/stand there every game, year in and year out, the easiest thing to latch onto is to suggest that we get players that "want" to be here, who want to make this team win because it's more than just a job. Problem is, Bob Bradley felt that way about Metro and we still were .500 under him. So, while I too would like guys that want to be here, if we can win with a couple of guys that don't care but are just really effing good at soccer...fine with me.
To sum up what you were saying, you need a combination of concentrated talent and concentrated teamwork to win in any sport. However, I believe that teamwork can overcome a deficit of talent to win -- for example, the 1980 USA Men's Ice Hockey Team won the Gold Medal because they trained so hard together and really came to care about what their performance meant to their country. I think we need the MetroStars to really come together as a team, learn each other's style inside and out to the point where they can basically read each other's minds on the field and make incredible plays. We saw that sometimes last season, but inconsistency was our name. MoJo is making good moves if he is looking for talented young guys who won't count much against our cap. With people like Youri and Tony in there to provide leadership for new young talented players and our current stable of excellent players (Guevara, Gaven, etc.), we could put together a championship team. It seems that everyone -- AEG, MFO, the coaches and players -- are beginning to understand that mediocrity won't lead to success in the NY/NJ/Conn. marketplace.
In Bradley's three years, Metro must have had over 100 trialists from all over the globe. To name just a few. Peter Ofori-Quaye - Ghana. Kieran Mc Anespie - Scotland. Frederic Meyrieu - France. Gary Hamilton - Northern Ireland. Eamon Zayed - Ireland. Vlade Glusevic - Yugo? The Togo boys last year. A couple of Senegalese last year. The Boca boys. The Boys from Brazil. That French exhibitionist last year. Some Polish mid last year. Yossi Rosen - Israel. Off-season talk is always sweet. Maybe Mo will give spots to foreigners that Bradley gave to Americans. We shall see.