They fired his coach then they benched him. I'm still not sure what the implication is if he wanted to go. Magee wanted out. Rolfe wanted out. Nyarko wanted out. Everyone wants out.
He's implying that Sean, although loving this city, the supporters/fans, the club and his teammates, was ready to move on because being a consummate professional does not mean sacrificing your feeling of self-worth and career prospects in the name of Nelson's bullshit process and Pauno's on the job training?
The 3 year plan has been here longer than Nelson. Unfortunately, at the end of every season, the plan re-sets, and it is year one again. This is club policy, as told to the world by Atul Khosla in 2015.
Amost like an evil jack-in-the-box. (Note: in the dek it says 'for four years now;' I wrote this more than three years ago. So if you haven't been here a while, and you're wondering why all the upset, think of the Evil Box and get on our level of despair.)
Thank you for reminding everyone about this one. Its gripes are the same as the ones now. But now we have a process .
Very rarely does a professional athlete say they want out. It happens, but most play it more safely. But who cares? What meaning does the fact that he wanted out hold? Why is that relevant? Is anyone disputing that he wanted out? If Sean wanted out does that mean Nelson was doing him a favor? No.
The three year plan is more of the FOs bullshit. They are just saying that like always too shine a light in our eyes.
Who knows? Probably not? But maybe? 1) Nelson dealt Sean to Atlanta over NYCFC because he valued the GAM offered by Atlanta over the TAM and GAM offered by NYCFC (i.e., the Atlanta GAM was less than the combined TAM and GAM from NYCFC, but the Atlanta GAM was more than the NYCFC GAM, and Nelson preferred more GAM than the split funds). In this case, Nelson was not doing Sean a favor. 2) Nelson can't read, but is in denial (which is why he projects his feeling of inadaquacy on Wynalda). He did not realize Atlanta's offer was below that of NYCFC. In this case, Nelson was not doing Sean a favor. 3) Nelson has some bullshit New Jersey grudge against Claudio Reyna. Or Carlos Bocanegra has unflattering photos of Nelson and some fake goats. Whatever. In any case, Nelson preferred to do business with Atlanta for personal reasons. In this case, Nelson was not doing Sean a favor. 4) At the end of season one on one meeting with Sean, Nelson expressed to Sean that he would not be retained for process related reasons, but that the team would be picking up his contract in order to trade him to another MLS club and strengthen the Fire with delicious GAM. Sean expressed a preference to go home, & Nelson obliged him, believing that earning back some goodwill with a prominent soon to former player (that might help repair the Fire's reputation with players leaguewide) was worth more than 5K (or whatever) in TAM. In this case, I suppose Nelson was doing Sean a small favor. 5) Smartest man in the room Nelson Rodriguez saw an opportunity to eliminate Atlanta, one of two teams that will be above the Fire in the allocation order when the Euro window opens, from the chase for Brad Guzan. He gave them Sean Johnson for less than the going rate, but got burned when Atlanta changed their mind/was played all along. In this case, Nelson was not doing Sean a favor.
The thing that drives me crazy about this is the seeming expectation by some media that Nelson's less-than-perfect information in this scenario provides cover for his utter lack of nous in these situations - my god, man, you'd get fvcking destroyed in my board-game group. I mean, making solid decisions on less-than-reliable data and in politically adverse situations isn't exactly unexplored territory for humans, you hubristic mouth-breather. And for fvck's sake, buy and play some board games, numb-nuts. You're an embarrassment.
Bocanegra is playing one of those moderately complex resource placement games with lots of wooden pieces and the rules were originally in German, and the name of the designer is on the box, and it has pictures of awards it won that sound made up but are real listed on the back, and all that jazz and what not. I dunno, let's say Tribune: Primus Inter Pares, because I like that game. Nelson plays MLS Monopoly. Win the wooden spoon, pass go, collect 200,000 in extra GAM. Wait, someone actually made an MLS Monopoly thing last year and it's pretty sweet. http://imgur.com/a/xrVuf?gallery
oops. I'm an idiot. I must have seen the 8 and just thought it was 98. I even double checked before I posted because I didn't think that sounded right, and still didn't notice it.
but that can't be what he's implying, because we've already all agreed that this was probably the case. He was implying something more than that, that Sean was the impetus for this move, that Nelson had no choice, that Nelson was doing him a favor, whatever; but he was definitely implying something more than "sean was ready to move on" because if he wasn't, what was the fvcking point? Nimrod and Pawno decide to get rid of Sean last NOVEMBER. Saying "sean was ready to move on, and you can totally tell by reading between the lines of his standard press release language and plus also some dude I know said Sean asked out" now is really obtuse. My assumption is Sean has wanted out since at least last year, when our new braintrust started jettisoning everyone he'd ever played with. Again, so fvcking what? When a shitty trade happens I'm not gonna post "well, Sean has wanted out for a while, so oh well" like it adds anything to the analysis of the trade.
If you follow Sean on Twitter, he stays in touch with a lot of ex Fire players. Him and Grant Ward (still can't believe we let him go) see to be pretty close.
This is what it seems like and I agree that this isn't very good evidence that Nelson did anyone any favors. They would have let him go a year earlier if they wanted to do him a favor.
I think someone nailed it On the Sean Johnson trade "When we made the decision to trade Sean we had in front of us a few different opportunities and options. In the end, we may the decision to move Sean to Atlanta. We did so because we thought we received fair compensation but we also did so because we have a value of family within our club and within our team. Sean has been a very good and loyal servant of this club. We felt that merited some special consideration. We thought that providing him the opportunity to return to his native home so that he could play in front of family and friends might be special, so we made our choice on that basis and we respect all the other choices that came thereafter. If we left something on the table, perhaps so. I don't know that to necessarily be true but I know it meant a lot to me that Sean called when he learned of his subsequent trade to New York City to thank us. I appreciated that and I told Sean on that call, and I meant it then and I'll repeat here - he will always be a part of the Chicago Fire family. He will always be positively remembered as a hero to the club and to the fans and when his playing career is over, we hope and expect that he will want to remain and active part of our club in some way."
I always wondered if race had to do with this. Yes I know Accam but just it has always been in the back of my mind.
This seems like a huge reach for me. Nelson Rodriguez seems like an equal opportunity asshole. (See Shipp, Harry)
I know it is a reach but you have only one player gets screwed over his starting spot while at USMNT camp. The constant lies like his injury. Now he gets sent home to his NATIVE HOME and Sean was a good servant.