Good points. Those are some fairly convincing stats that I hadn't seen or considered before. Put simply, for the Revs to win the MLS cup this year, a whole hell-of-a-lot has to go right for them. And I would strongly disagree with anyone who says this is consistant with the Kraft organization runs its other team. I have a feeling, however, that we one this board are about the only ones who ever dream of making this comparison.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/greg_lalas/09/04/open.cup/index.html?eref=si_soccer Semi rev related open cup analysis by our legendary frm defender.
this is what really pisses me off... we release players with out anything in place just leaving spots open? was Petrovic the A plan to fill the spots? is there a B plan? or was he the B plan and we never even heard about the A plan. Is there a C plan now? or are we up the creek with out a paddle (and short two paddlers) talk about counting chickens before they hatch. seems like someone really miscaulculated and is completely incompetent as a manager of a professional org or the didn't calculate at all and are completely incompetent. This would be unthinkable in any sport, any team. it's baffling
Nah, he's more like Harry Sinden was. As it turned out, Sinden had it right with his spending practices as the league collapsed from the overblown payrolls a decade later. The only problem is they were always 1-2 players away from being the best team, but they were too damn cheap to make the moves. Sound familiar?
That's exactly how they get away with this. They know the local media isn't going to make a big deal over it. FDA used "inconsistent" to describe our late-year signings without even going into anything else. You're not going to turn on Sports Tonight with Felger & Co. and hear anything about this. They've discovered the dirty little secret of sports the Clippers discovered years ago, you can run a bare-bones pro sports operation and still make some coin.
Does anyone else think it was all BS from the start? I said when these Petrovic rumors surfaced that I wont believe anything until they suit up, when Feldman actually mentioned it during a game I thought it might be real, but turns out it wasnt...
I think Nicol had someone in mind, the unknown "name" and "not name", and it fell through. They didn't, for whatever reason (and I'm REALLY holding back my cynicism here), have any sort of backup plan and ended up finding out someone they'd had previous interest in (Petkovic in '05) was available. It didn't, obviously, work out.
It wasn't BS, he really was in camp, he really did get injured, and the Revs are really not going to sign an injured player.
This is true, but one way to interpret the "bs" remark is to ask whether Petkovic was a player of opportunity who the Revs recently learned was available, or was he in fact one of the players Nicol was reported to have been working on all season?
Forget actually improving the roster. Too late for that, I imagine. Never mind the idea that the RFO might have a back-up plan in case Petrovic didn't work out. Following one of the Magpie's earlier comments, doesn't it seem reasonable that if the club were serious about adding depth, they would have other players lined up in case of disaster? Aren't there USL players who would be adequate to fill in off the bench in case we need to go to a second sub at any given position? As has been mentioned, if any two of Riley, Heaps, Parkhurst, and John go down, we are toast. (Actually, if Parkhurst goes down, we're toast.) We have two business weeks.
Forgot to mention this classic Jay Heaps quote on the subject of WT: "I think our rookies have developed very well. I think Wells was up and down, I remember at one point in a couple of games he was the best player on the field and another couple of games he was kind of checking things out.... Jay is cementing his rep for being the most quotable Rev.
By BS I meant basically that I thought the notion that they were out like scowering the globe for players and Petrovic was the guy they found and brought in was BS. It looks to me like this guy was probably hurt all along, maybe thats why he cant get a job in his country or any other leagues in Europe. I just wish the Revs would go out, and get a player that can help this team, this season, but all we hear about is broken down Serbians and Gambians that wont see the field for 2 years.
I think the Revs best bet now is to grab someone off of waivers should another team have a late signing. Doesn't Dallas have to let someone go? they have 5 SI players now or something like that. At this point I could care or less if they sign a starter, just an adequate sub would do
They put Saragosa on the season ending injury list. Let's see if they still have interest in Petkovic come offseason...
On a related note, let's hope that in an MLS expansion draft you only have to expose players to the draft if you have a full roster. Otherwise, the Revs could loose more players in the offseason.
That's a really great point. Last time, IIRC, it was 11 senior roster players that could be held? Maybe this is part of the Revs master plan, make as few players available as possible!
Petrovic really doesn't matter. Defense is not our biggest problem and even if he worked out, he would most likely not be any better than what we have. The real issue here is why are we 2 weeks away from the signing deadline with only some 18 yr old kid in the fold with maybe another one the way? A kid whom I doubt will ever see the field (most don't). Petrovic is just the focal point for may fans frustration with this club's policys and with their lies to their core fans. It is BS that they can't find players. Other clubs are doing it. We just don't want to find anyone. I also find it interesting that most of the Kool-Aid crowd hides for a few days after yet another let down. Within a day or two, they'll come back spewing the party line and coming up with reasons why it's OK for the Revs to do nothing to improve themselves. I will say it again. We will not be in the MLS final and it's our inability to improve ourselves when we have the space and money, that will do us in .... this year.
But apparently ya'll have extra stalls in your locker room (whether you share it with the visiting NFL team or not), because your roster is not full, so you have plenty of room for Boswell .... even if he uses more haircare products than the original Boz. ... What I cannot believe is that after spotting the Revs 3 games at the beginning of the season (actually 4 if you consider the game in hand), NE still cannot stay ahead of DC ... and yet the Kraft-Aid drinkers are still in denial.
Since we only play about 13 when everyone's healthy, expose away. The real question is would we replace anyone we lost or just start another world wide search for replacement players