The Winter of Our Discontent 14-15, the FO & Offseason

I think Garfan's doing alright for himself down in Mexico. Sounds like the Chiapas move is working out for him, and it was getting to play MF in Chivas that helped that happen. Playing your preferred position in Liga MX is probably a step up from playing out of position in Philly.

Edit: Chiapas actually lists him as a defender, so IDK. Either way I think he prefers Mexico. He tried to break into Club America's first team before coming to Philly.

 

Union postponed cocktails and cleats charity event due to "unavoidable conflict". Is this conflict a potential strike?

 

Or the venue uses the same interns as the Union.

 

I agree with you. It also didn't help his cause playing in a midfield beside Keon and an aging and declining Brian Carroll. He had ZERO support in attack. That said, he was always more dangerous and seemed more comfortable playing out wide and being able to cut in. He always seemed most confident when he could run at defenders in space. Once Hack stuck him in the middle it killed his confidence. Man that 2012 and 2013 team were painful to watch!

 

Farfan scored a goal OR created an assist every 694.7777 (repeating) minutes. In other words, he created/scored a goal once every 7.2 games.

Freddy Adu created/scored a goal every 230.777 (repeating) minutes or once every 2.56 games.

Roger Torres created/scored a goal every 164.46 minutes or once every 1.83 games.

Why is it Marfan that only gets this defense? We never make this argument to defend Freddy Adu, despite him playing with the same players and having better stats than Marfan. Statistically, Marfan was worse than Freddy.

A lot of players have a good rookie season and then stagnate. Michael was one of them. He wouldn't be able to start on this team currently or perhaps even get off the bench.

 

You and most everyone know why this argument isn't made for the overhyped wunderkind. FA fell victim to playing alongside the same stiffs as Farfan did as well (they even played together at times in MF). Additionally FA is his own worst enemy with his attitude, lax training dedication, and questionable priorities off the field that have lead to his current situation.

Farfan is talented, but is he a starter? Not likely in today's MLS. The influx of foreign players is raising the level of play at a rapid clip. Farfan could be a nice piece to compliment other players, as a late substitute to change or see out a game. Exactly as he was used in 2011.

 

This has to be the players not willing to show up at event if strike, so Union forced to move back to mid April when strike likely over.

 

Again, I just don't see how you can say this with certainty, looking around the league. Is it impossible that Mike Farfan becomes as good as Paulo Nagamura? Or Baggio Husidic?

This part I agree with, actually. I would just add that it doesn't mean he couldn't have been useful in the right environment. FWIW I also agree Union's handling of Torres & Adu was foolish, and we give the FO something of a pass because everyone hates Freddy (which is partially his own fault, but still)!

 

Well, I want to take things back to the initial post that started this whole conversation. Zac MacMath was critical of this team for not building around himself, the Farfans, and Jack. If Marfan is like a Nagamura, he is not someone you build around. He is, at best, the type of player that is meant to complement the players you actually are building around. Most of his reputation was built around a decent rookie year and constantly asking what if. I don't agree with Zac criticizing this team for selling him for value.

Well, you pointed out that Marfan had more assists. I wanted to show to show simply looking at assists wouldn't give you the most accurate picture. It's worth pointing out that those assists only came because he played a ton more minutes than Roger. If we are talking about young talent who didn't have the opportunity to develop, Michael is not one of them.

I brought in Adu as a reference point. Everyone likes to criticize his Union tenure, but it is telling that even he was a more productive player for this team than Marfan.

 

You're right. Good correction.The point still stands though that just looking at goals is misleading. Especially with that B.S. direct free-kick against Chivas USA (R.I.P).

 

I liked Marfan while he was here.
I'd be curious to see if Curtin's Midas touch could have changed things with him if he could find where to play him and who to play him with.

Not missing too much sleep thinking about what could have been though.

 

That was Marfan in a nutshell...one earth shattering golazo a year, and almost nothing else.

 

This was pretty much the problem last season. Our First XI was competitive by the time Curtin figured things out. Our bench (minus Okugo) was barely NASL quality or otherwise players with potential played out of position (Ribero).

I'm excited for Nando if only because it allows us to intermittently use Casey as a bench option rather than running him into the ground for 3 games in 8-9 days as happened in July last year.

 

The NHL strike lasted a lot longer than 17 days. Does this 14 days everyone is predicting have any basis (i.e. time length before players' union fund runs out)? I think a strike hurts the owners most opening weekend. 100,000 tickets are sold for Sunday's games and all 3 games are on National TV with new contracts. If they were going to concede something, I'm not sure why they would do it 2 weeks from now instead of just now?

 

It's funny to see predictions about strike length. The whole point is to see how long it takes for one side to cave. I think the one-two weeks just reflects how neutral observers are judging each side's overall appetite for a work stoppage, rather than any actual plan.

 

If the players strike on the opening weekends, it will seriously diminish the ownership's urgency to get a deal done. I personally think they either get a last minute deal done, or the work stoppage ends up being longer than two weeks. But who knows.