2013 MLS Thread, now with 99% less Beckham talk

It's shocking when they DON'T ruin games.

 

We just need to find the Beckham of the reffing world and then all will fall into place.

 

you'd love brazilian football. just love it

 

I don't know how everyone on here feels about the CCL. But I for one am embarrassed about the way the Redbulls treated it, throwing out reserve squads every game, and failing out of the group stage

 

As fans, we want our teams to win all,competitions, but...MLS teams simply don't have the the depth of personnel to compete in three competitions (US Open Cup, CCL, and MLS). The fact is the top teams have to juggle a lot, and most will choose an MLS Cup before all other competitions, except Seattle...

 

Well the playoffs are here, and as I have no rooting interest at all, besides the Redbulls losing, I am pulling for a D.C v. L.A. final.

 

Heartbreaking defeat for the 'caps. Jay had his retirement party this week as well if I remember.

 

Congrats Fitz... anyone pay attention today to the random one day trade window.. crazy stuff went down.

 

New England Revolution are the first team to lose 5 MLS Cups, three of those losses to your LA Galaxy!
Revolution were very ready for that game and were frankly unlucky to have lost. I don't know if it came through in the broadcast, but in real life Mark Geiger was a terrible ref.

 

That's five cups... 5.

 

I did not know the owners of Man City owned NYC too, so loaning Lamps to City was a similar situation to the Pozzo's moving players around. Not on as big a scale (in regards to the amount of players as a pose to the value of the players) as we have, but interesting nonetheless.

A bit different in that there will never be a direct conflict in regards to the two teams ever playing each other in a competitive game, but interesting to see. I wonder if they'll ever start to use NYC as a feeder club, or a place to send Man City players to get experience, and I wonder if there are any additional benefits of moving players around between EU and non-EU countries, as a pose to beteen EU countries?

 

Hi Meh! Yes, it's true. This is the Second time an MLS has been owned by larger club operating outside the USA. The unfortunate precedent was "Chivas USA", owned by the same owners of Chivas de Guadalajara. It was a tremendous failure. There were many lessons to be taken from that failure, and it seems as if NYCFC failed to grasp many of them.

Chivas Guadalajara is famous for signing and playing only Mexican born Mexican players. Similarly, the intent at Chivas USA was to sign and play only Mexican-American, and Mexico born Mexican players. Before they kicked the ball, they had to soften that stance to be any Latin heritage player. By the way, you've probably noticed that that is extremely racist. NYCFC probably learned not to do that from Chivas USA...limiting your talent pool to a single culture is moronic. Eventually, Chivas USA were so terrible, they had to jettison the whole idea and just become a regular team. They saw their best years of success within those race-based rules were ignored. Shortly thereafter, the owner reasserted control over that idea and they went back to ******* again.

At first, Chivas USA was populated with players that had some name value, but we're past their prime. They were beaten Like a drum, every for years. When they stop sending their soon-to-be retired over age players, and started signing players of good quality, regardless of race, they began to succeed. Chivas rarely sent young players to Chivas USA. They finally did commit a real young talent named Erick Torres last year, and he had a great season in 2014 despite ending up 2nd or 3rd from bottom in the league.

They also made a huge mistake when it comes to their brand image. Chivas in Mexico is a huge name, tantamount to Arsenal or Liverpool, except more trophies and more racism. From the perspective of a Guadalajara fan, Chivas USA was an abortion. It was an illegitimate club in a backwater soccer country that play crap soccer. No fan of Chivas Guadalajara ever supported Chivas USA. Also, if you didn't grow up in Guadalajara, you certainly hate Chivas Guadalajara. Arguably the most successful club in Mexico is Club America. There is a 0% chance the club America fan will support Chivas USA as a result. And true to form, attendance at Chivas USA games was the worst in the league to begin with and got worse every single year until they folded.

Chivas was disbanded and put out of our misery for good at the end of the 2014 season. Hooray! The players were dispersed to any of the other teams that would take them, except Erick Torres.

Why is that? Well, the answer is one that will make your head spin, and in all likelihood is making the lives of the management at NYCFC difficult.

In MLS, every player's contract is owned by the league.

I'll let that sink in…

The league signs the player with an intent to put them in a specific team. But in the end, the lead owns the contract and can move players around and make trades. The teams are under a strict salary cap of just about $3.5 million per year. There are three players per team who can get money from the team directly. Lampard will be one of those players for NYCFC, as Henry was for Red Bull, Beckham-Keane-Donovan were for Galaxy, and Kaka is for Orlando, etc.

Anyway, the rules for player acquisition and transfer are arcane in MLS, and it takes a genius to work them all out. Much of Galaxy's success over the last 6 years has been by taking full advantage of those rules.

Now Jason Kreis is the very experienced former MLS player running the show at NYCFC. He's getting paid for his knowledge and grasp of MLS rules, so he'd better be working every angle to make the most of the connections, or the team is at risk for becoming another CHIVAS USA.

The single worst mistake NYCFC is making is that they haven't fully distinguished themselves from Manchester City. As you are aware, there are a lot of Manchester United fans here in the USA.there are also a lot of Liverpool fans, west him fans, Everton fans, Arsenal fans... If you like and English soccer team and it doesn't happen to be Manchester city, why would you ever put on that sky blue shirt? And if you are a fan of Manchester city football club, will you ever think that NYC FC is worthy of your time? I really don't see how this is any different than the Chivas Guadalajara/Chivas USA problem.

All will be revealed soon!

 

Rumor Central has it that Wesley Sneijder and Andrea Pirlo are top of the list for replacing Landon Donovan's Designated Player spot with Galaxy. Pirlo would be fun for a year or two. Sneijder would last a bit longer in this very physical league filled with grueling levels of travel though...

 

Was a good read. Cheers.

 

Glad you stayed with it, typos and all...

 

Boys over the pond, how many more clubs are coming into MLS in the next couple of years? I am assuming Beckham FC is not happening for the forseable future if at all now due to the stadium issues. Are Orlando City still owned by the people from Stoke? Would love to see Kaka join them in the off season! There is Atlanta and Vegas to come isn't there, think they just got stadium funding? I am sure I read about Sacremento and San Antonio as well trying. Would love to see a mid Canadian team now.

Will 30 teams be the cut off?

 

Atlanta is in for sure, 2016 I think.
NYCFC and Orlando start in 2015.
You are correct about Team Beckham...put off until he can solve his stadium problem.
There are two spots open for 2017, and possibly a third assuming Beckham continues to fail in Miami.

The candidates are Sacramento, Minneapolis, San Antonio and Las Vegas.
Sacramento looks like the strongest contender, with a devoted fanatical supporter base for their USL team, and a cooperative city looking to build the all important soccer specific stadium (SSS) required by the league to gain admission.
Las Vegas is the richest, but questions remain about fan support and heat...they have won a city vote on building a downtown SSS.
Minneapolis has two competing bids, one from the NFL Vikings and another from the local lower division team. Both are great bids so it will be interesting seeing how they turn out, but I suspect the Minnesota bids will end up successful one way or the other.
I don't know much about San Antonio's bid, but MLS league officials seem to think more Texas teams are needed. Similarly they think NY and LA need second teams, but like the 'more teams in TX' thought train, I don't see any justification for it in real life.

Did you notice that every new team must have a soccer specific stadium, but that NYCFC doesn't? Yeah...gotta have that second friggin NY team...

 

Oh also, Minnesota will have to count as another Canadian team... Rightly or wrongly, as MLS is fixed on TX, LA & NY, I think the thought on Canada is with Montreal, they've got plenty. As far as Canada goes, MLS made an interesting statement in the commissioner's state of the league address about focusing on developing the Canadian National Team with the goal of getting them into a World Cup berth. I think the league is right on this point. They need to focus less on quantity in Canada and more on quality.

 

Cubo to Houston.. who saw that coming?

 

I'd heard he was going to Texas, but I thought it would be Dallas. It's a great pickup for Houston, but I suspect it's the league trying to manipulate Mexican fans in the Republic of Texas. "Ethnic pandering"... Still, I think it could really help strengthen the weak ass eastern conference.

 

Oh ho ho...this is classic. Like the early Beckham months all over again, except for a team no one wants around.


Link=Lampard to stay at Man City rather than play in front of the several hundred dumbasses who bought season tickets for NYCFC

 

I had a little look at their forums yesterday and it was funny to see and read. On one level I can kinda sympathise with them- fans in NYC have been wanting a team that properly represents NYC and not NJ and have been given a world-class player, only for him to turn his back on the team who actually owns him. Loyalty has never really been Lampard's strong point and it's been proven once again. They feel betrayed by their owners (and quite rightly) and now also look like idiots after they strongly refuted claims they were Man City's feeder club and only there for Man City.

On another level I'm ****ing happy because it shows that the majority of American football fans for what they are- glory hunters who wouldn't really care about the sport if it wasn't for some big name/success. The fact that there are plenty of people who said on those forums that they want to refund their season ticket just because Lampard isn't going to play for them is beyond a joke. I'm sure if something similar to this happened to us, we'd moan a bit and then not care.

Ultimately, they should've realised that Sheikh Mansour was really in it for the money and known that creating two clubs in countries with growing football fanbases was purely for the increase in revenue than anything else, and that because both NYCFC and Melbourne City FC are in **** leagues, both were set up as feeder clubs for Man City.

 

Pedant alert: NYCFC don't actually own Lampard, the MLS itself own all the players' contracts.

 

You are correct, however "Designated Player" contracts can differ substantially from the rank and file MLS player's contracts. I don't know specifics of Lampard's contract (can't be ars ed) but I assume it's like Beckham's insofar as he controls his contract and terms of his play much much more.

 

Oh lord...Rumors of Gerrard to Galaxy are getting thick. Not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing.

 

It's a good thing because nothing pisses off fans of MLS more than for it to be called a Retirement League.

 

I don't really give a tôss what people say about the league, just how my team does in it.

 

He never had the chance to play for the English Man Utd, so I suppose he wanted to make up for it and sign with the Amerian version - success built on a much bigger checkbook than anybody else.

 

Actually, there are two teams, maybe three teams, with larger payroll than Galaxy. We all play under the same rules...some just understand how to make use of the rules better than others.

 

I stand corrected, and beg your pardons, sirs.
Beginning of 2014 details:
Just one team, Toronto, has a salary larger than the Galaxy, but Sounders and Red Bulls are in the ballpark, with two in the intermediate and all the rest lumped well below.
http://www.stathunting.com/2014/04/11/mls-salaries-visualized/

Very interesting graphic... It will be interesting to see the results start of 2015 MLS season.

 

Just messing with you Fitzy. Though I take a little exception to the bit highlighted above. Play by the same rules they may, but a handful of teams have a major advantage when it comes to opening the checkbook.

 

Mean while in Philadelphia/Chester, our big name DP keeper, apparently wants to go back to Europe.. wooo!

 

You live in Chester? I lived just over the bridge in Eddystone. Small world.

 

Fitz have you ever heard of Athletic Bilbao? They play in the Primera Liga in Spain and throughout their history, have only ever signed players of Basque heritage. In geographical terms, that'd be the equivalent of Chicago Fire only signing players from Illinois.

I don't think it's racist in the slightest for any club to do this. In fact, it's nothing short of remarkable that Bilbao have not only become a thoroughly established team in La Liga, but were not so long ago challenging for a top 4 stop, and with it champions league football. Very impressive if you ask me.