http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/03/sports/soccer/04SOCC.html MARIO ROSAS, the 22-year-old Spanish player who was on trial with the MetroStars, will not be signed by the club. Rosas is now in camp with D.C. United in Florida and could sign a one-year deal (with a one-year option) before the end of the week. "The MetroStars told him he is not good enough,'' ANTONIO CALZADO, Rosas's agent, said yesterday by phone from Florida. "Everyone will soon see with their own eyes how wrong the MetroStars are. His preference was to play in New York, but no longer. Mario is surprised and disappointed things didn't work out with the MetroStars. He wants to go with D.C. to show the MetroStars what kind of player he is. Mario is not happy, but he respects BOB BRADLEY's decision.'' Yesterday Bradley said: "Mario Rosas is a young player who we feel has talent, but we felt we needed to find a player that fits our team better. We made the decision so he can likely pursue other opportunities.'' Holy... Damn, looks like Bob did PASS on Super Mario, and PASSED BIG-TIME. Nothing like an agent spilling sour grapes to confirm everyone's suspicions; scream it why don't you: "my client doesn't play defense." I take it all back -- DC, you want 'em, you got 'em. I'll take Bob's evaluation over someone that actually toyed with the idea of signing Gazza last season (when the man can't even play for a second-rate Chinese team!).
If he's cheap then sign him. Lord knows he's got the required anti-MetroStars chip on his shoulder now.
From today's Star Ledger: "He came with good credentials and good pedigree, but what we were specifically looking for, he wasn't a good fit for us," general manager Nick Sakiewicz said yesterday. As I said: YOU CAN HAVE HIM.
Given your track record, I am suprised that you even think Nicko has any player decision making responsibilities left.
Bob is busy trying to build a team, and if you looked Bob made those same comments and they have been quoted in quite a few papers today. Bob is building a team, and Nick is, umm, building a stadium. Yeah that's it.
Sachin, don't be supplying additional evidence for the fact that DCU fans never learned to read. That would be BOB BRADLEY quoted in the New York Times at the top of this thread. Next!
D'oh. It's not that I never learned to read, just that I didn't have coffee when I read this article. Sachin
Boo-Yeah. And, Sachin, coffee is an essential food group. I totally agree. Never post without it! Nick S. is a blowhard, but he's OUR blowhard. And, as others have pointed out, he is NO LONGER in charge of player personnel. That would be... Bob. And In Bob We Trust. Curious to see that the crowing about "stealing" such a "gem" from under the Metros' noses has suddenly stopped. Maybe DCU fans are wondering if their fearless quotable, Hudson, shouldn't kick the tires on Super Mario just a wee bit more...
Would love to pick up Prideaux when Hudson does the deed and signs Mario and has to cut Brandon. Sounds like a fair trade indeed. Anyone know anything about Hudson's pool cleaning bizness?
Bradley did say something. He eloquently said Mario is talented but did not fit. Frankly, I have never seen Mario play, so I'm going on conjecture. He's left footed and could provide cover for Convey who misses games because of U-20, U-23, and USMNT games, and also usually misses some games to injury. It seems that Mario is a technically skilled dribbler and decent passer who does score. DC United needs scorers, so it sounds like a decent fit, even if we have to play him as a forward. Hudson's system is based upon having a lot of combo AM/F players who flow back and forth between the forward and midfield lines taking advantage of defensive gaps. Mario sounds like one of those type of players. But IMHO he has two big problems, defending and salary. I can live with the no defending if he's going to be a role player--which sounds like what he would be for United. But if the salary causes DC United to lose a valuable defender like Brandon Prideaux, I will be disappointed in this move. Let's look at where he fits. Forward depth: 1) Stewart, 2) Santino, 3) Eskandarian, 4) Hristo, 5) Mario, 6) Devin. That looks fine as Esky and Santino will miss games due to US Youth Teams this season, Hristo and Stewart are old and may sustain injuries (Hristo is a given). This would mean Ali Curtis is history. Midfield depth: 1) Etch, 2) Nelsen, 3) Olsen, 4) Convey, 5) Dema, 6) Mario, 7) Eliseo, 8) Stewart/Hristo/Devin, 9) Namoff, 10) Reyes. Obviously there's room in midfield with injuries, call-ups and fitness concerns. But, he'd likely not start most games. Salary-wise, he causes a problem, because I find it hard to believe that we have room for him on the current roster. If his ~140-150k salary is correct, then I'm guessing DC United needs to move at least 70k to make room for him. Here are the candidates: Prideaux, Petke, Dema, Olsen, Convey, Etch, Santino. Of these, only Prideaux makes real sense. So barring a blockbuster trade just to accomodate Mario, I'd guess that Prideaux is dealt. IMHO, then our defense goes from a strength to a weakness. The cost just isn't worth the benefit. This feels like a very forced move to me. -Tron
No offense eric, but you're a bit delusional if you think Prideaux would ever be cut. The guy is--along with Bocanegra and Garcia--one of the most versatile defenders in MLS. He is high quality in any formation and at any back line position. He's right footed but has played predominantly as a left sided defender because he's so good on either side. There simply is no way that DC United cuts Prideaux. He'll be traded, and I'd expect a 2nd round draft pick at a minimum. He'd start today on most teams, including the Metros, Crew, Wizards, Rapids and Quakes. As far as trading Prideaux for Mario, that might be a fair trade talent-wise, I don't know, because I don't really know how good Mario is. But it's not going to happen, because it appears Mario is available to DC United for free, so there is no reason to give up value to sign him. Yeah, we'd need to clear salary cap room, but we would trade Prideaux for other value (i.e. draft picks) because we have no need to trade for Mario. -Tron
I might be delusional. Let's see who this pans out. Would I do that? No, but we are talking Hudson here.
Maybe we could serenade him with the Super Mario Theme Song. http://www.ringtonejukebox.com/ProductAuthor.asp?AuthorID=10066
If Rosas is signed, why would Prideaux necessarily be involved? If the team only needs around 70K to make the deal work, it doesn't have to make it all with one player. Couldn't that be made from cutting/trading Curtis and Chino combined? As was mentioned before both are slipping way down the depth chart anyway. Not advocating this BTW, just curious why the focus is on Prideaux.
I'd say that Prideaux is being mentioned here because he won't be a starter for this team when we have our full compliment of defenders available. Citing Brandon points toward the next question for Hudson: even without Rosas in the picture we have 13, possibly 14 players who could be considered starters playing for 11 positions: - Rimando is the GK -In the defense, we have Petke, Reyes, Ivanov, and Prideaux. - Midfield has Nelsen, Etcheverry, Convey, Kovalenko, and Olsen. - At forward we see Stewart and Quaranta with Stoichkov and Eskandarian in the mix too. Rosas gives us a potential 15th starter. If he's that good (to start) then I can see trading one of the other guys (like Prideaux) if ray felt that the slack would be taken up by the potential subs on the team (in the case of the defense, guys like Stokes, and maybe Namoff and Swann). What we don't know about him is how good he is. What if he is good enough to just walk into the starting lineup? Would he then be worth 150K? Sure; it's not like our starters are that good that we can't conceive of adding a new player who's better than most of them. For me there are two basic steps in fielding a team- 1) getting the players by trade, draft, or allocation/discovery, and 2) figuring out how the players fit together and shaping the team accordingly. It can be argued that we are right between steps one and two still, with Rosas being the last possible addition joing the team as it starts to work itself out on the field. So I still see room for a major signing and/or trade. If we do sign Rosas we fans will have to go on the same faith we are using with Ivanov's signing and various other roster moves.