....and we get what?!?!? I'm not surprised that we don't get him....but a bit surprised that Chicago might. Z
Since we have his rights doesn't that mean that we should get some compensation for him? Or is the trade just nullified? Nullifying the trade hurts us in that our draft selection strategy could have been very different if we didn't think we had Nowak. Well, lets see what comes of this...
thats junk. we wasted trades on a guy who isnt even going to be here? i actually thought we were headed uphill for a while...its ok though, i never really liked him anyway. i didnt think he would try as hard in NE as he would in CHI.
Well I guess like all things we can see this as a loss or a gain. I must admit I was looking forward to seeing Nowak feeding JMM and TnT. The down side is that as great as he's been a Nowak in a preretirement season away from his beloved Fire may just have been a disappointment. What I don;t like is how this came down. If the Rev Management was clued into "the game" thats now unfolding OK. If the league and the Revs were mislead by Nowak and the Fire----that's another story. Frankly I think we've been hosed and the league needs to find a way of making it right. You may ask "How can the league make it right?" I suspect any "Compensation" from the League would come behind closed door. Things like weighted lotteries, special SI signings and help landing a Doscovery can all be greased a bit by a league office that "Owes the Revs One".. It may come in the form of a trade for a young playmaker from Dallas It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few months. The down stream from Nowak opting to not join the Revs may take some time to unfold. George
If the potential devestation of not being able to field a playmaker/wheelhouse like Nowak wasn't clear to Rev fans, yesterdays USA/Argentina made it even more crystalline. Without a credible central midfield distributor the US struggled against an Argentina team that simply moved the ball too quickly through the center part of the pitch. This is, on perhaps a lower plane, exactly what MLS rivals will do to the Revs if they don't get someone in the middle who can challenge, hold, initiate and distribute. Otherwise we will have to run everything through Ralston (read Beasley and Klien v. Argentina) and we will just get marginalized on the perimeter. Taylor and Joe Max will starve as Mathis and Taylor did against the albi-celeste. Personally, if the Rev can get someone younger, like Vaca, I think we will be better off in the end. But the prospect of losing Nowak, Serna and Llamosa isn't good unless there is equal quality coming in. Otherwise we are moving backwards when it seems other teams are moving forwards. JIM DOW
Confucius say..."Beware of the Fire, for one who plays in it will eventually get hosed." No Nowak, no Llamosa, No Serna...but at least we have Joe-Max back. Ahhhhh, I was longing for the late '90's again anyway...what a special time... Okay, so it's not that bad, but I hate it when this crap starts happening. What would we have done differently for the draft for gosh sakes...or at least with our pre-draft moves. Okay, maybe nothing, but this teasing of believing we might have someone credible feeding TnT and Joe-Max for at least 10-15 games is not nice. Lucy...you've got some splannin' to do.
Not only should we get compensation for him, but it should be more than we gave up for him. Nowak was a lot less important to us before the draft and a month before we start training in earnest than he is now, and we've done our player acquisitions based on having him, so the deal damaged our team. At minimum I'd want Justin Mapp. If Stevie didn't want him, maybe Logan Pause, a second rounder, and a conditional pick if he decided to play in 2004. If the only offer is our pick back, no dice. Nowak can retire, and the Fire can keep whatever the conditional draft pick is worth if we get no appearances, goals, or assists from Peter.
The only problem with this is that the combined MLS contribution of all the weighted lottery players in the last 3 years is a lot less than one season from Nowak. Also, greasing the skids on our discoveries and SI signings would just lead to getting Carlos Semedo types on the roster faster. Maybe if the league "owes us one" they could give up Milton Nunez, or decide that we should get an allocation for losing Serna.
soccertim - Have you seen the movie "Caddyshack"? Remember when Judge Smails told Spalding, "You'll get nothing and like it"? Pretty much the same thing happened here.
Too harsh. Revs management is pretty blameless in this whole scenario, IMO. Besides, I always thought Spalding was something of an unappreciated comedic genius.
Though I'm disappointed that Nowak won't play for us, it's not the end of the world. This should give us oodles of cap space, what with no Serna and Nowak and possibly no Llamosa. Also, aside from Carlos' potential loss the core of the team is still intact. We're not that badly off. Not to mention that with the JMM acquisition, signs point to the Revs being able to bring in big foreign players without an allocation. We should have more salary space available than anyone with the possible exceptions of Dallas and the Mutts, leaving no claim competition. MLSHQ shouldn't need to give us any sort of compensation - we can make our own. That said, I wouldn't mind holding up Chicago on Nowak's return there. Certainly, we could just void the trade, but I'd rather we get something out of them, even if it's small.
If Nowak retires, the Revs management is pretty blameless. If Nowak plays on the Fire this year, then they screwed up, unless they end up with some kind of quid pro quo from the league. Not only did it hurt us counting on having Nowak on our roster, but it hurts us having Nowak playing for Chicago.
The Revs will obviously get something if Nowak plays, but how much/little will have to be seen. Can't blame management for it, though. Nowak wants to remain in Chicago(and I for one have no hard feelings about this) and the league is trying to facilitate things for a team that was decimated. If the Revs get screwed over on the deal, it's the league's doing and not Revs management. Lee
I didn't realize that Benedict Arnold was Polish. When does Chicago play in Foxboro? We'll have plenty of raspberries on the menu.....
Ted Knight's role as Judge Smails is one of the greatest performances ever in screen history [I'm serious]. I own very few movies - Caddyshack is one of them. Forget AW - again it applies here, Robert Pires, no relation, has a better chance of slipping on a Revs kit than do AW and/or PN [I find it hard to believe Nowak's a president of Bridgeview Bank in Chicago]. All things being equal, the Revs could emerge from this Nowak situation smelling like a rose.