I honestly never heard Hauptman mentioned in any of the conversations I participated in or overheard.
Just checking if anyone else enjoyed the fact that Sean Johnson's charity of choice was the Lamp Strong Foundation.
It sounds like something a good teammate would do. It sounds like something a leader would do. "I think there's only one big leader, and that's Sean for me, so, I think for the whole team, you know..." Michael de Leeuw 10/16/16
Or the larger fan base is oblivious and/or apathetic, and the Fire Fora are merely the current version of Limbo, where we wander endlessly with no hope of Heaven? Asking for a friend.
I wish we would have made that trade....as opposed to just shipping Sean Johnson to Atlanta, only for him to be immediately shipped to NYCFC. At least we have players.
Serious head scratching going on about how that went down. Seems like NYCFC had a better deal offered for SJ (TAM and GAM) while Chicago only got GAM from ATL but they traded him to ATL instead of NYC. Seems like you could have had a better deal if you dealt him to NYC directly instead of going through ATL.
...or just kept Sean Johnson. Well, you guys have him, are protecting him (although I don't see why that was necessary) and I hope Sean Johnson is happy in New York.
We have a LOT of players either leaving (contracts expiring) or are bench level players that the team would love to get off its roster ( Mena, Rawls, and etc..). So basically the team has to protect some players by default to make up the numbers (see Mix on the protected list).
Sounds like they were trying to send SJ home (possibly at his request). Whether ATL was only after him as trade bait, or whether the Guzan came later, they took the deal, then immediately flipped him to NYC, I dunno. Fire got hosed, but I think they were probably at least trying to do the right thing. A savvier FO probably would have seen it coming though.
Sounds like bullshit you are spreading. You have really sounded like a shill for the Chicago Fire front office for the past several years. You have cemented your place as a shill with that comment. Hell, even the Fire Front Office did not bring that up at all in the official announcement. http://www.chicago-fire.com/post/20...money-atlanta-united-fc-exchange-sean-johnson They were trying to dick over Sean Johnson (no pun intended). They have been trying to dick him over for a year now. We may never know why, but it is pretty clear they have been, beginning with the benching and disparaging of Sean Johnson last January. They were making a deal with Atlanta (perhaps) since Johnson was from there and they thought that they could extract a higher price from Atlanta. Plus, Atlanta had no players at the time. The Fire did not get "hosed" as you put it. They received EXACTLY what they wanted...more GAM/TAM funny money to pay down salaries, probably DeLeuuw's salary. They also managed to get rid of the last six-figure salary from the Yallop years. They dumped a quarter million in salary for a handful of funny money. That is the current Chicago Fire way (see Kennedy, Shipp, Rolfe, etc.). The Chicago Fire FO are "savvy," just ask them. They shook up the f*cking soccer world at the last draft. There is no way in this goddamned world, the Fire "were probably at least trying to do the right thing." That is an absolute lie. If you fall for that crap, you are more gullible than we all thought.
Preface: I don't have any inside information on the subject, I'm just speculating on what I think the most sense. I'm also not even remotely trying to shill for the FO. I've not once praised this deal. The Fire (according to reports) had a larger offer on the table from NYC than they did from ATL. These are the premises I'm working off of: The NYC TAM+GAM offer was bigger than ATL's GAM offer SJ almost certainly would have preferred ATL to NYC My baseline assumption is that you always trade for the biggest offer you can get, so the only reason to turn down NYC's offer is because SJ preferred another destination. The only premise that could possibly also factor in would be: The all-GAM offer from ATL was more attractive than the bigger, but mixed, offer of TAM and GAM from NYC. If thats true (I have no idea. Its certainly possible, especially since you can't use both sources on one player) then I can see it being a business decision to turn down the NYC offer. I said they got hosed, because SJ didn't end up in ATL (where he probably wanted to go) AND Chicago got less money than they could have trading him directly. They got hosed because they apparently weren't aware that ATL was also after Guzan (even though they themselves were supposedly in talks with him too). They should have known that ATL was unlikely to keep SJ if they signed Guzan, told SJ that, and shipped him to the highest bidder. Again, that calculation changes if something made ATL's smaller offer more attractive, but I don't know if thats true. Weibe, the source for the NYC vs ATL offer, said they were trying to "do right" by SJ, and thats why they turned down NYC's offer. I have no idea if he has inside information on that or not, but take that for what its worth.
Your assumptions are unfounded, as you admit. Well, whoever/whatever "Weibe" is, I would say Weibe is a fool. The Fire should have just kept Sean Johnson.
I don't think anyone but that one asshat is arguing this. I think we also all agree that it's embarrassing that "doing right by a player" (whether the FO was trying to or not) consists of sending them to a better organization. I actually lean more towards Sal's argument. I don't think the FO was doing it out of the goodness of their collective heart or as some form of loyalty, but to try and assuage a fan base that was already going to be pissed about the SJ trade. Then they got taken advantage of yet again... It's the classic CF97 battle between evil and incompetence. In this case, I think incompetence won.
Is the "asshat" in question: Nelson Rodriguez? Vejlko Paunovic? or one of the two @bigredmachine or @Red Leader (both who have been clamoring for the dumping of Sean Johnson)? If the Fire front office tried to spin it as "We were honoring Sean Johnson's wishes by sending him to Atlanta," then trying to assuage a fan base argument could be made. However, they did not say that at all. Perhaps, they are simply evilly incompetent.
Reading this, I thought at first that you meant that you didn't know the "soul mates" were two separate people!