Another crazy hypothetical: What if Chitiru Odunze has more combined league/cup games for Leicester than Matt Turner does for Arsenal, going into the World Cup? (I bring Turner even if he's played zero games)
^ people on here speculate about Jozy going to Qatar so why not? Slonina signed Gabriel Slonina has just signed the contract with Chelsea after medical on Monday - finally sealed between clubs/player. ✅🔵🇺🇸 #CFC▫️ Contract valid until June 2028, six year deal;▫️ Slonina will stay at Chicago Fire on loan;▫️ $15m add ons included.Here we go confirmed. pic.twitter.com/rZevNmuZB6— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) August 2, 2022 With a fee of up to $15m, Gaga Slonina could be among most expensive teenage goalkeepers ever.If all add-ons hit, the deal for Slonina to Chelsea would be:-Top 5 most expensive outbound transfers in MLS history-Most expensive American GK of all-time-Chicago Fire club-record https://t.co/akvRCJ9s69— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) August 2, 2022
Initial offer from Madrid was $5 million apparently This deal took a long time. Chelsea beat out Real Madrid, despite Slonina trying to push thru that deal originally. Chicago turned down insulting first offer (around $5m) from Madrid. Get up to $15m from Chelsea.— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) August 2, 2022
$5 million is certainly insulting compared to 15... The $15 million is being reported at $10 million base plus add ons. Not sure about a sell on % for Chicago, haven't seen that anywhere... but you'd think at this point every MLS team would make sure to have that.
Well...............................if Odunze actually does get playing time in the Premier League this season, then we'd have to at least consider him. I think its a long-shot. Odunze is one heck of an athlete. There are all of these videos of him pulling off fantastic saves in training. He's a guy that is pretty unknown to us on these boards, but might make a case for himself some day. He's not a 16 year old prospect. He turns 20 soon, and is older than Slonina. Time to start seeking consistent playing time. The GK musical chairs always has winners and losers. Leno going from Arsenal to Fulham was good for Matt Turner. Not good for US U20 Alex Borto at Fulham. He's now pushed one peg down the depth chart and is highly unlikely to appear in the 18 for Fulham this season. He's still young, though, so not a big deal if he only plays in PL2.
Gaga Slonina to Chelsea from Chicago Fore is official. Club-record fee of up to $15m, could be one of the most expensive transfers in MLS history. Fire also retain sell-on % in Slonina as part of the deal. The 18-year-old GK will remain in Chicago until January. pic.twitter.com/3DTYlv5nwb— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) August 2, 2022 Pretty good deal for Chicago to also get a sign on fee. And they have a pretty good goalie waiting in the wings with Brady so they should hopefully be able to use him to replace Slonina.
Of course, Brady has also had European suitors. By the way, Slonina's agent is that guy Jaime Garcia (in the picture posted above). As far as I can tell his agency only has two clients. Gabriel Slonina and Ricardo Pepi. Not bad......................
I agree with Herc Gomez here... while I do like both Johnson and Horvath, at this point I take Slonina as the #3 even if the other two are ahead, because none are going to play a single minute. Start preparing for 2026 and 2030, and Slonina has "earned" it based on youth and potential with the big money Chelsea transfer. If it’s based off merit today Gaga Slonina would not be the 3rd GK in the Qatar World Cup. #USMNT He wouldn’t. But … should he be? #FutbolAmericas Full 🎥 https://t.co/s0jrAau8zh @ESPNPlus pic.twitter.com/eICnbeNSsF— herculez gomez (@herculezg) August 2, 2022 Young American prospect starts in MLS, gets sold to Euro superclub for $15 million, replaced in MLS starting lineup by another young American prospect... we would love to see it!
I don't know. Johnson has arguably earned inclusion and you gotta figure Horvath is gonna play lights out to get his name on that roster.
Five would seem extreme and excessive, but I doubt there’s a rule against bringing four GKs. Assuming players 1-23, including 3 GKS, might play, and players 24-26 are coming as spectators, one of those final three could be Slonina. Not likely, but not impossible.
Odunze is third choice at best. Ward or Iversen will start the season (Ward is coming back from an injury) There's a couple of other youth keepers who might be ahead of him Brad Young and Stolarcyk. He made the bench on Euro away games as we took 3 keepers and named two on the bench. Ward was injured and Stolarcyk was out on loan as was Iversen Iversen has played in most of the pre season. There is no way Odunze is competing to be second choice, I don't think he has even played in pre season. Iversen has about 150 senior appearances out on loan and is in the full Danish squad.
Slonina will only be 18 at the time of the World Cup. We all kinda need to take a deep breath and let him develop. The three keeper spots for the WC are between Steffen, Turner, Horvath, and Johnson. How many USMNT minutes were played by keepers other than those 4 since the restart from COVID? There's our answer. People can talk in circles about other keepers, but the evidence is abundantly clear.
Yes it is. The potential risk of injuries and cards to field players is several orders of magnitude higher than the keepers. Even with 26 there are a vast array of options that could fill in those last several spots. None of which is a 4th keeper.
It's actually quite rare for a nation to need its 3rd keeper at the World Cup. So rare that there are websites dedicated to telling the stories. Its why you normally want to take a 3rd keeper that's not going to rock the boat, and just be a great training partner for the top 2. It's very difficult to make any case for needing a 4th keeper on the roster. The easier argument is.............................if the 3rd keeper rarely plays, then why not bring Slonina if you think he's the "next big thing?" I don't necessarily agree with that, but its a reasonable enough argument.
You just have to accept the premise that only 1-23 will play. 24-26 are there to absorb the atmosphere. Who better for that than Slonina? In a different thread, we can dispute the premise, as I would, because I would use picks 24-26 on specialists, guys who do (at least) one thing very well, like taking PKs (so useful in the KO rounds).
I do wonder if with COVID a 3rd goalie is more likely to play in this World Cup compared with others. I think Slonina is definitely 5th in the pecking order at current. Of course you could have an injuries ahead of him, but the 3rd goalkeeping spot seems like it's going to be very close between Horvath and Johnson. I'm not against taking Slonina, but we didn't take a young Tim Howard as the 3rd goalkeeper in 2002 instead of Meola and it worked out just fine.
With 5 subs allowed this WC, I think it's far more likely that players 24, 25 and 26 will be used in the tournament. And, so, I think there's no way in hell that Berhalter--or any other coach, for that matter and for any reason--will bring a 4th GK. Those extra roster spots are gold, and 3 GKs has always proved to be more than sufficient. We've got too many field players that could take those extra spots to provide something tactically different in certain situations to waste them on another keeper.
I remember a time, not all that long ago, when the fans here would go absolutely bonkers when an MLS guy would get a 1 million dollar offer, and the team would not take it. I can't tell you how many times we had to read 'If MLS does not stop sabotaging players, no decent player will ever sign for them. Stop destroying players' dreams!' Yeah, ok guys. I laugh because I shudder to think what it would have been like back then if a guy was offered 5 millie from Real Madrid for an MLS guy back then and the team called it insulting. Quite the different era to be in these days.
Perhaps you can help me with the new math. In the old days, iirc, the player’s MLS team would only receive a fragmentary benefit, not the full benefit, of the transfer. It’s so much different if you lose a player but reap the full reward. I haven’t followed the ins and outs of MLS transfer rules over the years, but I’m sure Chicago is much happier with this deal than they would have been 20, 15, 10, (x?) years ago. Let’s not mis-remember. Careers were not necessarily ruined, but trajectories were altered and options limited.
Fair enough, let's not do "this" here. Nonetheless, 4 GKs is absurd, and I have a feeling that most everyone would agree with that.
As I would. And I think with the way WC cycles go, the risk of destabilizing/demoralizing the current team (by selecting Slonina as GK3, rather than {say} Johnson/Horvath) - ‘Everyone else is here on merit, Gaga’s here on an all-inclusive Disney pass,’ - would far outweigh the presumed benefit. I take it for granted that bringing Slonina would provide some benefit to him/us in the next cycle, but that seems speculative and impossible to quantify. Playing it straight and simply choosing your top three makes the most sense.
I'm not mis-remembering. Everything I said was true. We can talk about percentages that teams got, the value of the dollar, the position of the sun in the sky, etc -- that all misses the point. The point is that the first offer that an MLS player got, the fanatics were howling that a failure to accept the offer was tantamount to MLS open warfare against players. It happened over and over again. This despite protestations by the saner people that this is how the market worked everywhere else in the world -- valuations, negotiations, bluffing, etc. Every career is altered in SOME way when a team doesn't come to an agreement on a sale. Yet it happens every window in every league in the world with little fanfare. But somehow, to a large group of people here, it was only MLS that was horrible to forge ahead within the established transfer framework. The concept was bunk then, and still is despite the passage of time. I'm just glad it is mostly in the past. But, back on topic, I am glad that Slonina got the move he wants. I hope it works out for him. But no, I would not bring him to the World Cup. Too soon. Let him start fresh in the next cycle. New player on a new team, in a new league (somewhere). No need to rush him into the World Cup. Hell, just 2 months ago the guy was arguably playing himself out of the starter's job in Chicago, and now we want him on the World Cup squad? Nah, let him flower, organically. Keeper is too important a position to do that to him.