Townhall Notes

Gotcha, so my response is that I heard what he said but I don't hear what he's saying. Real Madrid and Barcelona's players have a market value 7x what Sociedad and Bilbao are worth https://www.transfermarkt.com/laliga/startseite/wettbewerb/ES1. There isn't nearly the same gulf of wealth in MLS (too lazy to look up team salaries, but even if teams are spending 7x more...it's a few million more, not hundreds of millions more). Also back to my point about trying to win, how well do Sociedad and Bilbao compete with Madrid and Barca?

Isn't it obvious? Ones that don't cost Sugarman any money.

 

They don't, in a contemporary sense. It's a ludicrous apples to oranges comparison by which he's saying what he really wants is a veil of respectability without actually being expected to compete. And sweet round baby Jesus the lord help him if he's trying to imply all this under the guise/excuse of the nobility or romance of "local" academy talent à la Bilbao's (albeit illegal in a U.S. labor context) Basque policy. It's a stupid thing to say, and, as he's amassing a collection of these kind of statements, we should skewer it as such.

 

Yo I'm Roxborough tough bro

 

Seriously? He was using Athletic Bilbao as an example of a team that develops it's own talent and competes for trophies. Bilbao is consistently one of the better teams in La Liga, competes for European places and has made deep runs in the Europa League, and Copa Del Rey. They've won the Copa Del Rey numerous times as well as the Spanish Super Cup.

Sociedad routinely finishes in the top half of La Liga and competes for European places. They played in the Champions league a season or two ago.

The goal is for the academy to produce players in certain positions (CB, DM, LM, RM, RB/LB) so that they can maximize their cap dollars on impact players from outside of the organization such as the Medunjanin's, Bedoya's, Sapong's, Fafa's, Ilsinho's etc.

This is no different then what Sporting KC is trying to do. They actually spend LESS then the Union do. Their DP's are Besler and Zusi, two players they drafted.

 

Did they address why Maurice Edu has been taking up $450K of the Union's salary cap for 2 years now and has not played 1 minute?

Now I hear he is "close" to seeing the field. I have a feeling that explains the lack of a move in this transfer window.

I'm sure the league has some injury stipulation the FO could have initiated.

 

Sociedad last won the league in 1982 and the Copa del Rey in 1987. Bilbao in 1984 for both.

 

That's a bit dishonest from your part. in the last 10 years they have gone to the Copa del Rey Final 3 times, won the Spanish super cup once and where runners up a second time, and made it to the Europa League Final. I would think that is a fairly successful team along with what @jaykoz3 already mentioned. All this for a modest team that plays with players from an area of less than 3k square miles and which competes with the likes of Real, Barca, Atletico Madrid, Sevilla etc.

 

Back to back Copa del Rey finalists.

 

I'll cop to that--but my original point was that the comparison to MLS is a very bad one, and I don't care for what it implies. Sociedad and Bilbao are very respectable clubs that do not win much. It's understandable that, in a league like La Liga, Bilbao or Sociedad will not have won the championship in such a long time due to the duopoly that exists. They are, of course, big clubs within the context of next-tier teams. (Ex. Eibar is a modest team; Bilbao is a big club.) However for the Union, I don't want that to be enough. And the same external structural impediments do not exist in MLS to justify it. Combined with his earlier statements, such as the infamous one about coming to see wins at Talen, I'm not really inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

I'm in complete agreement with you @LimeTree and it wouldn't surprise me if he was also thinking about selling players... Bilbao basically built a new stadium off of the sale of 3 players, LLorente, Martinez and Herrera.

 

Everyone completely misread what he actually said.........He said, that if you go to games to simply see the team win every time, that he can't guarantee that. He's being realistic. Has an MLS team EVER gone undefeated? Sure from time to time teams will go without defeat at home, but they don't win EVERY game at home either.

Taking a larger view of things.....Where this organization was 18 months ago to where it is today is night and day. It's being built for the long haul, with sustained success in mind. Now unfortunately success for the first team isn't coming as fast as ANY of us (myself included) would like. Knowing what a complete joke the Club was just 18 months ago, and where it sits today, I'm feeling much better about the future

I'm old enough to remember that at one point in time the Patriots were the worst organization in the NFL. It took them time, but they've been a juggernaut since 2001. It really pains me to say that too, being a life long Bills fan.

It took Sporting KC a few years to build what they have as well. They were awful prior to Peter Vermes taking over as Sporting Director, and later as coach. Their on field success didn't happen overnight, it took them a good 3-4 years to build that team into a sustained contender. TFC as well....until the Tim's arrived that organization basically spent like drunken sailors in a brothel, and didn't make the playoffs until 2015.

 

It would be VERY Union for them to give us Platinum now.
Platinum Spot Price: $985/tOZ,
Gold Spot Price: $1,292/tOZ

 

There are very few people in this world that I can say I hate. I hate Jay Sugarman with a burning passion for turning a passionate fanbase into a bunch of pawns to use to earn money. Just thinking about him sitting in his stupid helicopter bringing in more and more cash with every expansion fee makes my blood boil.

I want to love this team so badly, but he has almost single-handedly made being a Philadelphia Union fan a painful and fun-free experience. And since it's not like I can bring myself to become a fan of another team, I feel as though I may as well disengage myself from MLS entirely until the day he sells and dive deep into the Prem, Serie A, etc., where the clubs I like have at least some semblance of ambition and interest in winning, rather than spewing forth transparent excuses for a miserly owner.

 

Yeah . . . I probably shouldn't have started supporting Newcastle and this ********.

 

The Pats are a great example. The thing that turn them from a laughing stock into a winning organization is Robert Kraft buying the team and getting Bill Parcells and then Bill Belichick to coach the team. Same thing with SKC, they had to find better ownership, management, and coaching to enable them to turn he corner. So if we apply these lessons to the Union...

 

Great post - I have almost the exact same feelings. For me, the only difference is that I made a pact to myself that I will continue to watch and root for the Union; but I will not financially support the Union until ownership changes. I feel for those still paying their hard-earned money to support these jokers!

 

Yeah, I already decided to scale back my ticket package next year. Just can't stay 100% behind a team that doesn't have the ambition to be the best in the league. Someone else pointed out that the difference between Madrid and Barca and the rest of the league is about 7x more payroll. In MLS it's about 3-4x times between the top teams and almost everyone else. TFC spent I think $20M and a lot of teams are only spending $5-6M. It's just not acceptable to think you can close that gap without spending significantly more. If you're RSL, sure, lower your expectations, but Philly fans can and do expect more.

This isn't a "trust the process" situation either. For one, the Sixers have added multiple future stars through tanking. We've added Josh Yaro and Keegan Rosenberry. For two, the Sixers aren't really cheap, they just wisely don't see the point in spending lavishly for an 8-seed. The Union is cheap as dirt and would ********ing covet the 8-seed if it existed.

Shame on MLS for letting it get to this point. Hope they learned some lessons, not that it will help us.

 

Speaking of what MLS allows, I was surprised to hear recently that Sugarman is on the expansion committee. Seems like a pretty clear conflict of interest, protecting your $$$ vs. what may be best for the league.
I guess conflicts of interest are not a thing any more.

 

Every team gets a cut of that money, right?

 

Yeah... don't know exactly what powers that committee has, but I guess he's in no worse a position than any other owner, in that way.