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American Soccer |OT| Life, liberty and the pursuit of the beautiful game

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O

Osorio

Member
B-Dubs said:
Why are they even called that? I feel like it makes no sense.
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Because they're a group led by a banal moron called Benny. The group started in 2010 with the opening of the arena and at the time there were many Scandinavians in the staff and on the squad so they called themselves Viking Army.

Jump forward 5 years later, those vikings are nowhere to be found. Fucking idiots.
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Osorio said:
Because they're a group led by a banal moron called Benny. The group started in 2010 with the opening of the arena and at the time there were many Scandinavians in the staff and on the squad so they called themselves Viking Army.

Jump forward 5 years later, those vikings are nowhere to be found. Fucking idiots.
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That logic is idiotic, banal moron is probably underselling it.
 
H

Hasphat'sAnts

Member
xbhaskarx said:
I think Jozy is overpaid, but I'm not seeing the relevance of Mandzukic and Di Maria... were they interested in coming to MLS but no team was willing to pay them as much as Altidore?
A recent article mentioned that MLS teams tried to bring Chicharito over here twice... the league can only sign guys who want to come here.
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How about spending that $6m on better salaries for the average player? That money can pay for 200 minimum salaried guys
 
G

GRW810

Member
Osorio said:
Could be that he's the next captain.
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Should probably be Dax due to the length of time on the team combined with his tenacity in midfield, which is a better position for a captain than goalkeeper. But I wouldn't begrudge Robles getting the armband for a single second.
 
M

Mully

Member
An old teammate was drafted by the Dynamo a few years ago. He signed with the team and got ankle surgery since it's bothered him since middle school. The Dynamo cut him for getting surgery and now he's playing for a NASL team.

Looking back at his draft, he was not in the minority for being cut or unsigned. It's still weird to me how often that happens, but I guess that's what you can expect from a developing league like the MLS.
 
O

Osorio

Member
Ives says Stolz is signed

http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/1110...ls-complete-signing-of-leo-stolz?ICID=HP_BN_1

The New York Red Bulls completed one of the biggest coups of the 2015 MLS draft, signing Leo Stolz to a contract after landing the Hermann Trophy winner with the No. 18 pick.

Sources have confirmed to Goal USA that Stolz signed his contract Saturday, ending a prolonged saga that saw him turn down contract offers from MLS a year ago, and more recently in the past month.

Stolz, regarded as one of the best players in college soccer, insisted on playing in New York or Los Angeles, which caused contract talks with MLS to break down and led the UCLA product to consider options in Europe.

The fear that Stolz, a German-born midfielder, would bypass MLS altogether for European soccer scared off teams from spending a draft pick on him. But Stolz paved the way for the Red Bulls to draft him after reaching out to the club in the days leading up to the draft, ensuring that he was very interested in playing for New York.

As a result, the Red Bulls have landed a player who was easily one of the top three most talented players in the draft with the No. 18 overall pick. The move has angered several MLS teams that were high on Stolz leading into the draft but were were scared away by the uncertainty of his future.

Stolz, 23, is a skillful player capable of playing in an advanced midfield role as well as centrally. The Pac-12 Player of the Year in 2014, Stolz recorded nine goals and six assists to earn college soccer's most prestigious award, the Hermann Trophy.
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O

Osorio

Member
Some good CB signings and we should be a good squad by opening day. People can harp about Henry leaving but our biggest weakness last season was defense.

It'll be interesting to hear how the fanbase handles these protests if we start off winning.
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Osorio said:
Some good CB signings and we should be a good squad by opening day. People can harp about Henry leaving but our biggest weakness last season was defense.

It'll be interesting to hear how the fanbase handles these protests if we start off winning.
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I think it'll come down to how we perform by the end of the season. Some good performances early on will calm everyone down, but unless Marsch does better than Petke it'll just start all over again after we get eliminated.
 
J

jamesinclair

Banned
Osorio said:
Some good CB signings and we should be a good squad by opening day. People can harp about Henry leaving but our biggest weakness last season was defense.

It'll be interesting to hear how the fanbase handles these protests if we start off winning.
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The team has zero name players if Cahill is gone. That's a problem.
 
O

Osorio

Member
jamesinclair said:
The team has zero name players if Cahill is gone. That's a problem.
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For what? Attendance will be shit this year regardless.

The protests are about the accountability of the front office, not the lack of a star replacement. If we sign a star player and we don't make the MLS Cup, the firing of Petke will still be considered a waste.
 
M

Mully

Member
I feel like even if we get a star, I won't be happy about it. In fact, I might be more pissed off because the move would probably be made in the vein of winning fans back rather than improving the team.

I'd rather RB sell the team, youth organizations, and possibly RB Leipzig to someone that has money and cares than have another Dolan, Johnson, Wilpon-esque run organization in the NY area.
 
X

xbhaskarx

Member
MLS has finally made it, we have our own will-only-play-in-NY draft pick in Leo "Eli Manning" Stolz... also this:

Toronto FC signs Juventus midfielder Giovinco

Toronto FC will announce Sebastian Giovinco as its newest player early next week, Sportsnet has learned.

TFC had been pursuing Giovinco, who is out of contract with Juventus at the end of the current Serie A season, for some time and recently tabled a contract offer to the Italian midfielder. Sources told Sportsnet that Giovinco has accepted TFC’s terms for a four-year deal after his representatives met with officials from the MLS club in Toronto this week, and that a formal announcement will be made either on Monday or Tuesday.

The same sources told Sportsnet that Giovinco had other contract offers from European clubs, but he decided to sign with Toronto FC after the team offered him “a truckload of money,” believed to be $7 million US per season.

Giovinco will finish out the current Serie A season with Juventus, and officially join Toronto FC in July.

The Italian is coming in as a designated player, which brings Toronto’s number of DPs to four—Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore and Gilberto. Unless the new collective bargaining agreement, currently being negotiated between Major League Soccer and the players’ union, increases the DP limit to four per team, Toronto is going to have to sell one of them—in this case, most likely Gilberto.

Giovinco, who turns 28 later this month, is a versatile player who can play as a striker, winger or attacking midfielder. Nicknamed the LA Formica Atomica (The Atomic Ant), he is a talented playmaker, renowned for his dribbling skills, passing range and free kick prowess.
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B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
xbhaskarx said:
MLS has finally made it, we have our own will-only-play-in-NY draft pick in Leo "Eli Manning" Stolz... also this:

Toronto FC signs Juventus midfielder Giovinco
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If Stolz is really gonna be like Eli then we're gonna win a couple of MLS Cups over a heavy favorite.

Toronto doesn't seem to be afraid to spend money, if they can make some more good signing in the midfield and defense they might have something there. Then again, I feel like we all said the same thing last year and look how that turned out...
 
X

xbhaskarx

Member
So Toronto's three DPs are Giovinco signed for 4 years (28-31), Altidore for 5 years (25-29), and Bradley for 4-5 more years (27-30/1)... not bad. If they can find some way to get Gilberto (currently 25) under the DP level through allocation money or changes to the CBA, that would be a pretty decent core for years.
 
S

smokeandmirrors

Banned
Garber says league is running 100 million dollar deficits, then signs Jozy and Giovinco to huge contracts.

lol pay your fucking players garber, you know the ones who make up most of the teams and not the big name guys.
 
X

xbhaskarx

Member
Hasphat'sAnts said:
How about spending that $6m on better salaries for the average player? That money can pay for 200 minimum salaried guys
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You brought up a comparison that makes no sense (what star players at clubs like Real Madrid who MLS teams can't sign because they don't want to come here are earning) and when I pointed that out, you follow it up with this totally unconnected point...
Toronto (MLSE) is paying Jozy Altidore, not MLS. The league is just paying him the tiny part of his salary that's under the salary cap (and even that's essentially Toronto's money, as they'll presumably pay 1/20 of all league salaries). MLSE has a lot of money, it's Bell and Rogers... they also own the Maple Leafs and Raptors. They're also currently paying $120 million for TFC stadium improvements on a stadium that's not even that old. Plus throwing even more buckets of money at Giovinco today.

MLSE doesn't care what minimum salary MLS players make, because no one is going to buy season tickets or turn on the TV to watch some player at the end of the bench who is barely hanging on to a job just because he makes $70,000 now instead of $40,000.
Minimum salary guys are replacement players, teams can easily find someone in the draft or NASL or USL to take their place if they think they're being underpaid and want to try their luck in Europe or elsewhere. Those that actually produce can make more money, maybe even become a DP (Wondolowski), but paying some scrub a bit more isn't magically going to make him a better player.

Edit: more people who think Garber writes multi-million dollar checks to pay Toronto's DPs... why is he signing all these guys to play for Toronto? I guess Garber just really likes Toronto!
 
S

smokeandmirrors

Banned
xbhaskarx said:
Edit: more people who think Garber writes multi-million dollar checks to pay Toronto's DPs... why is he signing all these guys to play for Toronto? I guess Garber just really likes Toronto!
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Because it doesn't take more than an ounce of brain power to see the growing disparity between salaries of washed up stars like Jozy and the actual core of the team that's most likely getting paid like dogshit? Can't afford to pay players more but we can sure help pay more for their DP contracts than you'll make in your time in MLS. League is totes broke and the poor owners are suffering.

Also what's a salary cap?
 
X

xbhaskarx

Member
I don't know what any of that rant even means, but it's hilarious that apparently these DPs are "washed up" while guys making $40k and maybe playing five games a year are apparently "the actual core of the team"... TFC fans should be pissed that 25 year old forward Ryan "heart of the team" Richter making $48k was released only to be replaced by a bum like Altidore...
 
H

Hieberrr

Member
The problem with the salary cap is that it's actually hindering the salary progression of non-DP players. DP players, currently at 3 max, all count towards the cap the same amount. So paying them 4 million a year vs 10 million a year doesn't really matter. What matters is the cap hit of the other, non-DP, players. If the cap, sans DPs for example is $500K, then the GM/cub are now forced to pay shitty wages.

What needs to happen is a huge increase in the cap, plus an increase to the minimum salary. At minimum, players should be making $70K to $90K.

This really has nothing to do with DP players. DP player signings have to do with the club managing their DP signings, making sure that their investments pay out in the form of wins. DP players and signings have nothing to do with income disparity. It has all to do with minimum salaries and the cap.
 
S

sazabirules

Unconfirmed Member
So did Giovinco skip the allocation order?

Edit: Nevermind I think that process only applies to returning US or former MLS players.
 
A

Askani

Member
All indications are that Claudio Bieler signed with an Argetine club. So now we have a DP spot open and I'm assuming still a large pile of allocation/transfer/cap money lying around to spend now.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
U20's back in action tonight:
US Soccer said:
The U.S. Under-20 Men’s National Team prepares for its fourth Group A match at the 2015 CONCACAF U-20 Championship when it faces host side Jamaica on Sunday, Jan. 18, at the Montego Bay Sports Complex. Kickoff is set for 8 p.m. ET and will be live on FOX Sports 2 and Univision Deportes Network. Fans can also follow on Twitter @ussoccer_ynt and @ussoccer_esp.

The USA is coming off a dominant 8-0 victory against Aruba on Jan. 14 to move to 1-1-1 in the group stage, in third place behind Panama (3-0-0) and Guatemala (2-0-1). The USA is ahead of Trinidad & Tobago (1-1-1) based on goal differential, while Jamaica is fifth at 0-1-2 and Aruba is last at 0-0-3.

Romain Gall is the USA’s leading goal scorer in the tournament following his hat trick effort against Aruba. Gall is tied with three other players with three goals in the tournament, while Mexico’s Hirving Lozano leads with four goals.

This is the USA’s first match in Montego Bay after three games at Independence Park in Kingston. There, the USA opened the tournament with a 1-1 draw against Guatemala on Jan. 9, fell 1-0 to Panama on Jan. 11 and then routed Aruba three days later.

Jamaica started the event with a 2-2 draw against Trinidad & Tobago on Jan. 9, lost to Guatemala 1-0 on Jan. 11 and most recently fell 2-0 to group leader Panama. Donja Smith and Junior Flemmings scored Jamaica’s two second-half goals to rally from a two-goal deficit against against Trinidad & Tobago.
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X

xbhaskarx

Member
Hieberrr said:
What needs to happen is a huge increase in the cap, plus an increase to the minimum salary. At minimum, players should be making $70K to $90K.
Click to expand...

I don't think there should be a "huge" increase in the cap, at least not right away. The huge increase should be incremental over the life of the new agreement, otherwise a good portion will be wasted on players who don't deserve it and aren't worth it, because churn of the players in any league just isn't that rapid.

I agree on the minimum salaries. I doubt they'll get to that level until the end of the new deal but for now they should be at least like $60-70k, enough to live on in a big city. I'm not sure why people are bringing it up now though, especially in relation to DP signings which are totally unconnected. Plus the CBS negotiations are happening right now so let's see what happens...

Hieberrr said:
This really has nothing to do with DP players. DP player signings have to do with the club managing their DP signings, making sure that their investments pay out in the form of wins.
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Exactly.

Which is why it sucks for other teams that Don Garber is paying all these DPs to go help Toronto win... so unfair!
 
O

Osorio

Member
I'd say 60-70k minimum is valid.

Still chump change but at the end of the day if they're a player where no other league would take them, 60-70k is pretty reasonable. MLS revenues are growing but still not even close to the NHL where their minimum salary is in the 580k range.

At least it's better than not so long ago where the minimum was 12k
 
C

Cystm

Member
iWh3aCNdsbQhE.jpg

iLuxIOJQSDrXx.jpg

iBOe3uJJc4tkL.jpg
i3edq06Ph86BF.jpg
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So, this existed and I wish I had it.

Dat Marco Etcheverry DC run.
 
O

Osorio

Member
I had the last one they ever made. At least I think it was the last one they ever made.

Z0077955.jpg



Awful fucking game but Clint Mathis was a legend so I had to get it.
 
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