The "Thoughts That Don't Require Their Own Thread" Thread VI

Announcer is coach, coach is announcer, up is down, down is up ...

 

I've been enjoying Mariner's appearances on ESPN FC. I think he'll be a great addition. Looking forward to Steve Nicol joining once or twice in the third chair.

 

He is a center forward with an international pedigree...

 

Finally, a difference maker. A proven top-shelf goal scorer!

 

Camilo in limbo, Queretaro on shaky ground amid allegations of fraud by team ownership

I wonder what the odds are that he returns to MLS this season. I have no idea what mechanism MLS would use to re-introduce him - the Caps would seem to have no further claim - but could a team not put in a discovery claim now?

Not that it would ever happen, but his style would seem to suit the Revs very well. Just for the sake of torturing myself,

......................Bunbury.........................
Camilo....Nguyen....Rowe....Fagundez
......................Caldwell........................

 

Can you "discover" a guy who has been in the league previously? And he'd be a DP, so I doubt we'd end up with him.

 

I could swear there was a precedent for this, but I can't put my finger on it.

Yeah, well....

 

Vancouver got a transfer fee, so if he came back without the DP tag, he'd be subject to allocation order (see: Marco Pappa). If he is a DP, highest bidder (see: Clint Dempsey), unless the league wasn't involved in the transfer, then it's back to allocation order (see: Maurice Edu). OK, now my head is spinning...

Toronto at the top of the allocation order at the moment, but these slots are usually traded for.

 

You did better at organizing this than I did.

Not that I thought this was a realistic possibility. It's just that we seem so close to making a real push. I'm having uncomfortable flashbacks to those MLS Cup finals, where I kept ruminating on the idea that we just needed one more piece to the puzzle.

 

The more I think about it the harder it is to take MLS's contract/allocation process seriously.

European leagues seem to do fine without it; why can't MLS?

 

I know there are those who disagree but I want the League to encourage "parity"--at least in the near term.

 

That doesn't mean we have to have arcane and Byzantine player acquisition rules that change literally weekly and no one clearly understands. Turns off fans and draws nothing but mockery from the media. The cap enforces parity, no reason for utter malarkey like "discovery claims" and the like.

 

Oh god... not... not competition!

The rules are clearly non-competitive, as you pointed out above. The salary cap all by itself is enough for parity. The micromanagement and these silly rules are training wheels the league has outgrown and must outgrow to graduate into being a better product.

 

If my employer and their competitors acted like MLS they would be hauled for court for violating anti-trust legislation.

There is nothing wrong with one team spending $10 million on payroll and another $3 million on its payroll. Your return is equal to the risk you take.

I can't imagine most around here being OK with the Canadiens telling the Bruins they are spending too much on payroll. Why is it OK for the Revs to hold everyone back?

 

Exactly. 20 year olds look a little silly riding with training wheels. The arcane rules made sense 10 years ago when the focus was on ensuring the business will survive. But now that teams are being added left and right, its time to grow up as a league. Free market economy, less cost control, spend to win, all the things that will make the Kraft's want to sell ASAP

 

They would have been. Past tense. The league is not in danger of folding. The league is stable and growing. They served their purpose, now let's move on.

If you don't think these rules, their seemingly made-up-on-the-fly nature, and total lack of transparency aren't turning fans away- you couldn't be more wrong. Soccer fans who aren't MLS fans (a.k.a the vast majority of soccer fans resident in this country) take a look at these rules and just shake their head.

Even long-time MLS reporters get a headache from them.

 

I doubt that's the case. It's only the hard-core MLS fans who care about the arbitrariness of the rules and complain about them. The reason American soccer fans don't follow MLS has nothing to do with MLS's rules, and everything to do with a snobbish perception that American soccer is inauthentic.

As to your larger point that the league has established itself enough to take the training wheels off, I'm halfway in agreement. MLS is definitely on the cusp. At the same time, single entity will always be single entity, no? Anybody who's a parent can relate to the problem: balancing "it's not fair" in a particular instance against the good of the whole.

 

On the day of Home Opener -- March 22 -- Buy One Get One at Chipotle if wearing Revs gear.

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...rtnership-highlighed-first-ever-mls-homegrown

Also --
http://pressbox.mlssoccer.com/content/chipotle-announces-marquee-partnership-major-league-soccer

 

If MLS is "on the cusp" when will they have arrived? Going with your parent metaphor, there's going to be a time in a child's life when the parent needs to let go of the bike, give them a push and watch their child peddle of his or her own volition. This requires letting go and embracing the risk that your child may fail initially and fall off their bike scraping their elbow - but they also could pedal faster and gain confidence to continue on their own.

MLS is at that point in its evolution with the addition of the latest group of new teams and their respective markets. The single entity and the arcane rules are the parent still holding on to the child as it's pedaling faster and faster and ready to push away. It's time to let go and give junior that push and watch what happens.

MLS needs to shed its risk averse, conservative old guard mentality ushered in by the Hunt family, Kraft family and other founding owners. They were certainly important in the founding and early development of the league - no question - but it's evolved. MLS in 2014 is very different than 2004 or 1996. It's time to embrace the new era of young, innovative and influential ownership and executives with fresh ideas and a willingness to spend like a professional league in the modern era.

In short, more Lieweke and less Kraft.

 

But that would be like you trying to leverage one department off another to get a better salary, all within the same company. In this case, each MLS team is really just a regional office of the same corporation.

MLS are a bunch of businessmen, and there is no way they would allow for labor costs to be raised across the boards for all of them, even if there are instances when they might be willing to pay more than another team for a player they both want.

There has to be a mechanism in place, and I'm OK with that, aside from when they add the old Orwellian asterisk-disclaimer "except on days that end in Y"

Besides, it's not like our club is ever going to get into a bidding war for a player. When we make an offer, the agent says, "you mean per week, don't you?" and then he laughs his way out the door when Burns says, "Ahh, no, actually, y'see, it's per year, but we have a lot of other, you know, options that all add up to a very attractive package overall..."