He's at least off your books, but according to Mark McCullers Walker agreed to renogotiate his contract to league minimum in order to fit under the Crew's cap. From what I gathered Walker really wanted to start somewhere and he knew that Columbus was the best option for him to do that so he did everything to make sure it happened. As for the Szetela thing, come on guys get off it already. It had nothing to do with Bradley's son. It had to do with a team that wanted to keep a promising young player and told the team that wanted him to go stuff it. There was basically nothing the Metro FO or Bob Bradley could have done to get Szetela.
You guys really need to stop worrying about this trade. Bradley didn't want Walker anymore, didn't think he was that great. I know people think that Walker could still be good, which might be the case, but it will take WAY MORE than just Walker to turn Columbus from bottom of the barrel to playoff team. That is, unless Walker turns into one mean No. 10. Doubt it. Bradley thinks Meola can still be a stud. If Meola returns and plays well, the trade will look like genius. If Tony can't even walk and Walker leads Columbus to the playoffs, Bradley will get fired. Say what you want but Bradley knows the risk and he still took it. For that reason alone it's worth waiting to see how things play out.
What were you going to get from anybody when the entire league knew you were bringing Meola in? It was either get almost nothing or waive him and get nothing. There was no "holding up Columbus" because Columbus knew that Walker would have just gotten waived anyway. Sure, it would have been nice to get more but unfortunately it wasn't a good market for a goalkeeper. What other team needed one? The West is set in goal and who in the East was going to overpay for Walker? DC? Nope. Revs? Nope. Wizards. Nope. Who else is left? If Meola can shine then it's all good. If he sucks and Wells sucks then heads will roll.
Have you seen him walk recently? Or were you just squeezing on the bandwagon? http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more_sports/story/323995p-276938c.html I'm not happy Meola is here, but he is. I'm not happy about losing Walker, but that's life. I'm not happy about Meola's salary, but I can't change that. It is possible that, since his contract runs out at the end of the year and he may leave MLS again, that Walker's contract made him worth less than we all thought? Surely anyone seems worth more than what we got, but since none of us were in on the calls the GMs made, maybe this is all we could get for him. Maybe we've been trying to trade him for weeks to anyone who would listen, but couldn't. Somewhere along the line, it was decided to dump Walker for Meola. Was it Alexi? Bob? Who knows. Point is, that decision was made, and all that was left to do was move the pieces to get it done. Did anyone consider that Columbus knows that their season is lost, and they didn't want to give anything up just to "rent" Walker to keep the games competitive? They know Busch & Jordan will be back next year. The only reason to trade for Walker is to keep from embarassing themselves. Do we all think that they think they are only a keeper away from 1st place? They are sixth, and they know it. I doubt they really have illusions about getting Walker, making the playoffs and winning MLS cup from 3rd place in the east. Is it really the case that all of the geniuses here think Columbus offered Buddle & a 1st round pick, and that we said "No, we'll take less instead." ? Did anyone consider that Walker knew he wasn't going to re-sign with Metro (duh), and that Metro knew he was going in November? That they said "man, we're going to lose him. Even if we get some crap pick, it's better than nothing." Well, whatever. I'm not happy with this deal, but I admit I don't have all the answers. It's pretty cool that everyone else here does.
If you see one of the many SportsDesk re-runs going on at the moment and check the Meola interview on MSG...you get the clear impression that the transaction for Meola was pretty much due to his friendship to Lalas.... And to be honest, him hurt and salary included: I just don't think this decision was made in the most thoughful of ways....Hope Meola and/or team shut me up and we get a cup at the end of the season (or finally make a real run for it-MLS Cup anyway)... BUt i just do not think we handled things as well as we could have.... And for the time being, we have acquired damaged goods (a costly one at that), whose abilities to get back to previous form can fairly be questioned
He was at our company picnic last weekend. I wasn't there, but a co-worker said he was limping a bit.For the record, Walker is better and cheaper; I would have kept him. I don't see why we would pay so much for this dude.
Well, I guess there are two ways to look at the question: "are we better off with Walker or with Meola + insignificant compensation"? 1. BB plans to play Wells as his 'keeper, Meola plays backup better or at least as well as Walker would so, maybe it's about a wash; 2. BB DOESN'T plan on Wells as his first 'keeper, so either he made the judgment that Meola is right now better than Walker in ability (doubtful) or he was so POd at Walker (or vice versa) that he wanted to get Jonny out of here fast. This is, of course, absent any brilliant salary cap/allocation maneuvering that clears up space for us to sign someone new who will really help. On second thought, I would have to say it's either 1 or 2. =NLK=
haha YEa right. Szetela is on the bench for the CREW. Secondly, it's Szetelas fault that happened, because he wanted more money from Europe. He realized he sucks, he comes back here, and wants to come to the Metros. Would you have given up Gaven or Guevara for Szetela? Honestly? yEa right. And in all honesty, Clark has been garbage this year. And Gilberto didn't look all that hot either. So that's that. Lets quit this retarded nepotism stuff, because there is no basis for it.
There's absolutely no logical connection between this sweeping, if hardly refutable statement, with the idea that somehow Bob Bradley is keeping his son on the field at the cost of the team. None. Period.
I'm not even saying that is the case here. I dont have proof one way or the other but neither do you on the other side of the coin. I dont even think the kid has played badly either this year. People are suspicious for a variety of reasons. First, everything I ever read about the kid said he was an attacking midfielder and not a holding midfielder. Well when you had 2 perfectly good, more experienced holding midfielders on the roster why would you ship them off the team to convert a 17 year old attacking midfielder to a defensive midfielder? That doesnt make much sense. Don't give me that this kid is better than them now because he is not. Those 2 were good players at what they did. Also, this is the same guy who had Kenny Arena around so it makes people even more suspicious when they see this situation. Many corporations have policies against relatives working underneath each other because of questions of objectivity. Its perfectly reasonable for people to have doubts about all this.
Exactly who (other than the opinions on this board) think that Clark and Flores were two perfectly good holding midfielders. I dont see any team in the league that thinks that.
Michael Bradley came out of the Bradenton program and is an international in his age group. Gilberto Flores, nice player that he looked like he'd be for Metro before Clint Dempsey scythed him down, came to us from a 5th division team in Brazil. It's notable that 3 other players (to my knowledge) from the SAME 5th division team have gotten on MLS teams - Danilo Da Silva, Thiago (Chicago) and Cassio (Revs). It could be that Gimnasio Pinhalense do Whatever is the nursery club of giants....or it could be that a sharp agent has built himself a decent little pipeline from the backwaters of Brazil to the US. I'd bet on the latter. The upshot is, I'm not giving Gilberto the nod for "more experienced" here. He's a couple years older...but we're not talking ten years at a top flight level. We've seen not even half a season of Bradley (at 17 years old), and a handful of games worth of Gilberto - unless you're a John Edward style cold reader, I don't even think there's enough on-field evidence to call Flores "better" or "more experienced". If you want to go with pedigree....Bradley's the winner on that count, easy. Ricardo Clark is another case entirely. Seems like a nice enough guy and started off like a house afire here, but in retrospect the term "flatters to deceive" was absolutely made for him. And according to some (people I'd believe, like Dan R) he perhaps wouldn't have gotten shipped out of here so quickly, if the contract of one Sergio Galvan Rey weren't such an albatross last offseason.
Clark has been amazing the past two games for SJ. Last week against LA on ESPN he looked great, breaking up numerous scoring opportunities. Last night, it looks like he did even better, scoring the game-tying goal with SJ down to 10 men against first place Dallas: http://www.bigapplesoccer.com/article.php?article_id=2967
Szetela didn't make the bench last night. Is he injured or out of favor? Many a Metro "reject" has done very well once they left Metro. There is no need to give Clark and Gilberto extra incentive to bite us in the future. Btw, anyone notice how good Brad Davis is now?