New Walt article at CSN - All change for the Crew

A decent summary with a few good lines like: "he Crew has never able to put the right pieces around McBride to take full advantage of his abilities." Such true words.

Loved how there was no mention of Williams, unless I somehow skipped over his name.


By the way, does anyone get SI? I stopped my subscription a year ago, because I wanted SA. Anyways, I don't know if anyone caught this, but in one of the latest issues, Wingert was shown in the "Faces in the Crowd" blurbs. If this has been mentioned already in some other thread, flame me, but I just thought I'd mention it.

 

Yeah i saw that too. It mentioned that he was drafted and playing in Major League Soccer, but no mention of Columbus Crew.

 

I'm sure if the Crew could trade all current and future allocations until 2010 for a neuralizer a la Men in Black to erase the memory of the massive failure known as Mark Williams they would.

Look Greg.

Failure.
Fail-yurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Fuh-fuh-fuh.

Oh well, yet another summary.

It wouldn't hurt to have a banner that contains more than one active player on our roster. I'm surprised Tom Dooley and Theophilus Khumalo aren't in there...

 

jeepers how old is that picture of Cunningham? I did a double take when I saw that died 'fro.

 

Random thoughts as I read Walt's piece:

1) Nice to see Walt found someone to edit his copy into English. SO much easier to read.

2) When is the Crew planning on actually announcing something about Freddy Garcia? All the writers seem to feel he's gone, but AFAIK there's been nothing from Velma.

3) I'm not sure it's true, or fair, to say that McBride will be missed "more" for his marketing value than for his on-field play.

4) Is anybody else tired of hearing how Elliott brings "a wealth of experience" and how Fraser brings a "wealth of experience" and how Lagos brings...well, you get the idea. George Best or Eric Cantona would bring a "wealth of experience" too. Thomas Dooley - now THERE'S a guy with experience. What we NEED is not a "wealth of experience", but somebody to make plays.

5) How about THIS one: "...Whatever actual minutes (Fraser) plays will be ancillary to this task and a huge bonus for the Crew." Shoot, if that's the case, if we don't really care if the guy can still play, then let's get Harksie back here. Not only is he actually YOUNGER than Fraser but he has "a wealth of experience" ACTUALLY WINNING.

6) Never mind; apparently Walt's editor had to leave halfway through.

7) WHOA!!! Herdsman had "problems" with the Rapids staff? Nobody mentioned this before. We were told he quit to go be a monk or study Phrenology or something.

8) Would someone help me please: tell me what this sentence means: "If he ends up being in the Crew’s plans, he will cost the team only the price of his contract" Isn't that true of EVERYBODY?

9) Here's something: Jeff's not a pain in the ass - he's "enigmatic"

OK, so what have we learned here?

Besides that Walt needs to keep working at his nightschool English Comp classes, it's the same Crew sales pitch: NEW! NEW! NEW!!!

Now I'll grant you that it's a better pitch than "Come see our geezers" or "I Got My Free Rascal - and YOU CAN TOO!" but maybe it's just me.

But I still don't see how you sell NEW when the same nitwit is running the show. Did he magically learn how to coach in the offseason?

SOunds a lot to me like the REAL plan is to bring in a bunch of guys with "a wealth of experience" and let THEM coach the young players and run the team.

In that case, what do we need that grotesque stuffed monkey on the bench for?

 

Yeah, no mention of Columbus. F-ck SI. Don't even get me started on my opinion of that "sports" magazine. Only good thing about it is Rick's column at the end of each issue.

 

Because it's at the end?

(Chelsey obviously is a good fit for this forum. Hopefully she's around for a while.)

 

Freddy has been at Municipal since early January. I guess that there hasn't been any announcements due to the fact that there have been sanctions against the Guatemalan Soccer Federation by FIFA.

From FIFA
Zurich, 9 January 2004 -The FIFA Emergency Committee today suspended the Guatemala Football Federation (FEDEFUTBOL) as a result of governmental interference in the affairs of the federation, which constitutes a violation of the general organisational principles and Statutes of FIFA.
On 23 December 2003, the Guatemala Autonomous Sports Confederation, a body of the Guatemalan Government, decided not only to take control of the FEDEFUTBOL headquarters (which had been financed by the FIFA Financial Assistance Programme), but also to prevent President José Mauricio Caballeros and members of the FEDEFUTBOL Executive Committee and its administration from gaining access to the federation’s headquarters and technical centre (built under the auspices of the FIFA Goal Programme), and to appoint a normalisation committee, thereby revoking the mandate of President Caballeros, who had been re-elected for a further four years in September 2003.

In accordance with its regulations, FIFA has therefore decided to suspend the Guatemala Football Federation until order can be re-established in the federation’s internal affairs, the President and Executive Committee are reinstated and unimpeded access to the federation’s premises is restored.

As a result of this suspension, FEDEFUTBOL clubs and representative teams are no longer allowed to participate in friendly or competitive matches on the international stage. This suspension also applies to the Preliminary Competition of the Olympic Football Tournaments Athens 2004, with the Guatemalan Women’s National Team due to play its final qualifying matches in Costa Rica next month, as well as to the Preliminary Competition of the 2006 FIFA World Cup™, in which Guatemala were due to meet the winners of the Aruba-Surinam tie in June 2004. Furthermore, all FIFA financial assistance payments have been frozen and FEDEFUTBOL has been deprived of its right to vote at Congresses held by international football bodies.

The above sanctions include transfers. Freddy Garcia (and another international player returning to Guatemala, Pando Ramirez) did not dress up for Sunday's opening match due to the uncertainty of contracts.

But for us, it means that Garcia will not be with the Crew this season.

 

What was Garcia's contract situation after the 2003 season? Was he out-of-contract? If so, don't expect the Crew to announce anything about him unless it's a trade or his re-signing. They did the same thing with Brian West and it was posted on the MatchNight forums that since West was out-of-contract no announcement about his leaving would be forthcoming.

 

Yeah, now that's hilarious. Not to get all political or anything, but everybody knew that FIFA's bagman in Iraq, Uday Hussein, was torturing players when they didn't perform up to his expectations. The stories have been around for years.

Blatter couldn't have cared less. Torture 'em all, just be sure and vote for me and here's your cut.

But take posession of a building and some bank accounts and WHOA NELLY you're suspended from FIFA.

See, that's the trouble with the Guats. They should have dragged Freddy and Carlos in and racked 'em, maybe rip out their fingernails or something. Bust a few bones.

THAT would have been fine with FIFA. Just don't threaten the money, honey.

 

I have been away from BigSoccer for about three months, Good to see the Crew hasn't changed, they will still be the same old Crew, not much ambition.

 

I was looking back at the salary thread, and Garcia's salary was listed which I guess means he was under contract. So, if he was under contract and all the writers are saying he's no longer here, how did he leave? Was there a transfer fee? Was he simply allowed to go in order to free up salary and roster space?

 

"Fraser’s main task might be to groom the Crew’s new young defenders. Whatever actual minutes he plays will be ancillary to this task and a huge bonus for the Crew."

If this is true, wouldn't it be a good idea to make Fraser a player coach? This would mollify some skeptical fans and provide additional space under the salary cap.

 

Looks like someone is still thinking about a new tagline.

 

Ah. Bullsh-t. I hope our boys have some ambition this year. Maybe they aren't the same old Crew. Ah, who the hell knows. That sh-t about no ambition, f-ck that.

 

with Fraser around to provide "leadership", "experience", and be a "mentor", can anyone give me a good reason why Clark is still on the team? Robin may be old, but I'd still take him over Clark.

 

Here Chels...a link for you

http://www.viz.co.uk/profanisaurus/profanis.htm

 

Ah, why don't you just go papper your trollies.

 

Oooohh..


I see Arsenal are at home today.

 

Arse don't play today do the? And how about the lashing our reserves gave your first team a while back?

 

Zak you must refer to the profanisaurus.

Arsenal play Wolves Sunday ny the way.

 

I have a tenner on Wolves avoiding relegation this season with Kerpow.