Bringing back Yallop and letting him run the whole show? An actual taped potato would be just about as effective as Frank Yallop and less offensive than Dave Greeley was.
Hiring a European TD seems like a bad idea, but within that bad idea hiring a guy who's been central to FC Basel's player recruitment and development efforts seems like about as good as we could have hoped for. Basel does what an MLS club ought to want to do. Unearth talent from lots of different sources, develop it well, sell it for a profit and win win win all the while. It's just that MLS is wildly different administratively.
Ernest Tanner in Philly has been the model that everyone in MLS is trying to clone lately. Considering their success after canning a front office disaster in Nick Sakiweicz and a cheap ownership group, it's not the worst model to emulate.
Those world beaters in Philly? Winners of 0 MLS Cups 0 Supporters Shields (only MLS Top 10 finishes) 0 US Open Cups Historical record: Failed to make Playoffs-5 "Made" the Knockout-2 Actually made the Playoffs-2 I guess that is still an improvement over the Fire.
Tanner's only been around a few years and they went from hot garbage to only three points behind Atlanta this season despite spending next to nothing on their roster. Their scouting and youth player integration has been phenomenal. Sadly for them, their owner is a cheapass who will never go after any DPs of significance. Their FO has been able to spot cheap diamond in the rough players, which is what you need in MLS, even in in the DP/TAM era. Our FO is paying Marcelo 800k a year for some reason.
Just remember the PSG academy guy was suppose to turn the DA into a powerhouse and churn out players.
Heitz is an interesting prospect. He's been shaking up swiss soccer the last couple years consulting. He would be walking away from good money and a prestigious rep in Switzerland to come here. He would only be coming here if he was being allowed to fundamentally change how the Chicago Fire are operated as soccer club. I'm not saying he would be a success or failure. But if he accepts the job there are big changes on the horizon.
Just Switzerland? Amateur! Nelson 'Shady' Rodriguez "shook up the f*cking soccer world, boys!" less than four years ago.
Quit yer bitchin'!!! Hey, we have TWO, count 'em, TWO Sloninas on the Fire roster, both Home Grown Players. No other MLS team has even a single Slonina. Through out "powerhouse" DA, the Fire have "churned out" Slonina at a blistering pace. We have cornered the market on Slonina!
Heitz at Basel have budget over US$100mil/year and over US$6mil/year for youth Academy. FC Basel can buy whoever they want and need. At same point Basel have 2 teams competing one in Swiss Super League and one in Champions League. He can be surprise that you can't scout or buy young players from other MLS teams territory or dealing with rules of players discovery etc. That's huge obstacle for this guys from Europe to adjust to MLS rules, budgets and understanding of hurdles you come across. Let's see...
MLS is 100% a different animal. That being said, Heitz’s biggest signing at Basel was Alexander Frei (cousin of Stefan Frei) from Dortmund for $4.85M, although that was long before transfer fees boomed. Some recent signings of his: Mohammed Elyounoussi for $3.6M Mo Salah for $2.85M Marek Suchy for $2.85M Eder Balanta (Football Manager legend) for $4M Jean-Paul Boetius for $2.3M Derlis Gonzalez for $3.5M Tomas Vaclik for $2.3M Aleksandar Dragovic for $1.1M Mohamed Elneny for $730K There’s misses in there such as Andrez Sporar for $4.3M, but Heitz made some really signings on cheap fees. With Mansueto’s money, he should be able to have a field day with designated player signings at least.
Great list of players but just Frei made more money than any MLS DP (except Beckham) that time. Mostly BVB Dortmund Klopp moneyball philosophy. No more than 5mil transfer fee. How are you going to squeeze all this great signings you mention in MLS Salary Cup or International spots. Can't have in MLS around 20 internationals signings like they did have at Basel. Cheap 3-4mil signings in Europe means DP's in MLS. Can't have a cookie and eat a cookie
I did say at least with DPs, but fair points. I’m moreso just trying to say that he doesn’t need huge fees to good get players, but I’d love to see what he could do with scouting guys whose transfer fees would be $5M+. There’s 100% going to be growing pains with him or any possible TD from Europe, but he seems to be able to find value, and based on that I feel he has the potential to be able to find really good players for DP’s and good value TAM guys. Heck, Nelson got some pretty good TAM guys like Frankowski, Katai most of the time, Kap, hopefully Medran and this guy definitely is not worse than Nelson, Nelson would get Basel relegated.
My concern would be that he potentially does not have a feel for the South American/Latin American scene, which is where MLS is gaining momentum. Convincing young Europeans to take the next step in MLS is going to be so difficult.
Ms Maybe Basel's scouting setup is more the reason for this, but his signings seem to be from a lot of various places, meaning maybe he's got a decent idea of a lot of places but not one that he knows incredibly well.
I certainly like the prospect of this hire more than someone like Brian McBride. Still, should have accepted Lagerwey's request. Sigh..