How many players have come into MLS via the SUM sale proceeds? I think it's just Bradley, Defoe, and Dempsey. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Dempsey was the only one of those three who were interested in the league as a whole. TFC went out and got Bradley and Defoe on their own, right? Point being, at the time, Clint was sui generis. (I think.) If Jozy is "traded" for Defoe, Clint remains that. But as many have pointed out, MLS needs to simplify the rules. My opinion is just that there are too damn many categories of players and acquisitions.
The confusing part was that Jones was "willing" to take less money to come to Chicago. When his family lived in LA, there was really no reason for him to take a paycut to come to Chicago. No one is taking a 200k paycut because his flight home is an extra 1 hour and a quarter each way. Honestly, who takes a paycut. The only reason is if he made a buttload of money in Germany/his wife made a buttload of money. He has 5 kids and he lives in LA. No one is that stupid. My theory (which some Fire fans agree to) is that our owner was unwilling to pay X amount for Jones, so the league made a face-saving measure after he could not agree to a deal after a month.
It wasn't the travel distance it was the work conditions. NE has turf but Jones was OK with that if a little extra money was thrown in.
Am I the only one shocked that there are TWO teams willing to pay $5m a year to Jozy? I mean, good for him, but that seems insane to me based on his career of work.
I'm still really disappointed about the lack of scrutiny the league got with the DMB to Houston deal. Over on they Dynamo board, our fans were apoplectic that we had to give up Warren Creavalle (not a world class player, but versatile, young, and cheap) to get a top allocation spot from, of all teams, TFC. He's not nearly as high profile as Dempsey or Bradley, but he is a DP. Just ridiculous.
What are you basing this on? If the players are successful, the TFC fanbase will appreciate them just fine. It doesn't matter if they're American, Canadian, Brazilian, English, Scottish, Ghanaian, Nigerian or whatever. Toronto fans just want to see success, and will be extremely appreciative of any players that help bring that to them.
you want more transparency and fairness? but you're ok with treating Canadian teams like 2nd class citizens? just how much more benefit would there be if Bradley/Jozy signed for a small market US team vs signing for a Canadian team?
He scored better than 1 in 2 in the Eredivisie, a better league than MLS. Somewhere along the line, Jozy became very underrated by a certain class of fans.
The argument for US players not going to play for Canada is dumb. There are only 3 Canadian teams, they will be playing almost half of their games in the US. People who will come too see them because of their name will still see them, even if they play for another team.
They have more talent but defensively it's no better than MLS top to bottom and it's not as physical. I don't hold MLS defenders in high regard but watching Dutch defending sometimes is comical. It's not that they don't have talented defenders, they do, but tactically in the Netherlands there's a far more open style, for player like Jozy who's athletic and physical he can take advantage of this. MLS clubs are more willing to throw players behind the ball and defend in numbers, even some of the top teams like Seattle got to a semi-final playing this way. BS is the only place I've seen where people would suggest Jozy is something other than he is to the eye. That's a far more exclusive club than the ones who just think he's overrated. To everyone else he's your typical Dutch league flop. For every Suarez, Bony or Ronaldo there's 2 or 3 players like Kezman, Afonso Alves, Bas Dost, El Hamdaoui, Vleminckx, Finnbogason and now Altidore. So yeah it does look a little silly that two teams are looking to pay him $5m, earning more than players like Keane or formerly Henry. Saying that I think he'll do fine, If they build a team around him he'll score goals.
I looked at it that the owners of the clubs said "we don't think allocating players of a certain stature the way we are doing it now is fair" at the last BOG meeting. So the rules were changed in the offseason so that they would be fair, particularly if the league was going to be aggressive about signing these sorts of players (and we are looking at 3 USMNT signings just right now). It just happens that TFC ends up being the beneficiary of the new "fairer" rule. Course that is me looking at this through non-conspiratorial glasses.
I don't think it's fair that Lampard can choose NYCFC, Villa can choose NYCFC, Kaka can choose Orlando and Gerrard can choose LAG, all recently, yet Jozy is subjected to an allocation order because he happens to be American, despite Clint being American and bypassing allocation. If MLS wants fair, scrap the rule altogether.
They still won't make the playoffs. MLS desperately wants Toronto to succeed. Lack of transparency and MLS playing favorites pisses people off and doesn't help their image. So much fuel to the fire for those who already shun MLS.
Or, to be more exact, to the parent company that promised to assign his contract rights to MLS . . . eventually. I'd love to see the parent of Red Bull jump outside the MLS process and sign Jozy to a pre-contract that allows RB to allocate him to NY, Salzburg or Leipzig. With that contact, they call a press conference, state they'll have him in New York for the start of the MLS season, and they tell MLS to screw it's allocation order citing the "Lampard exception."
I was hoping AEG would do that with Hammarby, but sadly it looks like the Galaxy are out of DP slots, for now.
Seeing as Altidore signed a 4 year deal in 2013.... He can't sign a pre-contract until January 2017. Otherwise...good plan.
Red Bull International (what ever they are called) could buy his card and sign him to a new contract.
So Red Bull are going to buy him and then assign him to their NJ branch? What about if Toronto/MLS and them get into a bidding war? Reports have already indicated that Red Bull don't want to spend the money on him. Otherwise - Good plan....
Alexi Lalas retweeted Gareth Wheeler @WheelerTSN 2m2 minutes ago BREAKING: Toronto FC completes swap deal: Altidore to Toronto, Defoe to Sunderland #TFC #MLS #SAFC http://www.tsn.ca/toronto-fc-completes-swap-deal-altidore-to-toronto-defoe-to-sunderland-1.181889…
Defoe out produces Jozy within his first 5 games.. MLS needs to be year round, its offseason dealings are absolutely infuriating
who cares. We don't have to watch Sunderland any longer. And Jozy outproduces Defoe in Toronto. Who is better?