Pardon a dumb metrofan, but what gives? You've now lost a lot, and did you really make out well? I welcome any crazy conspiracy theories, but can anyone share some inside dirt?
I kinda buy that - I've always admired (if not really liked) the Fire for their players and what they've done even with injuries and callups. But really - all I can think of is salraycap, or rebuilding. But if you could afford everyone last year, what has changed? Incentive based contracts can't be the issue with Wolff and Armas ou injured so much. And Dema and Nowak didn;t exactly become household names like other players did. Is an influx of foreign talent on the way?
With young American players like DaMarcus Beasley and Josh Wolff and Carlos Bocanegra performing well, along with Thornton, Armas, Marsch, Razov, the Fire were forced to move players due to the salary cap. The young players all have had significant increases meaning that Razov and Wolff would be making the maximum this year along with Nowak and Armas and we had a certain Bulgarian making near max.
Chris Armas' salary didn't count when he was on Injured Reserve, presumably... and when a max salary player comes back something has to give.
I have another question along these lines...... Why trade Josh Wolff, if Novak got you all under the cap? Not that the #3 pick is anything bad, I just think that I would rather have had Wolff, in my mind. Was he forcing the issue to be traded because of the plastic grass?
The Nowak and Wolff trade got us under the cap. Remember, they both went through on Friday, but the Wolff move wasn't announced until this week.
what I would like to know is why if the trade was done last friday why they had to wait until tuesday to announce it.It was the worst kept secret in the MLS.
because it's pretty hard to keep a secret on a trade that has happened the same thing happens in other sports all the time, you wind up getting peter gammons or chris berman or someone else on sportscenter saying what the trade will be instead, we find out in other ways, and a bit faster it's not a big deal really and everyone remember, we are $1 under the cap... that means something else *has* to happen... be it hristo or not (or him and more)
It might have been, but until officially announced, nobody really knew. Sometimes these things can't be announced because they can't get a hold of a player or an agent or they're finalizing details. Would you want to read about your trade before you had signed anything?
Here is my understanding is a non-Fire fanatic (but admirer of the organization and club) of why the "fire sale." 1. The cap. Armas DID count on the cap last year. As did Whitfield. There is no such thing as "injured reserve" ala NFL or NBA. Chicago was substantially over the cap. Somewhere I had the figure of $500K over the cap. It appears I was wrong and the number may have actually been higher. Given the salaries of Wolff, Nowak and Kovalenko (and adding only a 2003 pick, a conditional 2004 pick and a P-40 player), Chicago subtracted over $630K in cap obligations for 2002. Those moves, according to GM Peter Wilt, put the Fire approximately $1 under the salary cap. So how could the team be over the cap? For starters, players like Wolff got increases during the season. Other players had automatic escalators built into their contracts or (guys like Bocanegra) had healthy raises due. The team added Rodrigo Faria ($70K in 2002 but a decent increase in 2003). Plus, Chicago traded for cap space in 2002 with Dallas. I may be wrong on this point but I seem to recall a cap discussion with DC's TD Dave Kasper about this--that you only acquired the space temporarily (for the season) and then it came off the next year's cap. Could be wrong about that, but suffice it to say, Chicago had several players (Razov, Wolff, Nowak, Armas, Stoichkov) all at the max for 2003. Do the math for a cap of $1.7 and you see it's not workable. So why didn't Chicago make interim steps to deal with this in 2002? While that might be a convenient cry to make, the reality is that the Fire was dealt an incredibly tough hand. In January 2002, Bob Bradley could look at his team and see 8 possible players (Wolff, Razov, Armas, Marsch, Brown, Bocanegra, Beasley, Thornton) that could be going to Korea. In the end, it was only 2. But he had to build his team with the knowledge that he might lose up to 8 players (unlikely but possible. Most of us wouldn't have been shocked if there had been 6). And unlike the "98 cup, b/c of budget purposes, teams didn't get roster protection for players in the WC. Chicago would have had to "play on" with a roster of 15 players if they'd had 8 called up. So players like Nowak and Stoichkov had to be retained in 2002.
I heard this from the guy in New York: “We have our plan, we are disciplined against our plan, we remain committed to that plan, and feel that when we’re finished, we will be satisfied. I know that fans at times can be impatient but I also think generally that this time of year is difficult to conclude transactions because of the nature of the holidays and the impending opening of transfer windows throughout Europe.”
November 26, 2017: We have SEVEN players under contract and three of them are crap. The team is being gutted because we have a broke vulture capitalist as owner and a shady motherf*cker as GM.
Even if it does, he'll hold to it for a couple years like he did this year. We sucks again in 2018 & 2019 (Wooden Spoon), then cash in ALL the TAM/GAM for the 2020 season. Make a supporter shield, fall apart, just qualify for the playoffs and get eliminated in the play in game or whatever it's called. We are NEVER going to be a top tier in the league as long as Andrew is the owner.