Perhaps we are all skipping over the obvious reason this man, and his agent, are getting the hell outta Ukraine's League this week and heading as far away as possible to play ball. Ukraine and certainly Eastern Ukraine, where Donetsk is located, might not exist in a few months!
They knew each other 20+ years ago when they were both in the Sao Paulo system. I'm thinking it's unlikely that gets you a discount. I'm okay with moves like this if they are potentially high impact, and he could well be, but only if you do a one year contract or one year with an option so you can offload him if he shows up and takes it easy. Also provided strategically it is just a bridge where you intend to get a significantly younger talented player in and you're just buying yourself time to find the right one.
I agree on the last point. On your first point, none of them played footy with Nagamura back in Brasil 15-20 years ago. Only him. I am puzzled by the thought that anyone who is older is veteran leadership. Veteran yes. Many you named are clearly not leaders.
I think of those names listed Parker and Fafa could possibly be proper leaders but unsure. But even then Parker lost me a bit when he said the at the time 11 game winless streak “doesn’t weigh on us too much” and then next week Valentin said the exact opposite.
Vet leadership is Wade Barrett, Eddie Robinson. I'm guessing we are hoping for the sort of vet leadership that Joao Paolo gave SSFC last year.
the team sucked and it eroded as the season progressed. whatever leadership they had wasn't working. let's be real, this is in transition and given how last season went, even if they like and respect fafa or parker, the ones who truly command respect will be the ones who come in and set this towards winning. even if they are flakes. this is set up to be ferreira's team if he breaks from the gate well, like it was elis' team for a bit. i personally think fafa is overrated. bruin type numbers on a last place team where system discipline seemed to break down which usually exaggerates the proficiency of the forwards. you license them to freelance and try to score goals because nothing else is working. cubo was good for bad teams but lousy in the clutch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Luna_(soccer) fairly productive 18 y/o AM in US U20 camp from the USL Locomotive should we be interested? 16 y/o kristian fletcher off the U20s is also listed as unattached on the same camp roster with ManU and Dortmund rumors but nothing concrete yet last point, anyone selling the academy's being fixed should know there are no HD in the domestic U20 tryout camp
USL USMNT 18 year-old generally means they’re trying to go to Europe and avoid MLS entanglement. USL contracts are generally more short-term and there’s less of a risk of a team refusing to Xfer you like there is with MLS. Doesn’t hurt to ask though. Doesn’t always work out. Also looks like SJ might have dibs.
but isn't that a little OldThink? like when MLS used to rarely transfer in or out, contractual freedom was at a premium. they now routinely transfer. USL in theory offers freedom but any playing you do will be discounted for league quality, they make lower salaries. the real reason the contracts are short is probably so if a team busts there isn't much prospective exposure. i also think there's a little naivete in this concept in terms of how the world works. USL is now the oddball. teams rarely release players anymore. teams the world over seem to enforce contracts and then extract transfer fees. chelsea probably should release people they loan out for 5 years straight. they don't and they might even re-up for another term. i get there's the FIFA 18 year old rule but i am not sure what the value is of going pro so early other than bank account. these days they all seem to sit. ask the ibeaghas re the value of absolute freedom. one of them is a career minor leaguer -- he never escaped his escape hatch -- and the other bounced around the edges of europe and the minors til about age 26 when he finally broke into MLS proper. when our team sucked so bad he might have started. but he was free.
It’s old school in a sense, but it still happens. MLS has weird roster rules that guys can get trapped in, e.g. homegrown territory rules. You’re also at the mercy of whatever team you sign with (which you potentially don’t have a choice over), so whereas maybe you’re comfortable going with Dallas who has a track record of selling, you’re less comfortable if your forced into another team. And yeah, USL isn’t designing its contracts this way anymore than NASL did when guys did the same thing with them, but the end result is still the same. Same thing with whether or not it’s effective. I’d guess mostly not, but there’s still players that will make that will make that choice and try their luck. Ibeagha I guess is a mixed story. He didn’t light it up in Europe, but we did sign him and then cut him without ever playing him a minute even with a shitty defense in ‘16. So who is to say things go differently if he signed direct with us in 2013?
personally if you had the right passport i'd go join a european academy like gio did. get in there at the age where you are actually getting taught and fixed as opposed to just judged. superior training. start off in their system and maybe turn pro there. failing that, if you see your life as soccer, but with no guarantees you are any good or will go anyplace, i'd start off in MLS. you take your shot at the good league and if that misses USL can cushion the fall. start out in USL and flop and you're probably pretty much done. did renken ever actually leave the US soccer pyramid after his whitecaps academy gambit? i also think that while in theory USL would be short liberating contracts, it's for peanuts, you're lowballing your value out the gate on the hope you quickly leave on a free. you're playing a lower level of play. the only plus is abstract freedom. the comparable MLS signing will be making 2-4 times the money, training at a higher level (and remember these are kids who need to keep developing), and probably worth more in transfer if that happens. it's the better soccer decision, the better money decision, the only thing it's not is abstractly free. there is even a trade off on the abstract freedom in that you get 10-15% of the transfer fee under the longer MLS deal. now you might have more freedom on destination on a USL free transfer, but it's free. there is no fee. and since you've chosen a second division resume, is ManU interested? do you narrow your suitors?
personally i see <20 as developmental time and you want to be with the most prestigious club that will give you PT and teach you more soccer. only >20 would i settle on a career choice because you are more fully cooked and need to calibrate destinations to have a continued future. the USL thing sounds like this weird attempt to just waste time, unless you have just the right coach. like i'm just killing time until i go to europe. ok, go play MLS. not good enough. oh, and you're going to europe? what, icelandic third division? unless you're in the rotation in MLS you're not on the fast track to anyplace decent in europe. bayern munich or hoffenheim is likely looking for someone FCD signed who is either there or down at NTSC. they are not going to go dig you up from the locomotive. you might catch their eye at U20 worlds but with the high level of professionalization, are you sure you start for the U20s over some kid in hoffenheim's academy or who plays for a dutch team or who subs in for MLS? you, from el paso? to me there's a little too much magical thinking, a little too much pixie dust expectation. to be fair, i get the mentality for someone in their 20s. i like the haaland ladder theory on career growth. pick someplace you'll succeed and steadily climb up. but that's different than being a kid in an academy soaking up learning and technique. this is put up or shut up time. i think what befuddles me is it's a 16 year old acting like they have little more to learn and it doesn't matter where they play, like i am going to europe in 2 years, vaguely arrogant without even getting to specifics like who it is. usually it's not the best kid in the age group but the second tier for whom europe is a stretch. like maybe go play something wandering towards adult soccer before you assume stuff.
On Soccer Matters, Glenn Davis just played a soundbite from his recorded interview with Pat Onstad. The Dynamo are expecting to sign two more players before the transfer deadline on April. #HoldItDown— Foxtrot (@DynamicFoxtrot) January 26, 2022
“The club leadership is on that… he [Bajamich] hasn’t reported here with the first team, this topic is probably for Pat and Asher” release based on breach of contract, mutual tearup, loan, cheap sale, he's practically begging for it, didn't seem that enthusiastic to report the first time what with loaning him back to argentina presumably that's your second winter slot through april is during our season and during many key leagues' seasons as well. the odds go down a team sells a player out of their window during the end of season push. you start talking a specific list of off-calendar leagues where we might be shopping.
In the vein of the previous USL discussion. https://www.espn.com/soccer/usl-cha...re-than-one-way-to-get-to-europe?platform=amp They’re having more success than I’d have thought, although it’s too early to know whether any of these guys stick. They’re getting picked up by reserve teams. A couple of them are shown as ex-Academy kids who went USL before going overseas.
https://embeds.audioboom.com/publis...0GM%20Pat%20Onstad%20joins%20Soccer%20Matters Onstad did another Soccer Matters interview. Reddit poster summed it up fairly from what I remember listening to last night. • Baird is back in full training. • Really makes it a point to defend Darwin Quintero to Glenn. Says he's been at HSP as much or more than anyone in the offseason. • Says Memo had been unhappy but now is impressing in training. • Wants to bring a winger and an "eight slash ten" CM. One DP or YoungDP and one YPS (u22 intiative). • Def sounds like 4-3-3 is happening. I'm inferring Paulo has a preference for single pivot, but it will come down to personnel. • We were never in the "Paul Arriola Sweepstakes" because we don't have the GAM to throw around (thanks, MJ). Also, the interview with Lundy was enlightening as well. (From a Lundqvist interview in the same show) • Lundy sounds like a very pleasant human who thinks the Texas hill country is quite beautiful. • Paulo's tactics even a week into training are clearly different. Both coaches want pressing to recover the ball, but Tab was about "hurting the team quickly," getting up the field fast once you recover the ball. Paulo seems to push possession more. "Possession with a purpose, make the other team suffer, pick the right moment to go forward." • Alludes to the fact that Tab's system was difficult in the heat on our guys. Sounds like Paulo's hoping to reverse that. Make the other team do the chasing in the hot texas sun. • Adam likes meatballs.
It's been reported neither Vera nor Bajamich have been in camp. Not due to breach, though, but rather due to COVID protocol. From there, once you're in active transfer discussion then really no point in getting the guy to show up to camp.
Gomez (age 18) was FCD academy, NTSC, and only then USL. He's ticketed to Sociedad B ie the reserves. Cervantes (age 19) was LAG academy and only then USL. He has no first team minutes in any competition with Rangers in 2 years since the transfer, and was just sent on emergency loan to the Scottish second division without playing. Gallegos (age 20) is still at SAFC with a handful days left in the winter window. Between them they have zero first team games played abroad. All their minutes so far are USL or domestic stuff. I see where there is a pipeline of sorts emerging but I would question its effectiveness relative to doing the straightforward thing. Freedom is all well and good but its value here would be to some purpose. The pattern of sending USL players to reserve or youth duty there does not convey faith in the product. I mean, do these feel like superior outcomes to you vs you sign a normal HGP deal and then FCD sends you abroad to train one winter and then x% of those Bayern or some other team grabs you, perhaps for a fee, perhaps on loan? Might be nominal freedom but some of the young MLS signings transferring abroad are playing first team ball in Europe. And in the era of the transfer fee there is some trade off for the longer term obligation. The deal with the longer contracts used to be circa when the Dynamo started MLS hardly transferred anyone in or out which meant it was a true commitment. So someone whose goal was Europe might cut the risk of being stuck/middleman out and go there. But now we're transferring HGP who barely have any game minutes. I don't see where they are stuck the same.
"Tab's system was difficult in the heat on our guys. Sounds like Paulo's hoping to reverse that. Make the other team do the chasing in the hot texas sun." Offensive or defensive freneticism in the heat never made sense to me. You can tell yourself the idea is to be fitter than the next team but then I think of Klinsi's early version USMNT that used to run out of gas 50' every game (with some of our fittest players) before he switched to an empty bucket. Which ironically suited Brazil heat and humidity anyway. I keep hearing reverting to Kinnear being discussed but that was sit back defensively and let them come to us. Then whack longballs to the strikers who would flick on to the 10 and wings. Low energy high execution stuff. Chasing around in a press is exhausting and the sort of tactic that turns on you in the second half. So are we pressing or doing a Kinnear? Two different things. Re possession, one of the things that disappeared post Kinnear was they would start out kickball but then downshift into playing ground keepaway, knock it side to side, run the defense back and forth. Let the ball do the work. One of the flaws in Berhalter Ball is it's like keepaway as a general strategy when to me it's a good way to stalemate yourself. Early Klinsi used to be endless perimeter passing but few actual balls in the box. The value in Kinnear's keepaway came from sitting on a lead and exhausting the other team. To me there's no point to it all without some eventual direct play and risk taking into the box, if the score is 0-0. Particularly if your skill players aren't that technical to maintain possession. It's all well and good to say we will possess but we saw c. 2019 USMNT what happens if you run out a bunch of hustle players telling them to string passes. You kind of need a "type." The recent Dynamo seemed to be the team to try and knock it around warp speed but soon enough flub a pass and get caught in transition. if you want to do that you need high skill in small places Davis and Holden etc. Not "8/10s."
8/10 sounds like more of the same for the past decade. We need an actual 10, not a hybrid. We need 10-15 assists not another guy with 5 assists who runs hard. The whole problem is breaking teams down when they get back. That and you would need some midfield technique to play possession. Missing Arriola, big whoop. 6G 4A. I think Corey Baird could do that. Arriola does press but you've also seen from the USMNT him whack a won turnover into the stands trying to do something with it afterwards. He would be an interesting player to convert to wingback or 6. To be fair I used to be a fan but that was in the lean Nagbe years. We are inundated with players now. His limits are more exposed. Memo to me needs to become explosive. If one can do that at his age. As with many Americans what I want to see him do is get a ball and go right after the defense. Like many others -- to be fair, including Pulisic -- he likes to stop and dance. He needs to do things faster and immediately put his defender under pressure.
re your news, not seen it in the press, but i don't listen to the podcasts much. we've been in camp a few weeks now and he used the word "report." maybe that's covid, maybe that's something else. it would be in our interests as proof of concept for him to be in some form of training even if not playing games. teams usually don't absolutely rest a transfer prospect because they want to deliver a fit product. "see he can run and jog, is physically fine, is ready to play for you, just send the check...." they might not play or sprint -- so they don't get hurt -- but you don't want to shelve the player completely, including because if all else fails you might need them yourself. covid would be a problem in terms of transfer but that could also be as simple as he shows up late trying to provoke transfer and then has to sit some team quarantine. he just generally comes across like someone who thinks they made a mistake. to me it says something that this will take "3 Kokes" or more to resolve. he wants to go home, grease the skids out the door and open the slot.
Have to follow the various members of Dynamo media on Twitter. Most of the news that you'll get on the Dynamo is not to be found on podcasts, websites or news articles. Only on social media. For example, from January 21st.... Matias Vera and Mateo Bajamich have not been in training. I’m told by the club both are isolated due to @MLS Health and Safety protocols. #Quarantine as a precaution due to league rules. https://t.co/asoG91FKuS— Victor Araiza (@victoraraiza) January 21, 2022
re bajamich, if it was a "contact tracing" issue -- like someone tested positive at the team -- i'd think we'd have a bigger problem. they'd have been around everyone. maybe he tested positive. maybe he contacted someone at home or in his daily movement who did. but that's a 5 day quarantine and we're talking no one has seen either of them at practice, ever, this year. another reason you can be held out is high risk behavior, maybe vera and bajamich went out and partied. i don't know who rooms or hangs out together. but that also includes a recent plane flight. as in you just showed up. but that's 5 days. that would suggest he just showed up the last 5 days. if i wanted to be eligible for practice day 1 i come back to houston more than my quarantine period early. just like you needed your athletic physical for HS before tryouts and practice, or needed to be registered for classes, sorted out with the business office, and moved in the dorms before starting college soccer. one way of papering over a hold-out that just ended with a plane ride would be "he's in covid protocol." it also bears reminding that whatever corporate excuse we came up with, we need his slot to execute onstad's plans. that may require he show up and go through some training and paperwork motions while we extract whatever it is we seek from instituto or where-ever else he's off to.