I just thought this deserved it's own thread. Mods, feel free to disagree and merge, I won't come to your house and be mean to your cat. http://www.dispatch.com/live/conten...ew02.ART_ART_02-02-08_C1_9F982O4.html?sid=101 How many man hours does the Crew have in this thing? How much emotional momentum is tied up in it? What is plan B? IS THERE a Plan B? We've been hoodwinked. Flim-flammed. Bamboozled. It's nothing short of a disaster.
I'm really not that upset about this fiasco. Was there really anything the Crew could have done besides close the deal earlier? And who is to say that Majic would have really signed last week? Laprissa offered more. It sucks but it's business. We don't deserve him when we get outbid that much. What i am upset about though, is knowing we have no plan B. How many people really believe that there is a backup plan that doesn't involve our current roster? Is anyone surprised? Did you believe in our FO? Were you expecting them to be a big mover and shaker this offseason? If you honestly expected any of those you should have stopped being a Crew fan long ago. WI bet some of us made a deal with the Devil to sack He-who-must-not-be-named. We still have 12 years of purgatory left guaranteed, but isn't it better? Who sold their soul for that? They are the ones inflicting this punishment.
Really? Please don't insult the opinion and desire of fellow Crew fans. If there's problems with those who run the operation, the Fans have an absolute right to pile it on heavy when they observe ineptitude. Most, won't stop being Crew fans, even though those who run the club are confused about how to produce a level of quality that matches their hyperbole.
The funniest thing is Bobby Hunter wrote his annual "Is Major League Soccer really Major League" Dogpatch article/blog before the debacle actually became a debacle. Maybe the Crew can move to Leavitt Rd. in Lorain? I'd almost trust Friedel/Barnes/Armstrong et al more than the asshats in charge at Black and Gold Blvd.
i got the same impression when the agent didn't contact the Crew. That's pretty clear indication that the player was not interested in leaving Europe. i mean, he (and the agent) has nothing to lose by picking up the phone and calling the 'other' party involved in the negotiations. The worst thing that could happen is the Crew would say no and he's off to Greece. nothing lost. Look - I know people will start saying that a town like Columbus will never be able to attract talent from Europe. I say, lets win and see what happens. Small market or not, everyone (yes-everyone) likes a winner.
C'mon, you've gotta give 'em a little more credit than that! If you don't think that they know that they need to make moves just to salvage their careers in Columbus, then I think you are kidding yourself. They know that they have to do something, anything to at least get this club to a respectable level, just so they have the hope of not getting canned. As far as Sigi, specifically, I'm sure he knows that he has to come up with a product that does more than just be respectable to save his job. I'm sure he isn't looking forward to going back to coaching in college. The only way he would coach professionally again, IMHO, is if Seattle or Philly (if they are given a team) decided to take a flyer at him.
Zurawski needs to play now so he can be on the Polish team this summer - that's his top priority. Columbus doesn't begin play until April and our schedule conflicts with Euro 2008. Once the offer to play in Greece came along, any thought of MLS went out the window. It's a better fit for his goals. Tough break for us. It's a business....it happens.
Stinks to be a crew fan.Have not hada quality strikersince McBride left and what did we get in return the same thing wegot in return for Stern John when he lefted. Crew fans get greeked again.... The MLS is a sham oligarchy with Rich Big Market teams which get all the quality players while the small market teams continue to be feeders for the big guys. It is a business and we got greeked Deja vu all over again...
Or the player and agent were offended when the Crew thought so little of him that they wouldn't accept Celtic's offer of way below his market value and continued to negotiate the final pennies as if the financial future of the club depended on it. Basically, ******** you I'll go where I'm wanted.
Seems to me the biggest factor here is as simple as geography. Guy's trying to get playing time to keep his slot on his national team. Greece is a heckuva lot closer to Poland than Columbus is. Therefore, he's a lot more accessible from there than he is from here. Not much the FO can do about that. I'd put down money that he WAS serious about coming here until a European side came into play. At that point, I'd think it's pretty much a no-brainer, especially with better dough involved. Thing that ticks me off the most is that I don't know how it affects us with the transfer window closing.
Ah, I was mad yesterday. Today, I'm over it. Who's up next that we can have our hopes built up then crushed about?
Come on now, a debacle? I'm disappointed, but if you play in the big pond don't be surprised if a few sharks come up and bit your ass. We now know how Tottenham must have felt when they did all the hard work bringing MLS down on it's transfer fee for McBride, only to lose him to Fulham because they offered him a better personal deal. This is the way the international market works. The Crew worked Celtic down off their 2M asking price and thus made him affordable to teams that are looking to move up or just stay in their leaague at all. It's a lot like e-bay. You think you found an item that no one else was interested in at a good price, then in the last second someone outbids you. It sucks, but I wouldn't call that a debacle. It's business. It's not Celtic's fault, it's not Zuwarski's fault, it's not Sigi/McCuller's, it's not HSG's, it's not the city of Columbus' fault. It just is what it is. The cold hard fact of playing in the international market for a national team caliber forward. The real debacle is if McCullers and Sigi don't have other options to use that money HSG was willing to spend. Which I guess would be pretty par for the course for them.
possibly.. I'm sure it didn't help warm his heart about the organization. Moving forward, we are now negotiating with players who were not snapped up during the transfer window. The number of teams that can still 'buy' players has decreased greatly. IF there is a player worth purchasing...
Yeah, me too. I mean I still don't trust our FO, the league, etc. but the whinging on about missed opportunities is over. Maybe we should take a flyer on one of those kids from Europe and other places who posts here on BS, asking if we know how they can contact the club for a trial. Anyone? https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=591070&highlight=contact+trial
It seems to me the biggest factor here was dollars (or Euros, if you on the Continent). We wouldn't pony enough up to get him early on, and someone else did and got him out from under our noses. Now, if he was playing us the whole time, then I would have hoped somebody along the line would have stopped for a second and asked, "Does this dude even want to be here?" You don't decide to go on a date, make reservations, buy movie tickets, put some nice adult beverages in the fridge, buy a box of condoms, and then ask the girl out... ...unless you plan on wasting the condoms.
Hard to counter offer when you have no idea another team is in the works. Zurawski's agent should have picked up the phone as a common curtosy. Sucks you work on something a few weeks only to see in the paper that you are the runner up. I can't really fault Sigi and MM so much after taking a step back. Sure they could have maybe done some things differently, but in the end it was some shady agent action that did us in.
Well, what makes this a debacle isn't that we didn't get Zurawski, it's just that we were left without a back up plan. I think that's bad news for this year and worse news for years ahead. D.C., Dallas, Chivas, and NY seem to be honing their skills at acquiring foreign talent (they get a lot of practice) and teams like Houston and NE are getting better at identifying and acquiring homegrown talent (by getting a lot of practice). Meanwhile, we seem to be one step behind in several of these deals. There was Herron, Grabs and Kamara (Kamara's value is a matter of personal opinion, but we don't have many other options), Gonzales, and now this situation. I think it shows how far we lag behind in player acquisition. So far, I don't think it's hurt us too much, but as the league becomes more known and more players are split over more teams, I think we're going to be seriously damaged. I keep thinking about all of those 'permanent underclass' teams in the EPL, SPL, and other teams around the world who just never seem to be able to match the FO and money of the bigger teams and that feeds into the disparity. I'm hoping that doesn't happen to us, but we need to act fast to correct this sort of thing. I hope this serves as a lesson to Schmid and MM that they've got to become a lot smarter and a lot savvier to compete for players.
Disappointed, but all I know about this guy is what I read here, and that was certainly equivocal. What matters now is, what do we do next? Europeans assume MLS is like all the leagues over there they know, with a few super teams and a bunch of sparring partners for the regular season. That isn't true here, yet, but a few dozen more events like Beckham and this could turn that into a self fulfilling prophecy, in which the good players only want to play for the pre-ordained winners in Ellay, Deecee and the Big Apple. As a fan of a small market club, that isn't what I want. We have to do our part to nip that in the bud, and our part isn't rooting for Houston.
Yes, of course. I'm sure they have some other guys they've considered or looked at or whatever, but with the season bearing down on us this seems to me to have been putting their eggs in one basket. MLS teams don't have the money or the manpower to spend endless amounts of time and energy on more than one or two guys. And now th team is in training: who's gonna go off on a scout now? They'd damn well better be getting the team ready for 2008. DC is in Florida scrimmaging today, and they have their team pretty much in place. The Crew is in Lewis Center kicking a ball around on a plastic rug, and all we've got is a big hole in the middle of the defense and some NAIA forwards. You can whistle your way past the graveyard if you want, but this smells like disaster to me. It's "backs against the wall" time. And do you recall the last time Sigi thought he was out of options? It was draft day, the season was coming up and he hadn't found a hitter. As he put it, he "took the best available guy" who was Andy Herron. How'd that whole deal turn out, anyway? I smell desperation. From a PR point of view, if nothing else, this is embarassing as hell and they have to do something. And it's that "we have to do something" mode that scares the shit out of me.
In terms of a DP, I think the back-up plan is on Fulham. Even if they manage to avoid relegation, they need to re-build that squad and I'm not sure an aging McBride will fit into such plans. His addition to the Crew in June would be a big-name impact player for the club and the league and I think it's now the primary option for a DP signing. If he plays for another MLS squad, I think the Crew front office knows that wouldn't be well received. My thinking is that we're heading into camp with the current roster to give Sigi a chance to evaluate what he has before determining his needs. Gaven and Rogers are likely to miss extensive time this season so the need to build quality depth is obvious. What role, if any, can be filled by the likes of Garey, Josten, the discovery players, etc., would seem to be the question. Training camps will shake out some possibilities across the league, so we'll see. I'm disappointed but it's not quite a "debacle." It's just going to take some time to shake itself out. Being a Crew fan does require patience.........
You want to save this club? 1)Fire Sigi 2)Name Guille a player manager (he can take Sigi's salary) 3)Take whatever money you were planning on spending on the Polish ********stick and give it to Guille along with a round trip first class ticket to Buenos Aires. 4)Give him instructions to bring back 2 players that are smart enough to play with him, and 1 youth coach that is interested in building a club from the ground up. 5)Take whatever money you are even contemplating paying to an over the hill, washed up hero (Brian McBride), and send Guille back down to Argentina. The only way this franchise competes long term with the rest of the league is by being better at building from within and better at recruiting talented foreigners from the south. If not....we're done.