JDG won Deportivo's MVP award again this season? I didn't know that.
Seems pretty ridiculous, when you consider how much less playing time he had due to injuries, etc.
- Scott
Moderator
JDG won Deportivo's MVP award again this season? I didn't know that.
Seems pretty ridiculous, when you consider how much less playing time he had due to injuries, etc.
- Scott
“Heroism breaks its heart, and idealism its back, on the intransigence of the credulous and the mediocre, manipulated by the cynical and the corrupt.” ~Christopher Hitchens
Dani Aranzubia won the award this season.Originally Posted by Shakes McQueen
I dont care myself....I'd gladly take an old Schelotto....he's got twice as many goals this year as our top scorer. not bad for an old man
fixed
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
He also has twice as many goals as all of our forwards combined.
what if you go south and instead of Schellotto you sign the next Claudio Lopez or Marcelo Gallardo? Neither were worth DP money.
If every team could just send their nets south and sign the next Schellotto you'd think they'd have done it by now.
it's interesting though, of the teams currently with DPs:
DC United -- 3 points up on TFC
chicago -- 2 points up on TFC
Columbus -- tied with TFC
New York -- 10 points less than TFC
Seattle -- 1 point up on TFC
One could say a DP produces a slight possible point advantage.. 1 win maximum... but certainly not the saviour people seem to expect.
is it worth having a DP to get 1 extra win? Note that the two best teams in the league (Houston and Chivas) are at least 5 points above all of these DP teams. So it seams "putting together a solid team without a DP" is still the secret to success.
^ Not a valid comparison. The pit-fall of signing a DP is that you're forced to give up depth for the sake of signing one star player. Because of moves made last season (ie collecting tons of allocation money) we could have signed a DP without giving up any of our depth. We could have a DP on our team now in place of Vitti without having to give up anyone else.
you're right on the money.
But, I would go further south than central america, b/c a good central american player from ie: El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras..etc, who can make a successful impact in MLS will likely be called for national team duty, since their pickings are rather slim.
As you mention, scout the shit out of first and second divisions in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, big teams and small teams. What you will find are very talented players that would flourish in MLS, not to mention they'd love to be making $5000-$6000 USD/month. Its a better option than central america b/c these south american players will likely never get called up to the national team, since talent is richer the souther you go, with the exception to Mexico, i would put Mexico in the same class as the other top south american countries.
Also, you want the next Schelotto?..look no further than Ariel Ortega, he's on the wrong side of 30(like Schelotto), but he's still got game... he could probably be had for non-DP money.
gotta be really careful though.
DC, RSL, Dallas they all tried the SA route and only one player really panned out. (on mid level MLS salary)
The hidden gems are there, but unless your scouts are really on the game, it's more of a hit or miss.
If MLS experience with SA is any indication, for every 3 players out of SA, you get like 1 decent player
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
yep..The scouts need to be very resourceful, speak spanish, think outside of the box and have an eye for talent.
if MLSE could hook up MO and his scouts with DishNetwork and Directv from the US, they would be able to watch TyC Sports, its a sports channel from Argentina that shows tons of 1st and 2nd division games. They'd also get Fox Sports en Espanol, GolTv(US), ESPN Deportes, univision, galavision, telemundo, telefutura, tvChile, tvglobo etc...they'd have the whole continent covered without leaving the office!
my dad could do this job for free
^ Are you talking about players that aren't represented by agents?
i think scouting is a little more complicated than that... there's a little problem.... umm, most of those players are already under contract
not to mention there's no guarantee that a guy who plays well surrounded by 10 fellow Argentines will play well when surrounding by 10 MLS players.
I mean, look at Juan Pablo Angel this year. By his standards, his production is massively down... And he's already done well in MLS in the past.
Not so easy, my friend.
i would think that they're all represented by someone
Interesting that you put up these numbers and fail to acknowedge that TFC has actually played one more game than Seattle or Columbus. By the time that happens, it could actually be that Seattle is 4 points ahead of Toronto and Columbus 3.
Considering that at that rate, the difference at the end of the year would be 8 and 6 points respectively, and we missed the playoffs last year by 4 points last year, it would seem that a DP would have a significant effect indeed. For us...its the difference between playoffs and no playoffs.
Alright!!^^^
How does $100.00 sound that De Guzman isn't about to sign? We can give the money to Parkdale for safe keeping. Any serious takers want to put their money where there proverbial internet faceless mouths are?
-W.
When a team buys a player, is that player in or out of contract...i don't know how this all works.i think scouting is a little more complicated than that... there's a little problem.... umm, most of those players are already under contract
not to mention there's no guarantee that a guy who plays well surrounded by 10 fellow Argentines will play well when surrounding by 10 MLS players.
I mean, look at Juan Pablo Angel this year. By his standards, his production is massively down... And he's already done well in MLS in the past.
Not so easy, my friend.
what I do know though is that getting directv and dishnetwork is the cheapest solution to become familiarized with alot of the talent in south america; Without having to deal with time and costs of travelling to scout in person until they are ready to do so.
Anyone know if MO is using Directv and DishNetwork to his advantage?
When is "about to"?
FORMER FULL TIME KOOL-AID DRINKER
This is how Mo scout's:
"Hey Barry (MacLean), I need a (insert position player here), what do you got for me?"
I'm not even joking. MLS is quite sad in this regard. Most managers in MLS rely on a couple of agents to get talent for them.
Scouting for most teams does not exist.
Some of Barry's past and current clients:
Braz, Reda, Pozniak, Sutton, Edwards, Attakora, Brennan, Phelan, Goldthwaite, Barrett, Ibrahim, White.
Mo pretty much let Barry MacLean put together our first year team with his roster of stiffs.
Last edited by BakaGaijin; 06-16-2009 at 10:26 AM.
Anytime this season that's for sure.
A player from the Toronto area with family here sitting watching a game does not == the player is about to sign. Mo rolled out the red carpet and JDG said "Thanks" and enjoyed the game. Carver showing up at a Newcastle game did not result in him going there to manage, Shearer went there. TFC is not, and won't be for some time, a top tier Football club and most of the players bantered about in many of these threads wouldn't even consider coming here until they would normally be plying their trade in 2nd or 3rd division teams because THEN the money is worth it. Sad to say, and I'd love it to change but that's reality right now.
-W.
You're exactly right that TFC needs to be searching in South America for players who can help them as there is lots of talent down there. Obviously the quality varies from league to league, but in every country the top teams have talent that could definitely make a difference for us.
This might sound simple, but what TFC should be doing is looking at the players who lead the South American leagues in scoring every year. There are plenty of guys in Brazil and Argentina over the age of 30 who consistently score goals everywhere they play. These are the guys we should be talking to.
Baka Gaijin isn't far off.
A very senior official at TFC has admitted to me personally very recently that "Mo relied on Barry too much in the first year" and his influence was still being felt last year.
While I'm sure Maclean has less influence in personnel choices these days, I have no doubt he is still influential.
I have an old friend who is a FIFA player agent. He tried to get a few South American players in on trial with TFC in years 1 and 2 but found Mo to be completely dismissive without knowing anything about these players. Last time I spoke to my friend about it, he mentioned that all but 1 of those players are now playing in Europe (i think one of them is in the Spanish 2nd Division....not sure where the others are playing). I'm not implying these guys would be superstars because who really can predict that but these players were playing 1st division football in their homecountry. The feeling was that Mo was not really interested in dealing with people outside his circle and it left a bad taste in people's mouths.
^^^^^^^^^
I have heard similiar things from another agent that has some players in MLS. If you are not part of Mo's inner circle, he won't even give you the time of day.
Ortega's alcoholism has cost him a lot, including playing top level football in Argentina. He obviously hasn't had it under control (although that may have recently changed; I haven't heard anything in about six months) but that would make him a risky proposition at best. Also, he's really a winger (although he'd tear MLS apart anywhere, likely).
That's fairly obvious just by looking at the players who've gone by unsigned. We could've had Washington or Kleber Boas as a DP on a free transfer; both just signed new deals with new teams in th Brazilian first division.
^ Just because they can play for the Brazilian first division does not mean, that they have the tallent to play in the MLS.
Joke
Those are two guys who we seriously should have tried to sign. Both have done nothing but score goals throughout their careers and would have significantly helped us in attack.
Gee, well here's a comparison for you. Columbus and New York were the finalists last year. Guess what? They both have DPs. DC United won the Supporter's Shield, guess what? they had 2 DPs. So, your system is very flawed.
Having a lot of Latino players on TFC isn't going to workout unless we play their style of play instead of European/British game.
EDIT: Me personally, I wish Hart was coaching TFC and have last Gold cup Canadian team playing for TFC instead of having current coach and players on TFC. They were fun to watch!
Last edited by TFC07; 06-16-2009 at 12:31 PM.
Central America = CONCACAF
De Guzman = a top 3 player in CONCACAF
I don't think there are any central american players who would be much better gambles (for DP money obviously). If you are talking about central americans on regular contracts then absolutely I agree. If we are talking DPs though in CONCACAF you can't do much better than De Guz, he is the best mid in CONCACAF. Not many players in this region are in his class, Suazo, Guardado, Marquez probably missing a few. There are a few in a step below class such as Beasley, Dempsey, Vela, Dos Santos (those last two will be in that elite class in a year or two)
NY was a fluke,
DC and Columbus has a team that is capable of winning without DPs
actually, their DPs didn't start out as DPs (though in Shitlicker's case, his contract is really weird)
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
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