I want to click that link so bad but after years of disappointment it’s probably best I don’t.
Printable View
I haven't followed Serie A in years, so I started looking at game sheets from the past couples of months to get a sense of how his current role in the club. It did seem like recently he was coming off the bench more often than starting. I saw in a couple instances he wasn't in the lineup. So I assumed maybe injury? or maybe he's just not in the plans anymore?
If he comes here in June - he's going to be burned out by the time the WC comes along, assuming Italy even makes it.
He's going to finish the grueling portion of the Italian season and he's going to come into the grueling portion of the MLS season (The heat and travel alone are going to kill him if he comes in July) and then right into the WC.
If he comes now, he gets "a break" and he can ease into MLS and the quirks of it all
I mean, coming to MLS is a step down and if that's what he wants, does he step down now or hold off until June? Loyalty's aside, If he's not seen as integral to Napoli's plans, why finish the season there? Why not start being the top dog here where he is being sold as the guy who will lead the club to North American success (MLS and CCL?) as opposed to holding off?
Anyways. I'm with you. He'll be here in July, won't integrate until August. I hope I'm wrong.
I doubt we take a keeper. For the 3rd pick, I'd want someone who has a chance at actually being a decent sub, instead of someone never taking the field. For the 3rd keeper, I feel it's more likely we sign Andreas Vaikla from TFC2. He's played in Europe (top tier in Sweden, Finland, and Estonia), 3 appearances in the UEFA Champions League, has 3 national team caps for Estonia (all before age of 20, so he's still eligible to switch to Canada), plus born and raised in Canada so he's domestic. I was surprised he came to TFC2 (even though he played little in the couple of years prior - I think he had injury issues). I could see it as he was promised a first team contract for this season, just had to wait for Silva to expire, so joined TFC2.
My father followed it well enough; some of it rubbed off on me. He was Laziale in a sea of Romanista extended family and siblings; including his twin brother!
It wasn't till his late 60's when a nephew-in-law joined the family did he have some backing and understanding within the clan.
In his youth he had a special place in his heart for two teams... Grande Torino- never, ever Juve, for the original template they gave the National team and Napoli because after the war he did some university time there before joining Italy's reconstituted Air Force under NATO.
I get it and am with you. A part of me too hopes he is more of the mercenary ilk.
I just do not see it. His situation is unique, a local boy, Captain, it is the South, it is Napoli, it is a thing, and with what are pending... the various competition runs. It is a legacy matter, why potentially stain that with the core if nothing drastic has happened to push? He is a / their version of Maldini and Totti.
He's been battling some minor injuries the past month and also just recovered from COVID. Transfermarkt has a good game by game breakdown here: https://www.transfermarkt.us/lorenzo...spieler/133964
Prior to this season he's been relatively healthy. The last time he was out for an extended run of games was 2014/15.
They had two Canadians listed, both from the GTA. Tani Oluwaseyi https://redstormsports.com/sports/me...oluwaseyi/4427 and Mohamed Omar https://und.com/roster/mohamed-omar/.
Neither are Sigma grads, but Omar came up through the TFC academy and played at Berkshire Academy. I think that's where Shaff and Achara played in highschool.
EDIT: Apparently Alistair Johnston's brother is also draft eligible: https://umterps.com/sports/mens-socc...-johnston/9671
The problem with the MLS in terms of TV viewers , unlike the other North American sports leagues in the other sports , the MLS has to compete with other soccer leagues in the world and other soccer competitions all over the world . What other hockey leagues for example is the NHL competing with for viewers? There really isn’t any , this is the main problem the MLS will always have. They just did a study in the US and found that soccer as a whole combining all the soccer leagues and competitions in the world that people in the US watch and follow is closing in on baseball which at the moment is fourth in terms of popularity in the US. Therefore soccer as a whole is a top four sport popularity wise in the US and easily close to a top four sport in Canada popularity wise , but the MLS is only a portion of the soccer Canadians and Americans consume , there is so much competition within soccer itself that the other sports don’t have to really worry about.
ensco, great reference mentions of the CNMT and F1 numbers. These are the sort of metrics that would perk the suits.
To be clear, Manning is frosty, but I do not consider him a suit per say in a layer cake sense; he is a cut out.
He well could be the instigator; his hill to die on. I think he is the convenient pawn in this case.
The intensity that Borjan brings with him would be worth every penny. At 34 his age doesn't seem to line up with us though, MTL is likely the team interested in him with Ccl play on the horizon. I hope it is us though. For the draft I hope we just take the best Canadian available and take a flyer on one of our own.
Watching the CMNT I see how easily and consistently Borjan can kick a ball 30 yards or more and land it perfectly at the feet of his teammates. Perhaps Bono has ruined my eyesight and I have forgot this is actually a skill most goal keepers possess but I’d sign Borjan just for this reason and be happy. I just cannot tolerate Bono punting the ball out of bounds over and over like it’s a grenade and he needs to get rid to save humanity.
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/Total_TFC/status/1478004886566539265
Thought experiment. What if this was TFC instead of Augsburg buying Pepi?
Which would you prefer? Pepi or Insigne?
Check out this tweet at [URL]https://twitter.com/fabrizioromano/status/1477997770975895552?s=21[/URL]
I would prefer Pepi because of age and upside. Anyway we're maybe 30 years away from something like that to happen within MLS.
What's the record for transfer fee(GAM/TAM/SPAM etc.) between MLS teams? Is it even $5M?
Meeting is Rome seems to be re-scheduled for the 10th now, Manning tested postitive for Covid
https://www.tuttonapoli.net/in-primo...ovid-19-491643
Quote:
Initially scheduled for tomorrow evening in Rome , the transfer market summit between Insigne's entourage and Toronto has skipped. This was reported by Ciro Venerato, Rai Sport 's market expert , according to whom the president of the Canadian club, expected tomorrow in Italy, tested positive at Covid-19. A few hours ago, the molecular test passed and the trip canceled. Bill Manning is asymptomatic and already had a positive daughter for a few days. He hopes to negativize himself in the next few days to set a new summit for January 10th. Covid permitting
:incazzato:
(You know, I'm looking at that emoticon & it does remind me a lot of Seba talking to a ref)
Probably more of an Inter Miami signing, but Luis Suarez is supposedly coming to MLS when his contract expires in June aswell.
Mancini seems more open minded to MLS than many former Italian managers.
I already heard they were interested and that's not surprising.
I however wouldn't be surprised to see Ronaldo end up there. He's going nowhere other than the Europa League (or worse) with United and he is starting to look like the years are catching up. Inter Beckham SC might just wait until he is available.
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/CaciqueENG/status/1478047450380345359
Jozy to Colo Colo? He liked two Colo-Colo tweets and is now following the official Colo-Colo twitter account.
^I can't imagine Jozy wanting to do that.
Seems to me his best spot is still in MLS. If he doesn't stay here, he goes to a good MLS team. I would happily take him on $500K if I was Portland or Columbus or Atlanta....
Inter Miami screw up all the time in the transfer market but one trick TFC could learn from them is to try and start turning the tide a bit and sign a young European player on the cheap. Whenever we spend money on a European player it's usually for a star but there's a tremendous amount of value to be had over there if they look a little deeper. A couple of years ago they signed 23 year old Lewis Morgan from Celtic for $440k. He was their 2020 MVP. Now they've done an Inter Miami thing and sent him to NYRB for a modest profit, selling him for $1.2M. I watched more Inter Miami games on TV than I probably should have since Morgan is an ex Paisley Buddie so I knew all about him from his days with St Mirren. You could see he was going to be a decent MLS level player even back when he was 17 years old. This isn't meant to be a Lewis Morgan fanboy post though. It's just an example of the type of good players that are available ten a penny in Europe. Most European teams seem to like "swooping in for" foreign players, particularly lower division or bottom/mid table top domestic league teams ... almost to the point that they can't see the forest for the trees and play those sort of "imports" to the detriment of their own domestic prospects. If TFC want to climb the ladder as a world ranked football team, maybe they should consider beefing up their European scouting team or even better ... play the poor man's "City Group" and buy a team or two on the cheap over there and use them to spy on "value prospects" like the Morgans of the world for TFC in the respective leagues those teams play in. A lot of those types of players don't make much money over there so enticing them to help bolster the bottom half of the roster along with our own academy prospects wouldn't be a bad idea
That's not quite true. Seba and Pirlo got caps while playing here - they weren't regulars granted.
Roberto Donadoni got called up for Euro 96 and played in all three group games while playing for the....Metrostars :lol:
He had just signed for the Metrostars a few months earlier so a little similar to the potential Insigne signing.
This is all assuming Italy get by Portugal to make the WC. All else equal you’d call them the favourite, but no guarantees
True but.. while every region has their "diamonds in the rough" that would look nice after a good polishing, the risk of overpaying for a player in Europe is high, and the chance of landing real quality compared to other regions (like South or Central America) is lower. Not every player is a Lewis Morgan. I'm not saying it's not worthwhile having a scout out there, but I still have nightmares about Preki's 2010 Eastern European riff-raff roster. Raivis Hscanovics in defense anyone?
Looks like all that is missing is the signature and photo op which we'll have to wait a week for. Insigne has agreed to our terms. Napoli fans are writing their goodbyes on Twitter after this news. Some are quite nice.
Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/Napoli_Report/status/1478132506851516418?s=20
I think there's a good chance we could trade our SuperDraft pick for GAM. If we're really going to try to bring in all these guys from Italy, they can't all be DPs so we're going to need it.