This is all hypothetical, as reported by Marc Connolly, Stern John might, might be looking to leave Europe, considering he is out of the Premiership, and his new team is looking at relegation to the third divison. The important factors; he is only 28, JK's age, and has not only played in MLS, but was as dominant as Big Mama Diallo. And not to forget he has been a huge factor for his country in qualifying for the WC with Trinidad and Tobago, so playing in the states would be easier on the jetflag for him. Now I might be going off a limb but he is somebody that would certainly help LA out, if management keeps Ruiz, Stern would certainly be able to hold is own up top with Ruiz. And Kirovski can be placed in the midfield, where he seems much more comfortable, and productive . LA also has a lot of room with regards to the salary cap, LA could definitely offer him a six figure contract, and still have room for a midfielder (Julio Medina), and a defender.
I'm pretty sure Columbus has been sitting on the McBride allocation specifically to spend on a possible Stern John MLS return. If he comes back, I'd be shocked if he ended up anywhere other than Columbus.
I'd love to see Stern John play for the Galaxy, but as the above post says he'd likely end up back with the Crew if he came back. Also, it wouldn't make much sense for the Galaxy to bring in a guy that is guaranteed of missing time for World Cup qualifiers.
So we should only be looking for guys from countries who suck bad enough that they won't miss time because of silly WCQ's? Let's dump Ruiz and catch the next flight to Uzbekistan!
No, exactly the opposite. Guys from crappy countries are the ones that are likely to miss time for world cup qualifying, because if they are good enough for mls they are probbaly good enough to be on their national team. The solution is to either get someone from a concacaf country that didn't make it to the hex, or someone from a really good country so that they wouldn't get picked anyway.
Even bad teams can have good players. Maybe not enough good players to qualify for WC, but still SOME VERY good individuals. Don't jump to conclusions or paint with a broad brush - gems can be found in unlikely places.
Oh I am well aware of the fact that there are good players from countries that will never be considered a quality side but to discount someone because they may miss a few games for WCQ is kinda absurd to me. I mean if given the choice of Stern John or Matt Taylor or Milton Nunez I am gonna take Stern John every time. I don't care if he misses a couple games or not.
Don't forget, Sampson is looking for guys to work in his "system". Is Stern a good midfield player....
Well with reference to C-bus, I doubt they have cap space to offer John a six figure deal, which I would believe he would want to play in the league. Joseph Cunningham- was given a multi-year deal last offseason, I would conclude that it was a six figure deal. Tony Sanneh- pretty sure he is earning the same or better than Cunningham. Edson Buddle- not sure, but he is a good young talent, that scores goals here and there. Either he has a six figure deal or he is pushing for one. Then there is Robin Fraser, Jon Busch (must restructure his contract), Hejduk, this guys are either earning big paychecks or going to earn one, i.e. Busch. Not to mention the rest of the team, I somehow doubt that C-bus would have the space to sign John to a good deal , and still keep some of this big names. Correct if I am wrong.
Well, we better tell the MetroStars to dump Amado Guevara and Chicago to go ahead and get rid of Damani Ralph and hey, while we're at it, let's dump Tyrone Marshall. Actually, I'd take David Suazo, Milton Nunez and Carlos Pavon over Stern John, with or without World Cup qualifiers.
And actually, Uzbekistan won their group and qualified for the final round of World Cup qualifying, so their players would also miss significant amount of playing time due to World Cup qualifying.
That being said, Trinidad and Tobago are hit and miss when it comes to hitting the Hex. Thus Stern John is a pretty good player playing for a less then stellar nation and fits the mold of this statement almost exactly.
Uhh...don't you mean Jeff? Anyhow, as for the Stern John - LA thing...I'd love to see it, but I don't think it's true. With the two big off-season pickups, Szetela and Sanneh, going to The Crew, coupled with the possibility of Buddle wanting a new contract probably...I wouldn't count on them getting it either. Who knows where this is going. However, LA looks set up for a HOPEFULLY productive off-season.
Does LA even have an allocation to get Stern John in the first place? JEFF Cunningham makes 160K and would be dropped in a second by the Crew FO to get John back. The FO is probably shopping Cunny around right now even without John comming back. Add in Mais's retirment and that's 130K more gone and maybe Lagos as well(that's another 70K). Also Buddle makes 75K and is in the second year of a five year contract, Szetela is a Dev player so not on the cap. If John does come back and wants to come back to Columbus they'll find the money.
With the loss of Herzog and Bo, I'm sure LA have some way to get John if he's an option. How many MLS players have gone overseas and returned to the same club? If Sampson were to get John, I doubt Sampson would use to forwards. He's a history of only playing one (3-6-1/4-5-1 etc) My guess is Ruiz would be shown the door in favor of John starting up top of LA. But this is all speculation...the best part of the offseason.
Neither of those players cost LA an allocation to get and neither is worthy of a retirement allocation either. How then do they get an allocation to get John?
I don't think the G's have an allocation, but they sure do have some money to get some great talent, John or not. I always felt like Stern John should have stayed in MLS. I really enjoyed watching him play, and if he comes back I'll be glad. It won't be here, but I'll be glad anyway.
Good point. It's not like the rules for allocations aren't made up as the league goes. I believe the last allocation LA recieved was when Greg Vanney was sold to Bastia. Chances are that allocation was used to get Bo. I'm not sure an allocation was given when Cien retired...if one was, it sure wasn't used.
Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and MLS Allocations. Still waiting for proof that any of them really exist...
A quick search on google produced this: "Hong becomes the Galaxy's 11th all-time Allocation following Luis Hernandez (2000), Marvin Quijano (1999 Pro-40), DaMarcus Beasley (1999 Pro-40) Jaime Caicedo Estupinan (1998), Martin Machon (1997), Jorge Campos (1996), Dan Calichman (1996), Mauricio Cienfuegos (1996), Eduardo Hurtado (1996) and Cobi Jones (1996). " Some interesting names there to be certain. I've been a fan since 96 and I can't say I recall the name Jaime Caicedo Estupinan.
I don't rememeber that name either. So in theory we should be due 2 allocations. 1 for Bo and 1 for Cien. The reality is we probably won't see either.
As has been pointed out, Bo was indeed an allocation. I also believe we get one for Cienfuegos. That would leave us with two allocations to use. In addressing Herzog, he was signed as a discovery player, so there is no allocation there. Another interesting thing to note is that many people here seem to think Herzog commanded a large salary. This came up time and time again in the whether he was too old to pull his own weight debate and is currently coming up in the we will have alot of salary cap room to work with because he has retired discussion. I dont know where this information came from since the maximum base salary for a discovery player is ( I believe) around $70,000 per year. Bo on the other hand made close to the max. I suppose when you put that into perspective these two players having retired should leave us a little over $300,000 dollars worth of cap space coupled with at least two allocations to work with. I would be looking towards us signing two central american players with this space rather than signing one single player at the max like John would be sure to command.
I didn't know about Hong being allocated. So maybe LA will get an allocation from it, probably not though. I do know the Galaxy got one for Cien Retiring and used it to pick up Kirovski. http://www.la-soccer.com/galaxy/frameset.html
According to list Soccer America recieved from the Players Assoc prior to the season, Bo's contract with incentives was $300k.