Almost all our new guys are top notch. Except for Mr Magoo. I hate to ask but how long are we stuck with Cabral's nad contract? Anybody know? Awful lot of money for a bench warmer.
This is mls, nothing is impossible. But navigating inheriting a shitty team full of bad long term contracts is usually a multi year process.
I Does anyone knos the status of our 3 injured CB's: Steres, Neal and Ferkranus? Especially whether they will be available for Dallas on Wednesday? In the worst possible case, Coulibaly and those 3 are all out along with Chicharito.
I’m pretty sure it’s a loooooooong deal. Like 5 years or something. So we are stuck if he doesn’t come good.
I know I have posted this before, but maybe you will remember if I keep replying. First, Cabral costs the Galaxy $200K of salary cap thats it. The rest of his salary ($1.24mm) is AEG funny money that doesn't cost the Galaxy anything except the opportunity to sign a DP at no more than the TAM Max. As I have posted before that opportunity also saves the Galaxy up to $400K in salary cap and up $1mm in TAM. That's enough money to offset all of Vazquez's salary and pay for Coulibaly's transfer fee and offset the amount Williams is over the salary cap with perhaps $500K more . If you want to bemoan a bad signing consider Pipo Gonzalez who is the 5th highest paid player on the squat at $850K in base salary. He hasn't played a minute and only made the game day squad 5 times this year.
Ferkranus didn’t start against Phoenix Rising on Saturday, but he did come off the bench for about 30 minutes for Los Dos. So, absent any setbacks (I’m assuming he was coming back from a knock since he missed a game or two), he should be able to at least be on the bench on Wed with the senior squad. With Neal, I expect he’s still dealing with the stress fracture/reaction in his foot. He hasn’t played at all with G2 in months.
skydog, I hear what you are saying, and we aren't great team now; however KC was indeed lucky to get a win based on their performance. You can argue that we aren't going to score a lot with our poor finishing. It goes for KC too - with no shots on goal they aren't going to score. If Sega doesn't go down or Williams isn't out on a red, or our youngster Saldana doesn't give the ball away in the final third then KC never scores in this game. I can't know for sure, but KC didn't have a shot on goal until - well it was late - their expected goals are going to be miniscule. It doesn't matter how well you finish, if you can't get a shot on goal you can't score. If KC's game plan every time they play us is let's plan on us being down two CB with at least one backup CB or DM out so that we can wait for Saldana to cough it up and we can get a goal, then I'm not too worried. And they are a solid MLS team this year, so the way we defended was impressive. Araujo, Sega, Depuy, Bond, Raveleson, Villafana are good and given some time together, add healthy JDS, Steres, and Williams back and they could be a very good back 6 for us. On the offensive end I agree about playing a forward; however, I don't think it's as dire as stated. We don't need a world beater. It's reasonable to count on our aging DP forward being available for 2/3 of the season with careful management. Zubak doesn't have a great strike rate, but he was also not missing chances in the box - he was doing work to create space, holding up ball. If we play like we did Sunday we can win with mediocre finishing from Cabral, Vazques, Zubak, Grandsir, Lletget. Add in full game from Zubak or Koreniuk or some other budget forward and we will win this game more often than not. So I can agree that we need a forward, I can't agree we need a "real one" to win. I think we need one if we are going to be a great team - of the caliber of past championship teams. Even without a forward there is room for optimism. The thing is Saldana (19) will improve. Cabral (21) will improve. Grandsir who was very good (24) will improve. Efrain (19) will improve. Coulibaly (25) will improve. Raveloson (24) will improve. Depuy (26) will improve. Araujo (19) will improve. It's easy to get down on these young guys for all of their mistakes and flaws, but in reality - they are improving. Evan Zubak who at 23 is just now growing into his 6'2" frame, will improve. Lletget and Williams, Bond, are in their prime and should remain good for several seasons. So in summary... Enjoy 5th of July. Sorry we didn't set up a Big Soccer tailgate. There is room for optimism. Yes, if we get JDS off of DP contract and bring in another DP striker we could be very good, but even if we don't we can win.
Thank you for keeping us up with the contract side of things. At the risk of surely making you repeat things - can you explain how this saves us 600k in cap space and $1m in TAM? Do you mean compared to a DP? Or compared to a million dollar player who doesn’t fall into the special u22 dp designation? I knew the part about him only costing us 200k cap space but not the rest.
73Bruin, thanks again for reminding me. This really does color my impression of Cabral. For $200K he is worth every penny, and for salary structure reasons I can't think having another pricey DP and giving up Cabral, Vazquez, Coulibaly or equivalent is worth that - especially look at what we would do with the DP slot - we could have another JDS or Chicharito. I would not give up those players to roll the dice on another DP given our track record. You don't know if you get 2021 JDS or Chich or 2020 JDS or Chicharito.
Anyway all of this discussion of finishing and salary is pointless. Everyone knows the real reason we lost - and I'm sure everyone was thinking it before the start of the game - we were forced to warmup in Chivas USA warmups.
I'll be honest with you. This is so convoluted that I can't make heads or tails of it. In one paragraph you have a spider web of funny money, if then this then that and dont forget two of that other. This is a scheme that any drug cartel money-launderer would stand up and take off his sombrero. I appreciate your attempt to school us with your breakdown and knowledge. In the final analysis I am still offended cabral is putting 1.5 million dollars, real dollars, in his pocket for what at the moment amounts to nothing more than roster fill. That kind of of money is not funny.
On the plus side of signing Cabral, corner of the Galaxy tonight were saying that Julian Araujo sign a extension of 4 and half year under the the 22 initiative player, probably will be official tomorrow, and Galaxy is trying to sign extension with Efrain Alvarez as well
Efra huh? I like building a core that can stay together and gel. I’m not 100% on the Efra train, though. But, team still thinks they can sell those guys. If not, once Jona and Cheech are gone, they could maybe be our MEX national team players that we simply must have.
This was a brutal match. SKC has historically been one of the toughest match-ups for us, even when we're a good team. They are a dogged, organized and hard-nosed team that always makes it difficult for us to play the sort of finesse game we like. Still, we enforced our will a lot and I think if we have Chicharito, we probably win. Without him, it becomes a bit of a trap game as we have to play right into SKC's gameplan. Also, if Cabral is a little better, we probably win this game. I think it's easy to be hard on him, but I do see the potential there. He just needs to lock down his first goal and I really think he'll get on a tear. Having said that, if I could give him only one gift for Christmas it would be bloodlust. I feel like his finishing issues are more mental; he just needs to show killer instinct / directness / goal hunger in the final third. That'll become refined with age in the long-run, but in the short-term just a little more confidence will go a long way, especially once he actually gets his goal. In the same note, Grandsir is really coming into his own and is becoming one of our most dynamic players.
I like Vanney's assessment of our French wingers: Greg Vanney also said Kevin Cabral needs to be stronger and less finesse. Samuel Grandsir needs to be less strong and have more finesse. #LAGalaxy— Galaxy Fan Talk (@LAGalaxyFanTalk) July 6, 2021
We definitely would have beaten them with Chich. I have zero doubt and the players have zero doubt about that as well I think. As far as Cabral - yes, confidence gained from scoring would help. Overall if he could use that confidence to become more strategic, more of a clear eyed killer when timing and shaping of his runs it would help his game immensely. Think about his game. On the negative side his technical skills are poor, even for his age. He struggles with close ball control, passing accuracy and his shot is a mess. He doesn’t have many dribbling tricks in his arsenal to pull out in a 1v1 situation; instead he still relies more on kick and outrun which doesn’t work that well at this level. But on the positive side he is young, has speed, great endurance and youthful exuberance. If he puts in the consistent effort his ‘motor’ could be his best asset, the one that keeps him on the field buzzing late in the game around when others are tuckered. On top of that Cabral’s best chance to become a decent scorer is to play like Chicharito - become a garbage collector who pounces on any loose balls in the box and knocks them into the net. That requires learning to read and anticipate plays as they are developing. It requires timing and focus and drive. It requires watching film and countless hours of finishing practice. So increased confidence will help some. But in the long run the real question is will Cabral put in the time and hard work to improve his game? If he does he might be a very good player some day. If he doesn’t he will struggle to stay on the field. Only time will tell.
Mr Magoo is getting on Vanney's nerves too. Let him know Greg, time to start stepping up to your pay grade. Dallas game less than 24. Can the thread go up? Warden?
OK, "impossible" wasn't the right word, but I would stick by "extremely unlikely" to form an instant great team. The best teams take time to gel and learn to work together. Superstars like Robbie Keane and Landon Donovan are a different breed, and in MLS we won't see too many of those guys. I take your point that we need to see a couple more of them on this team, to show some results worthy of the Galaxy. But it still takes time to absorb the team's style of play, learn to work together with all 11 men, and anticipate your teammates to apply true creativity. We have the potential to get there with one or two more additions, as you pointed out. And I agree with the point made by others, that we have the handicap of bad contracts still on the books (or even very recently jettisoned ones like Skjelvik). Thank god we signed a decent coach - Vanney has been great so far, has assembled a great team of coaches with him, and has potential to win championships, and I can't wait for it to happen. It's fun to watch this team again, thank god.