our roster is safe from xenophobic Chivas Interesting article: http://skysports.planetfootball.com/article.asp?id=170167&cpid=218 During the last expansion, I seem to remember that every team had to make a list of 10 players available for a dispersal draft. As a solution, as long as we keep Quaranta, Alegria, Etcheverry (if he's still around), Reyes, Quintanilla, and Geddes on the "do not touch" list, then our roster is safe. (Did I forget anyone?) Since they only want Latin-Americans, if we only leave our non-Latin players on the dispersal draft availablilty list, then our team will be safe from pillaging.
any team that narrows their pool of players like this is going to have a hard time being any good. welcome Chivas USA, the worst and most hated team in MLS
our roster is safe from xenophobic Chivas "With their first selection in the expansion draft, Chivas USA selects, Roberto Del Convey!"
1. 2005 is a long way off. 2. Someone on MLSnet (Wynalda) reports no special rules for Chivas. 3. Alexi Lalas on MLS Wrap said the Players Association would oppose any special/discriminatory treatment.] 4. Special/discriminatory treatment would raise serious legal issues in the US that the ownership of Chivas might not appreciate. 5. Santino Quaranta is not Latin American. He's of Italian descent, IIRC.
i think quaranta is italian origin. might wanna put cerritos on your "safe" list along with martins as they are both from "latin america"
I think you have to approach this like any other new team entering the league. One of the problems with the "protect all latino players approach" is that Chivas MLS could select non-latino players and use them later as trade bait for latino players. Also, as a side-note is Quaranta not of Italian descent? D/
A brand new era for professional sports I can't wait until the all African-American squad get formed. It will be interesting how we brake up those of you of European descent. SO many of you are mixtures. Maybe we can also form teams based on religion. Catholics vs. the protestants. Jews vs Muslims!! I think I'll watch the latter from home. I can't think of anything more anti-american than this new Chivas team. Its going to be interesting to see what happens when the race based culture of Mexico collides with 200 years of progress in America on race relationships. I am afraid this may set us back guys and I am astonished that the league is permitting to go forward!!
Re: A brand new era for professional sports I completely agree. Wait until the mainstream press gets ahold of this story. It won't be good.
re:A brand new era for professional sports Also do not be suprised if you do not see any darker skinned Latinos on this squad. Chivas is more for those Latinos closer to the Spanish line rather than the African or Indian. Lovely.
Re: A brand new era for professional sports Re: Catholic vs. protestant, Scotland already beat us to that one in the Celtic-Rangers derby. Re: Jews vs. Muslims -- it just won't happen. Muslims refuse to compete with Jews in anything that falls short of bloodshed, and definitely not football. The only exception was last summer's pairing of a Pakistani Muslim and an Israeli (or Zionist entity, depending on your perspective) as a men's doubles team. The Pakistani player nearly had a fatwa aimed at him, and we aren't talking tennis balls. So go to the stadium (at a neutral site, somewhere in Bulgaria), bring beer and pilaf, and watch the grass grow.
OMG, the US Goats are so anti-American!!! They're playing by the rules set forth by MLS, yet they dare to exercise their freedom of choice to build a team the way they want to? And all this by an owner from a different country, who's opening a business on foreign soil and hoping to be profitable? Why, no way any AMERICAN companies like Nike try something like that! Chivas CLEARLY needs to be run by some centralized office that only has the intrests of the state, erm I mean league, in mind. God forbid they should exercise their legal business options. That would be downright capitalistic. Gimme a break. In all seriousness, the biggest fear I have is that the media does pick up on this, the more conservative arm raises such a giant stink that there becomes a nation wide sentiment to kill Chivas, MLS breaks off the deal and apologizes to sports fans, then a week later the national media goes back to ignoring MLS.
Not to mention he's from SoCal, so he could be a target, unless Viagra brings up Chivas' U-20 keeper as a TI.
Mods Note This thread used to be somewhat on topic for DC United and I'm sure it will be again. "How can you be so sure, Meridian?" you ask. Well I happen to know that I can and will pull posts from this thread out and put them in any one of the 1,400 threads currently in operation on the subject littered throughout Big Soccer. I hope everyone gets the hint.
Re: A brand new era for professional sports i think i am gonna wait and see how this whole thing plays out, there has only been a press release or two. clearly the guys aren't gonna guess at this, they are gonna have consultants, help from the league, etc. they aren't likely to go too far from any conventions. besides i believe mostly what they are talking about is reaching into the mexican-american and other latino communities to guys who might not get noticed. (for example kelly, DC UNITED's own chino came out of the local leagues here). there are many people who believe there is a vast pool of football talent--many in immigrant or minority communities --don't get into our system, miss out on the select teams and other "paths" into our youth, college and professional paths. naturally, latinos make up a large percentage of this supposed-pool. if this pool of guys does exist and chivas can find them and get them exposed, this is good for everyone. its not (or at least wasn't) that unusual for football teams to have some sort of "commonality" in their make up. remember, in many cases, football clubs used to be made up of the community, often very homogenous groups. echoes of this live on such as the spanish team--i forget which one--with only basque players, the ajax and spurs "jewish identity" and above-mentioned old firm. no matter what, i am all for expansion and especially getting the opportinuity for guys who know how to run football clubs and market them (this will of course be enhanced by america buying a team) into the league. adding to the executive talent pool, building better relations with the MFL are all exceptionally valuable side benefits to this. more than anything, this can lead new money, which the league needs, into the picture.
As long as they play by the same rules as everyone else in MLS, I couldn't care less who they have out there. And, frankly, if they're willing to restrict their talent base so much, they better have damn good scouts. That's not a rip at all on Latin players, it's just that if you're going to say "We only want players of XXXXX race/type/size/any other variable," then you're allowing other teams who are choosing their players on quality alone to have a competitive advantage. Additionally, if during the expansion draft they take non-Latin players to use them as trade bait, if I'm DC (or any other team in the league for that matter), I drive a hard bargain, because I know that I'm coming into this with a much more flexible perspective than they are.
Its not all stupid... Hispanic phobias aside, I think there is an interesting side to this entire Chivas idea. An MLS team that REALLY works hard to market towards the hispanic community almost exclusively. I think this can be a really good thing for the league. Nothing against the few hardcore good soccer moms on here, but frankly the vast majority of white American soccer moms are bull$hit and will never lead this league to profitability. I know this is rather overgeneralized and frank, but compare the atmosphere at the Bolivian vs. Honduras game to that of a average MLS game and there IS no comparison. Sure that was a Nat. game, but RFK was also marketed to passionate real soccer fans. --Fans that actually came there to see a game played and appreciate its intricacies. They didn't need a gimmick like OT or the shootout to gain their attention. --As to the DC United angle... I would simply like to see this team concentrate 70 to 80% of its marketing to the local hispanic community once (I dont really know what they spend now but its not enough) and see if this doesnt change the dynamic of our attendance and fan base remarkably. I know this may not make a lot people happy (ie pandering! ha!) but I care more about the future of this team then i care about a family that doesnt want to sit next to Latinos. the future of this league and team is with America's rapidly growing hispanic communities NOT in trying to "win over" traditional suburban white families. It's just not going to happen on a massive scale.
Geez--I can't believe the hysteria and rumor mongering about Chivas US. Look, it makes sense that any team (with a Mexican owner) would put out some spin right now aimed at potential Mexican fans. Getting them exciting by painting pictures of a team in the USA they can root for with a strong Mexican roster. To say: "well, it will be a Mexican owner but a whitebread team with a bunch of Anglos and maybe a Tico or Norwegian or aging Brit"--well, that's the way to build potential excitement--NOT. But things are a long way off. I think all we're seeing now is just spin. It's a good thing that we're getting new investors in MLS. And if that opens up young Mexican talent to come into MLS, activates some of the Mexican fans who live in the USA...well, those are good things. As for DCU, to predict what our roster will look like in 2005 is foolish. Imagine it being 2001 and trying to predict our 2003 roster. If Hudson leaves, we'll turn over people just b/c a new coach will make changes.
As this actual topic of this thread shows, there really aren't THAT many Mexican-Americans in the league. There are many Latinos. That makes sense from MLS' perspective. Guatemalans and Sallies can't follow their home leagues, so they are more fertile territory for growing MLS fans. As our acquisition of Q2 and then Cerritos shows (not to mention Chicago's Eastern Bloc, or LA's Latino contingent, or El Pibe and Serna's arrival in Miami) having a team that skews toward an ethnic group that is common in an area is one thing. It's a win-win-win. But coming out and saying the whole team is gonna be Mexican...that won't work.
The optimist in me says that Chivas' will scout the unaffilaited Latino and ethnic leagues in the United States to find players ignored by the traditional US Soccer set up. I mean, do we really believe Carlos Llamosa is the only player good enough to play in MLS whose been playing in all the various ethnic leagues throughout the United States? I, for one, don't. So if, in its attempt to be exclusively Latino, Chivas expands the American player base and taps into a market that has been for the most part ignored, that's a good thing and I'm all for that. Maybe it won't go down like that, but, like I said, I'm trying to be optimistic.
... mod's note ... "our roster is safe from xenophobic Chivas" Above is the original title of this thread. I'm changing it. These are my reasons. Xenophobia is a fear of strangers or foreigners. Given that the bulk of Chivas USA's roster will be comprised of American citizens the labelling of the team as xenophobic is either, at best, factually incorrect or, at worst, more than a little prejudicial to American citizens of Mexican descent. I'll just trust that it's the former ... Nonetheless, to avoid confusion I'm retitling this thread and, in this instance, I wanted to say why.
Re: our roster is safe from xenophobic Chivas Oddly enough, you listed all the players I wouldn't protect (except for Reyes). However, the point is moot since Chivas won't be an expansion team until next years (according to various stories around the web). However, I doubt half the players you mentioned will still be here next season.