This is pretty big day for los Rapidos. We get an established player on the field (Gomez), an accomplished player as Technical Director (Sommer), and an accomplished coach (Gary Smith) on the sideline. I don't know what to do.....I'm actually starting to feel optimistic.
I'm cautiously optimistic. We may even make the playoffs this year. I like the aquisition, I just hope we still have a DP slot.
As far as the DP slot goes, I was just hoping to rob DCU blind, oh well. I consider it fair though, and I don't believe the DP slot was ever going to be used anyway. I think this represents the growth of our league and the Rapids are mearly just keeping up with the curve. Yet, I'm still excited.
What I like about this deal is the fact hte Rapids add an actual A-mid. He can attack, and hopefuly raise the play of the entire offense. I think this addition puts us up there in terms of how our roster looks for opening day. Our current lineup: Bouna Ugo----Petke----Erpen---Burciaga Pablo Cooke------------------Clarke C. Gomez HERCULEZ-------Casey Last years opening day lineup****: Bouna Ugo - Petke - Vanney - Prideaux Pablo Cooke-----------------Jovan Beckerman ---------Brown-----Hercz----------- *****lease correct me if I am wrong.... EDIT: DP SLOT---->Goff....
^ That looks about right, except for Niko on the left. I'd say that new lineup puts us on par with a team like chicago, We don't quite have the complete team like DC, but our defense, and midfield is going to be one of the best and hopefully that will make up for our lack of awesome forwards. But anyways, if Chrisitan Gomez isn't worth our DP slot, then who is? How many players are better than the 2006 MVP?
I was just referring to this here: Originally Posted by RapidStorm From Goff: "What are those considerations? The latest I've heard from multiple sources is that D.C. will have the option to use Colorado's designated player slot anytime in the next three years. (United filled its own DP position by signing Marcelo Gallardo last week.)." http://blog.washingtonpost.com/soccerinsider/
Not many, besides the obvious of the 3 worth DP's already in the league I'd say Ching, Twellman, Donovan, Galindo (maybe), and DeRo are the ones that come to mind. of course, with the exception of DeRo, these guys are all strikers that can total up a lot of goals in the season which is something the Rapids have never had, so that might be coloring my opinions. Edit: Also Altidore, maybe. Not so much for his current contribution, but if getting him with a DP can lock him up for an extended period of years it might be worth it.
I would put Cgomez in the same category as those guys. But the more we try to rate players the more subjective it gets, so I really don't see much of a point to arguing this. For what it's worth I wouldn't spend the DP on altidore as he's likely to leave before the other team can actually use the spot.
"I think it's phenomenal," Mastroeni said of the signing and the statement it makes. "It shows the commitment of the club to get results, [to get] a guy of his caliber that's proven himself year after year." http://web.mlsnet.com/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20080208&content_id=138425&vkey=news_mls&fext=.jsp Hopefully, this signifies Pablo is willing to give the Rapids another season and puts the trade rumors to rest.
Christian Gomez Goals: [youtube]tmYpznVIil4[/youtube] Great Banner Idea: "Mine eyes have seen the GLORY" Hopefully he can do this again many times this year to het our RMC back... [youtube]G79F_UzEBkQ[/youtube]
I find the wording there interesting: DC gets an OPTION to use our DP slot? If we can still go 'well we just found somebody and you haven't used it yet, yoink', then this becomes a much better deal for us. Personally I would rather have seen us trade Cooke though, I do think he's hitting his sell-by date.
I don't recall seeing anything other then conjecture about the option being for the DP slot, did I miss something?
Well, Goff is revising what he originally reported, and saying rather than DC having the option to use our DP slot, they outright have our DP slot for at least two years. I think Goff's sources must be wrong here though, or they didn't have the details of that ironed out in time for the press conference, because otherwise they would have reported the DP slot trade in the press release. By the way, Herc cloned himself.
Ugh, that's worse. If we get it back in the 3rd year even if we pick up Gomez's option that makes it slightly better, but at least with the "option" idea there was a chance we could still use it.
I was told by a reliable source (and posted it) a week or two ago that the Rapids and DC had a deal in place that gave them our DP for two or three years. The only thing the teams were waiting for was for Gomez and the Rapids to come to terms. I don't think Goff's sources are wrong. DC has our DP slot for the next few years. I'd be much happier if it's two and not three. I think Gomez will be a GREAT player for us for at least the next couple of years. I've watched him play over the last three years and aside from the age concern there isn't another player in MLS (who isn't a DP) who I'd rather watch play on a weekly basis. My biggest worry is that he might save FC's job.
Great post. Gomez is a truly exciting player - passionate, talented and able to elevate the play of those around him. Combine his signing with the fact that the FO has finally brought in a real "soccer guy" to be a Technical Director as well as Smith as a coach (amongst his other duties) and hey, I'm actually starting to get a little excited about this coming season. Granted, the past several years had forced me to temper my excitement with a certain level of trepidation and skepticism. I'd love nothing more than to have this organization make me feel like a total ass for pulling my season tickets this year. Soo....here's to hoping we;ve turned a corner. May this season make me come crawling back groveling Josh
There is a theme around this trade I'd like to address. There has been a series of posts that basically imply or state "Gomez won't generate the numbers with the Rapids that he did with DC United" for a various number of reasons. Well, maybe that will be true. But here's another consideration. Every time a club wins an MLS title, the rest of the clubs study up on them. After 2004, and especially by the time the playoffs rolled around in late 2005, a number of teams had started to develop schemes/tactical approaches when they played DC United. They continued to refine those. What eventually developed was a combination of attacking approaches that exploited the 3-man backline that United played under Nowak (and Soehn inherited) to the point that DCU had to abandon that approach and trade off some of the players who had initially been strong players in that 3-man backline. But the other approach was what teams did defensively. The two most common approaches that teams used against DCU the last couple of years were: --mug Christian Gomez --congest midfield and concede the wings to United, because the wide play (especially after Earnie Stewart left in 2004) just wasn't there to punish teams for putting a lot of bodies in the middle of the field. Now it is indeed possible that Christian Gomez could see play drop or his numbers reduced. Maybe he's aging. Maybe he won't be surrounded by the talent he had at United. You can make those arguments for why his numbers or impact won't be as good. But here's another take. Christian Gomez has played 3 seasons on teams that didn't have the outside play to punish teams who tried to put numbers in the center of the pitch. Christian Gomez didn't have outside players (and this includes Gros in his prime, Olsen and Fred) who could punish teams with crosses when Gomez played the ball outside. What I think is useful is that when DC United played teams from outside of MLS that did not know ahead of time to congest the middle of the field and put numbers around Gomez, he always had impressive matches. Just check his play against Catolica in 2006, against Chivas Guadalajara and Olimpia last year. My personal take is that Clark and Cooke are bug-eyed right now and both a little giddy. Because those two guys know they are now going to see a lot more space, get a lot more touches, get more clear looks at goal...simply because Gomez is going to force the teams that face Colorado to pinch in the middle and concede space on the outside. And even with that, Christian Gomez is likely to see far more space in the middle of the field and far less congestion than he's seen in MLS since about mid-2005.
Despite all the cut-n-dried opinion here there is still a lot of asymetrical information. The DP 'option' may be over the three years but limited to one season of use for instance. Further as someone mentioned above the potential for a second DP exists. The 'grandfathered' DP-ish salary players and others that are near that level of salary are going to pressure the league suits to come through with that second DP slot probably sooner rather than later. The Rapids most likely weren't going to use both anyway so this can work out? Imagine the Gomezi linking up and/or forming a triangle with a DP striker, Cooke and Clark wide with Pablo and one of the league's best back lines and International star ( ;>) ) Bouna (Tiempo) Coundal anchoring the thing -- NICE. And I'm not even in the Optimist Club. ;>)
One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that this is a "future consideration". Usually that's dependent on how well the player plays. What is the level where the DP slot kicks in for DC, and does the length of the trade of the DP slot differ depending on how well he plays? I'm afraid its going to be something along the lines of 15 games started or 5 goals and 3 assists, but one can hope its more along the lines of 25 game started or 15 goals or 20 assists.