I agree. The revolving door seemingly could have been measured in RPMs. However, we have made some really astute pickups (Sinovic, Collin, Nielsen) and the staff seems to have an ability to detect raw talent (Sapong, Zusi) and a willingness to let it develop (Myers, Zusi). I hope Bunbury can fit in Myers mold, but I'm not sure if his ego is in check given the USMNT call-ups and the poster boy treatment he had early in the season. Still I hope. And Cesar has worked out well, albeit he didn't have the greatest start. IMHO, Jeferson is not our #10. That "loan" should be over when the season ends. Quality experienced players on international market are just too expensive unless there is some obvious "issue". MLS just doesn't have the budget to do it unless you are NY, LA, or god help us, Seattle. If one thinks than an injury doesn't impact a player's attitude, vision, drive, and skill, then maybe that player is a coin-flip and if you do it several times, heads will appear often enough to make it work. Maybe. I'm not sure.
PV will be back in 2012. “Peter will be back — absolutely,” Heineman said. “Have I ever had doubts in him? Sure. But he probably had the same doubts about whether or not I was ever going to build a stadium for him.”
After Seth Sinovic, Cesar, Collin, CJ the unwanted, Neilsen, Bravo, Ro and Co I can give him a break on Jeferson, Chhetri and Pablo ... Milos was a bust but you can see why he was signed. I think PV has done rather well strenthening our squad given the constraints our the cap. Moreover you also have to give him a nod for helping turn Zusi, Besler, and Myers into legitimate players ...
Peter gets a lot of credit just for the CJ Sapong draft pick. No one except PV thought CJ was worth taking that high and now he's the frontrunner for ROY. Kudos to PV for having the guts to make that pick.
No doubt he has found some gems and his track record seems to be better this season and maybe even last. I just want to see that improvement continue and not see signings with players that have been with 10 teams in 12 seasons due to being a headcase or players that have missed large gaps due to injuries. While you list some solid acquisitions, there is just as many or more that were complete disasters.
With the cap and the restrictions on players in MLS you have to take that risk. there aren't as many as you make it out to be.
You mean Kei Kamara, Julio Cesar, and Collin? They've worked out for us just fine. Don't know about Julio, but both Kei and Collin haven't been shy to save how happy they've been playing here (Kei is seeing his best soccer here and Collin talks about how amasin things are). Theres no perfect way of acquiring players and its an absolute crapshoot. Especially when you don't have a lot of money like KC. Often those players with past issues are some of the best available talents on the cheap. Guys with no prior club problems with talent are going to be less likely to be without a club and thus would require a transfer fee (and the team would probably command more than they're worth). So many times this season we've had to delay signing players because we've had the wrangle with their previous club (The Trinidad players like Cyrus we chased and a couple from Africa and then of course Collin). Thats just the nature of trying to acquire the best talents without a lot of money. I'm sure PV's track record on acquiring talent would be a bit better if he had a Toronto/LA/NY transfer budget. Look at some of the other teams in this league spending money and not getting much in return. Considering the situation, I think he'd done well. Looking at our lineup, we're honestly up there with one of the most thoroughly talented teams. We go beyond the 11. And theres a lot of guys with a lot of upside. I'm very happy with what we have and I honestly have to give PV and the rest of the coaches for relentlessly looking for talent. When last season ended, they didn't immediately go on vacation, they flew out of the country and watched guys play. Its how we found Collin. Just play a few seasons as KC in FM and you'll see how even in virtual reality it can be hard to get the guys you want and you can definitely see why coaches in this league traditionally have gone after aging players. Talented guys on the cheap. That being said, I got incredibly lucky acquiring the incredible upside Miguel Medina. He picked KC over Roma and other similar teams because of playing time and the coaches so he could develop.
To a certain extent, I agree. However, PV has gone through a fair amount of questionable international acquisitions since he has taken over and that lack of chemistry due to the turnover we have had has cost us success up until now. For awhile it seems like nearly every single player he acquired either was a journeyman or had a long history of injuries. Yeah, you have to take chances but you dont need to do it with every single acquisition. I am not making it out to be anything. Are you saying that he has had more successful acquisitions than failures? Because he has gone through international players like they were pieces of toilet paper and while I recognize you need to kind of see what sticks, he really reached on a fair amount of them and they turned out to be exactly what we feared they would be and that is the main reason we have been a mediocre to poor team for several seasons.
Do I mean Kei, Cesar, and Collin for what? I am not sure what you are asking here. I am well aware of that. I made that same argument to WC for the last several years on this board. But, PV picked up some guys that we really criticized on this board and some of them turned out to be exactly what their history told us they were. You do realize that every MLS team has the same cap and that other than Designated Players, the league pays the players salaries not the team? We have two designated players so OnGoal has shown they are willing to pay out of their own pocket for talent so I wouldnt say we are one of the poorer teams if that is what you are trying to say. We have several teams with only 1 DP and some with none. We play by the same rules as every other MLS team. The only thing that really seperates some teams from others is how much they are willing to pay for DPs and so far, big name DPs havent exactly panned out. Since the MLS does not pay transfer fees (for the most part), it does create an obstacle and getting a player on free transfer is usually the best way to go. With that said, PV kept putting his hand up to the stove after he got burned and it has taken him awhile to learn his lesson. His track record this season and possibly last has been better and I hope it continues to improve. What transfer budget? For the most part, MLS will not pay a transfer fee and if they do, it is included in their cap hit. Again, the league pays the salaries with the exception of DPs, not the teams. Every team has the same cap so the only thing that NY, LA and Toronto has over us (if you want to call it that) is that their owners have shelled out big money for big name DPs. However, having 3 DPs is also a hindrance as you get 3 players taking up about 40% of your cap room which results in less depth. That is one of the problems that NY is experiencing now. This is the reason I have no interest in us acquiring a 3rd DP. When it comes to acquiring players, every team has the same rules and for the most part, the same budget. I am not talking about the current group of players except for maybe Jeferson. After 6 years of PV being at the helm, he has finally collected a solid group of players and as I said in a previous post, he deserves credit for that. But, you need to remember that PV took over as TD in 2006 and we had several rough seasons before this one where we saw a lot of guys come and go and some of them were to put it nicely, speculative acquisitions and they turned out to be disasters and some of them were just plain unproven and turned out to be a hindrance to the progress of the team. We had a rotating door of international players and our results were a reflection of that. The only thing I said was that I hope PV has learned from past mistakes and continues to improve in his role as TD and that the days of us seeing a rotating door of speculative acquisitions has passed. That's it.
You said there were just as many, or more, that were complete disasters. Which is not true, the only ones that were really disasters were Marinelli and Escobar (who Vermes didn't scout, the team just put their name in for the lottery for him after the league signed him).
You were referring to taking guys who've been with a bunch of clubs. All three of those guys had bounced around their entire careers. Yes I do realize theres a cap. I was referring to the wages of DPs. We can't pay $2 - $6 million dollars a year for one player. We can't go out and pick up a Robbie Keane or David Beckham. Hell, deGuzman makes nearly 2 mil (not that I'd want to pay him that ), on top of Frings and Koevermans that both make over 1 mil a year each. We can't afford to do that. Jeferson only makes just under half a million and Bravo's actual salary (dunno about incentives) is shockingly low. And yes, we are actually one of the poorer teams. There isn't a single person in KC who has enough individual money thats willing to buy a sports franchise right now (hence no NBA or NHL at Sprint Center, bit more complex than that, but still a big reason). Instead we get a 5 man ownership group, whom I couldn't be happier with. We're just more willing to spend what money we have because our owners are committed to winning. This team is in debt, mate. They're banking on that this team will start generating more money. Hence the Sporting Innovations spin-off. An attempt to generate more money for this club to outweigh what we're spending. And like I just said, which you missed, often players available on free transfer have prior problems. Its why they're free transfer. You usually don't get to be a free agent or put on free transfer without something going wrong (whether its being a headcase or wage disagreement or inconsistency or whatever). He was learning. Its not like he had any real experience prior to that. Same thing with a first time coach. You have to be a bit patient in letting them to learn from their mistakes. PV made mistakes, but I think he's been learning from them and has made great strides. Which you basically say right after that, which proves the point. He's improved from this point. But I completely agree with Buzz that you're over exaggerating how many failures there has been.
Dunno. Stealing from Buzz's site, it reads as "KC Bravo Omar F $ 120,000.00 $ 170,000.00" Surely theres some incentives. Either that or the DP status must come from what we paid Chivas.
Complete disasters is probably strong wording. Failures is probably more accurate and in my opinion (whether or not a player is a failure is completely subjective so who is or is not a failure might be different between us) there has been more failures than successes. I dont really have time to go through and look at all the rosters from 2006 on but I can think of at least a dozen including themost recent, Ryan Smith who had both a history of injuries and not being able to stick around and we experienced both multiple injuries and him walking out in the middle of his contract so we got bit with both heads on that one. Jeferson is headed towards being part of that list too and he had a history of injuries and has already missed several games due to injury despite only being with us half a season.
Once again it goes back to the type of players you can get in MLS with the roster restrictions and the salary cap. To get players that have the skill level of a Smith or a Jeferson or even a Rosales, they virtually always have to have some sort of baggage. Some times it works out (like Rosales has this year, or Smith last year). Even for other players like Morales and Ferriera, they came with baggage. For RSL and Dallas it has worked out. Some times it doesn't.
I think your bar is set pretty high if you're counting Smith as a failure/disaster. He performed well when he was here and, while I don't think he'd see much playing time if he was still here I think it's because we have better options. I mean, do you feel Rocastle should count as a failure? I'd be really surprised if he was back next year. What about Auvrey?
Here are the player acquisitions since Vermes took over before the 2007 season. D next to the player's name means they were a draft pick. 2007 Kevin Hartman Michael Harrington - D Amir Lowery Carlos Marinelli Kurt Morsink - D Aaron Hohlbein Eloy Colombano AJ Godbolt - D Edson Elcock - D Chris Konopka - D Michael Kraus - D Willy Guadarrama - D Michael Todd - D Eric Frimpong - D 2008 Chance Myers - D Abe Thompson Claudio Lopez Rauwshan McKenzie - D Josh Wolff Roger Espinoza - D Herculez Gomez Ivan Trujillo Matt Marquess - D Jonathan Leathers - D Kevin Souter Boris Pardo Nelson Pizarro Pat Healey - D Vicente Arze - D Tom Gray - D Andrew Kartunen - D Yomby William - D 2009 Matt Besler - D Adam Cristman Zoltan Hercegfalvi Graham Zusi - D Kei Kamara Doug DeMartin - D Neal Kitson - D Santiago Hirsig Akeem Priestley - D 2010 Jimmy Nielsen Korede Aiyegbusi - D Craig Rocastle Shavar Thomas Stephane Auvray Teal Bunbury - D Ryan Smith Sunil Chhetri Jamar Beasley Birahim Diop Nick Cardenas - D Mauro Fuzetti - D Ofori Sarkodie - D Jon Kempin Nikos Kounenakis Igor Kostrov Pablo Escobar 2011 Jeferson Soony Saad Konrad Warzycha - D Lawrence Olum Kevin Ellis Seth Sinovic CJ Sapong - D Peterson Joseph Scott Lorenz Daneil Cyrus Luke Sassano Julio Cesar Aurelien Collin Milos Stojcev Omar Bravo Frankie Hejduk Mike Jones - D JT Murray - D Sam Scales - D Michal Mravec - D
And here's my take. good, bad, push. A quick note, most of the draft picks we didn't sign or didn't last more than a season are pushes because most people didn't expect anything from them to begin with. 2007 Kevin Hartman - good Michael Harrington - D - good Amir Lowery - bad (waived to sign Souter) Carlos Marinelli - bad Kurt Morsink - D - bad (based on playing time and everything I plant this firmly as an Onalfo move not Vermes so I don't count that against him) Aaron Hohlbein - good Eloy Colombano - push (not great, but didn't think he got the time) AJ Godbolt - D - push (never expected to compete much) Edson Elcock - D - push Chris Konopka - D - push Michael Kraus - D - good (ended up doing more than anyone expected) Willy Guadarrama - D - push Michael Todd - D - push Eric Frimpong - D - push 2008 Chance Myers - D - turning into good Abe Thompson - push, didn't score goals like we wanted but brought something to playoff run Claudio Lopez - good Rauwshan McKenzie - D - push Josh Wolff - good (maybe the most polarizing player in team history, but he did produce for decent periods in his second time with the team) Roger Espinoza - D - good Herculez Gomez - good Ivan Trujillo - bad Matt Marquess - D - good Jonathan Leathers - D - good Kevin Souter - good Boris Pardo - push Nelson Pizarro - push Pat Healey - D - push Vicente Arze - D - push Tom Gray - D - push Andrew Kartunen - D - push Yomby William - D - push 2009 Matt Besler - D - good Adam Cristman - bad (another that to me looks like an obvious Onalfo signing) Zoltan Hercegfalvi - good Graham Zusi - D - good Kei Kamara - good Doug DeMartin - D - push Neal Kitson - D - push Santiago Hirsig - push Akeem Priestley - D - push 2010 Jimmy Nielsen - good Korede Aiyegbusi - D - push Craig Rocastle - good Shavar Thomas - push (was good enough last year, dropped to push this year) Stephane Auvray - push Teal Bunbury - D - good Ryan Smith - push (good first year, second year we know what happened) Sunil Chhetri - bad Jamar Beasley - bad Birahim Diop - good Nick Cardenas - D - push Mauro Fuzetti - D - push Ofori Sarkodie - D - push Jon Kempin - push Nikos Kounenakis - bad Igor Kostrov - bad ( I firmly believe if we'd signed him this year he'd still be on the roster, smaller rosters last year hurt him) Pablo Escobar - bad 2011 Jeferson - push, dropping quickly to bad Soony Saad - push but like what I see Konrad Warzycha - D - push Lawrence Olum - push Kevin Ellis - push Seth Sinovic - good CJ Sapong - D - good Peterson Joseph - push Scott Lorenz - push Daneil Cyrus - push Luke Sassano - push Julio Cesar - good Aurelien Collin - good Milos Stojcev - push Omar Bravo - good Frankie Hejduk - bad (was never going to play here) Mike Jones - D - push JT Murray - D - push Sam Scales - D - push Michal Mravec - D - push
Cesar fits that description and so far he appears to have panned out but I am still leery and wouldnt be surprised if he were gone after this season. Kei has just been traded twice within MLS due to personnel needs of teams, not based on anything he did. We traded one of PVs failures for Kei and it was one of the best moves he has made. I was a fan when the trade was made and still am one. Collin was a perfect example of someone available on a free transfer that doesnt have a history of injury or being a headcase. A good talent that just hasnt found the right fit. He is a perfect example of the kind of transactions we should be making. You dont need to do that to win in MLS and so far the MLS Cup winners since the DP rule has been implemented has shown that. Building a solid team is more important than acquiring a brand name player. I believe Bravo is making around 950k or so. Since teams do not reveal their financials based on league policy, we have no way of knowing that. What we do know is that OnGoal isnt shy about spending for the good of the team both on and off the field. How much money our owners have and how much they are willing to spend are two different things. Kraft is probably the richest owner in MLS but we all know how well that is working out for the team. You cannot say without a doubt that we are one of the poorer teams because financials of the teams are not published. So is just about every other team in MLS. Not sure what that has to do with PV's track record since the league pays the salaries, not the team. There are thousands of professional soccer players in this world. Being a free transfer generally just means they are out of contract it doesnt necessarily mean the player has any issues but just doesnt have a contract. Collin was a good example. DeMerit just turned down every offer he had and was a free transfer and ended up in Vancouver. Hahnemann just signed as a free transfer with Everton. Picking up players with a long history of injuries is my biggest pet peeve. You can work with headcases but usually when a player has a history of injuries it isnt going away and once you acquire them you are taking on that burden. We built our entire strategy around Marinelli in 2007 and then he ended up getting injured early in the season and screwing the whole thing up. Not only has PV continued to pick up players with an injury history but players with both a history of injury and being a headcase. I've often joked that PV scouts using injury reports from around the world. Which is pretty much what I said in my first post on the issue - "With that said, I have to give credit where credit is due. What I want to see from here is that he has learned from past mistakes and can improve his player acquisitions." We can debate this to depth but it is all a matter of opinion. If you are happy with PV's body of work then that's fine. I am still skeptical and hope his recent trend towards being more successful continues and improves even more which was my entire point to begin with. There have been more than enough failures and we payed for it as fans. I am not going to suddenly forget the last several seasons because we have made the playoffs this season. I am still very leery of PV because I am going to judge his entire body of work rather than just recent success. I still believe he has a spotty record of acquiring players. Jeferson is yet another player with a spotty history and doesnt look like he is going to be around long. Luckily, we arent suffering because of it.
Smith had a history of injuries and jumping around for being rumored as a headcase and personal issues. What happened while he was here? He missed significant amount of time due to injury and then left in the middle of his contract for personal issues. How can you not count that as a failure? Marinelli was really good when he was on the field too, do you count that as a success because Smith was basically almost the same story as Marinelli. PV put his hand back on the hot stove after getting burnt.
I find a lot of this interesting but one thing I'd like to add is the way the staff has treated players on the way out or have already left. the way Jimmy was treated on his way out of the team was inexcusable, and Hartman got a lot of the same treatment...the overreaction to Preki's comments never sat well with me and seems to have started (as far as I can remember, but could have started with Yura) a VERY bad precedent that could make a lot of signing decide to not become signings if this club gets a bad rep for the way they treat players.
Kei had a history of being a locker room cancer before being traded here. Just ask SJ and C-bus fans. Smith played 25 of 30 games last year. That's an average season for the vast majority of regular starters in this league. You're letting this year cloud what he did last year. As for stats, Marinelli had 1 goal 8 assists, Smith had 4 goals 7 assists in 9 less games in his SKC career.
Kei had a lot of issues and was definitely a gamble. He was considered a headcase (actual word a Houston fan referred to him as on BS a couple weeks ago referring to his time there). The other clubs didn't want to deal with the baggage he had then, but he still had talent that the other teams saw and thus they were able to use him as a trade piece. He simply matured here in KC and perhaps part of it was the coaching staff giving him some tough love like they did with Besler. Just look at his club history and note the games played and his goal production: 2006–2007 Columbus Crew 36 (5) 2008 San Jose Earthquakes 12 (2) 2008–2009 Houston Dynamo 32 (7) 2009– Sporting Kansas City 62 (20) Oh, Collin has had problems. He's talked about it and he's certainly bounced around. He's 25 and he's already been in Scotland, Greece, Wales, Portugal, and now the U.S. on top of three different youth teams, two in France and one in Spain (and if you read the article about him, he could've played college ball in the states). It took a very long time to acquire him. We had to wrangle with his club. PV has wanted him for a long time now, they went to Portugal to watch him play in the offseason. Collin really really did NOT want to stay with his club in Portugal, but they didn't want to let him go on a free and it took until the last day to get him. If there were no problems, he probably could've been with us in preseason or at least earlier in the season. He's talked of his problems in Portugal. His disdain for their facilities and that he had problems getting paid. He said he appreciates that he gets paid on time here with SKC. I could definitely see him not meshing with certain locker rooms with his, uh, entertaining personality. KC however, has, as Northbank put it once, a motley crew. The locker room is full of outgoing players and certainly isn't short of characters. Aurelien isn't a bad guy at all, but I could see some more serious players not liking him, his jovial personality, and his, uh, unique interests (for a footballer). I remember Callum said on twitter that Aurelien was really jovial in training one morning and referred to him as a madman. Some guys don't like that in training. Plus, if you look at his facebook photos (ignoring the speedo pics), you can definitely see he's changed a ton in just the past few years alone (what, I was terrifically bored one day). Like Kei, perhaps he's just matured (as much as those two can mature). You're the second person to say that and I have never seen that. Anywhere. The official release has it at around 120,000 to 170,000 (roughly). I'm not trying argue, I'm genuinely intrigued where you've heard this because the league doesn't release anymore. It wouldn't surprise me in the lightest, but going off the official release... theres gotta be incentives or something. If you got a source, hit me with it. It'd definitely clear it up for me. Buzz, do you know anymore then what they've told us? I know how airtight they are with this stuff... To be honest, I'm not going to break down the rest of your post because I don't really have the patience right now (not anything on you, I'm just really tired after getting off work as of typing and don't feel up to it. If I don't do it now, I know I won't later) and quite frankly, I think we just see this differently and aren't likely to change the others opinion. Fair enough? Quoting for truth. Completely agree. What I was trying to say, but couldn't put it into words as efficiently. If you want a player of a certain quality, getting them on free transfer isn't going to be easy unless there is some sort of baggage or they're getting old (which again, is why MLS has historically targeted aging players; quality without the pricetag).
Good list Mike. Just had to nibble at it a bit. No fan of Auvray's play as you know but I think he did a really good job in his first season and basically fell out of favor this season. I think ultimately he was a good signing, he served his purpose well and was cycled out quickly when he didn't.
Agreed, good list. Time invested appreciated. Can I nibble, too? Chance Myers is a solid Good. Excepting that whole bad haircut thing. Regarding Bravo, etc. Latest Salary list is here: (it does not include performance bonuses, is that Omar's loophole?) www.mlsplayers.org/salary_info.html specifically here: http://www.mlsplayers.org/file/September%201,%202011%20Salary%20Information%20-%20By%20Club.pdf