Is Julian de Guzman Leaving TFC?

[ag futbol]

The guy is incapable of making a 10 yard forward pass. I think you are being overly generous by calling him "a decent player by MLS standards" He could be getting the league average and he would still be way overpaid.

This is over-done hyperbole.

You only have to look at the game he played against Vancouver when he found Plata on the run with that 30 yard pass to set up a goal. Not many players on our team are capable of completing that pass (check Gargan on the highlight reel last game for evidence).

Anyway, I'm not thrilled with his performance here by any means but he occasionally shows moments of what he's capable of. Suspect that his injuries are more pervasive than we all suspect and he could be done playing professionally post TFC.

[DichioTFC]

Don't forget that asset costs (things like grass or the academy) aren't accounted for as $20 million up front on their balance sheet. It's 20 million divided by expected lifespan. Say that academy will be used for 20 years, then on their books it's a $1 million annual expenditure (plus whatever depreciation). Which isn't that much.

Say their expendatures anually are 6 mil payroll (with 3 DPs), 5 mil stadium costs (including stands, grass and taxes), 2 million academy, ?? marketing and they don't have THAT many real big expenses. It's not unreasonable for TFC to be bringing in 15 or 20 million bucks in revenue a year. In fact 5 or 10 more wouldn't surprise me either. yes thats verify simplified and yes I pulled the stadium costs thing out of my ass (does TFC pay annually for the stadium? or are they only on the hook for upkeep? if it's just upkeep we're looking at a MUCH lower number), but you get the point.

Even "expected lifespan" is a generous statement when it comes to player contracts. Deadspin got the NY Mets financial reports a month back, and it is insane at what level the team's accountants are able to depreciate the players. There's a tax loophole called the Roster Depreciation Allowance for all North American sports teams that enables ridiculous tax savings (depreciate the value of your assets, show liabilities and expenses at full value, pay zero tax, repeat next year).

There's also the added benefit of revenue sharing - the league promotes Galaxy and Red Bull on ESPN, but every team in the league shares in the revenues that those two teams bring in (mostly through leveraging cross-marketing on ESPN, Fox Soccer, Spanish TV). I know in the NFL, this cut alone covers every team's expenses - which means the sale of even one ticket all season is profit. It's obviously less for MLS teams, but I would assume that it covers the deficits of the loss leaders (NE, FCD).

If there's one thing we can all agree MLSE does very, very well, its make money. This is one of the ways.

[DichioTFC]

This is over-done hyperbole.

You only have to look at the game he played against Vancouver when he found Plata on the run with that 30 yard pass to set up a goal. Not many players on our team are capable of completing that pass (check Gargan on the highlight reel last game for evidence).

Anyway, I'm not thrilled with his performance here by any means but he occasionally shows moments of what he's capable of. Suspect that his injuries are more pervasive than we all suspect and he could be done playing professionally post TFC.

I agree. The JDG Hater Bandwagon has long left the station, with those on-board either unable or unwilling to re-evaluate the player objectively.

I am by no means his biggest fan, but the XI on the pitch are better with him than without him - especially considering the technical formation Winter is using. Yes he's turned the ball over on occasion, yes he's dribbled into problems before, yes he does not have a 100% pass success rate. But if I had to pick the XI game in and game out, JDG would make the pitch every single time.

For the record, I don't want JDG to depart midseason. I feel strongly that he will go at the end of this season, but I'm a fan of a player redeeming himself. And I firmly believe JDG will shine again when the spotlight is on him, like the CCL matches.

[Shakes McQueen]

I agree. The JDG Hater Bandwagon has long left the station, with those on-board either unable or unwilling to re-evaluate the player objectively.

I am by no means his biggest fan, but the XI on the pitch are better with him than without him - especially considering the technical formation Winter is using. Yes he's turned the ball over on occasion, yes he's dribbled into problems before, yes he does not have a 100% pass success rate. But if I had to pick the XI game in and game out, JDG would make the pitch every single time.

For the record, I don't want JDG to depart midseason. I feel strongly that he will go at the end of this season, but I'm a fan of a player redeeming himself. And I firmly believe JDG will shine again when the spotlight is on him, like the CCL matches.

JDG is an above-average MLS player. The problem is that he isn't paid above-average money. There are MLS players just as effective as him in MLS, playing without a DP tag, and for a fraction of the money.

I share your hope that JDG will redeeem himself, and show us the player we hoped we were getting two years ago, but it's just that - hope.

- Scott

[LesH]

Looks like $250k a year, if you believe this. Couldn't find any more info http://www.onlinesport.ro/stiri/fotb...-la-steaua.htm

No.
Right now he's paid $500,000 per year by the Israeli team.

Quote from that article:
"Colautti are un salariu de 500 de mii de dolari in Israel, dar spune ca este gata sa vina in Ghencea."

[Pachuco]

I agree. The JDG Hater Bandwagon has long left the station, with those on-board either unable or unwilling to re-evaluate the player objectively.

I am by no means his biggest fan, but the XI on the pitch are better with him than without him - especially considering the technical formation Winter is using. Yes he's turned the ball over on occasion, yes he's dribbled into problems before, yes he does not have a 100% pass success rate. But if I had to pick the XI game in and game out, JDG would make the pitch every single time.

For the record, I don't want JDG to depart midseason. I feel strongly that he will go at the end of this season, but I'm a fan of a player redeeming himself. And I firmly believe JDG will shine again when the spotlight is on him, like the CCL matches.

But you haven't seen our new starting 11. With Frings and Dunfield as DMs, I'm not sure we have a need for JDG. We have a much bigger need at CB or at AM then we do for JDG. So if we can sign a third DP in a much needed position then I think it's a no brainer.

And for the person who suggested he play out wide, watch some replays of Preki's team if you dare to, JDG has already played out wide. Had some of his worst games in that position. He's also been tried as an AM and he's terrible in that position as well.

He's a one trick pony limited to playing on a very good team and in a very specific position. Honestly unless you have a shit load of money to build a very good team with JDG being one of many pieces to the puzzle then I'm not sure what good he is to anybody.

I think if we have any opportunity whatsoever to clear him off the books then we should do it now while we have a chance. Even if we don't have that perfect AM right away I think it's worth leaving the cap space open and trying to find the 3rd DP to fill that role.

The only way I see us keeping JDG is if Winter has planned for Frings to be that AM DP. If he's the guy then keeping JDG isn't as bad. But if we are going to keep playing Santos at AM and playing with two DP DMs then I think that's crazy.

[Waggy]

No.
Right now he's paid $500,000 per year by the Israeli team.

Quote from that article:
"Colautti are un salariu de 500 de mii de dolari in Israel, dar spune ca este gata sa vina in Ghencea."

Oh I thought it said the contract was worth 500k, and covers the next 2 years. I'd never pay him 500k. At 24 maybe, not at 29. His strike rate isn't great lately. Granted I don't really remember him- I would have seen him play a bunch (I lived in Haifa for 8 months during his time there) but I never paid too close attention to individual players. Still, the Israeli Premier league isn't THAT much better than MLS. And considering he came to Tel Aviv on a free transfer, it'd seem like he isn't really worth much.



And that is some SHEISTY accounting. I had no idea teams could list players as assets. I guess that kind of makes sense, but you'd think the lifespan would be the length of the contract, not their 'expected playing career' or whatever number they pull out of their asses. But really, as long as they are only screwing the government, not fans or players, I don't really care. I assume no matter what their accounting states they're generally paying players pretty promptly (Dodgers notwithstanding), I can't imagine agents being thrilled with a 15 year payment plan on a 4 year 10 million dollar deal

[Ossington Mental Youth]

The only way I see us keeping JDG is if Winter has planned for Frings to be that AM DP. If he's the guy then keeping JDG isn't as bad. But if we are going to keep playing Santos at AM and playing with two DP DMs then I think that's crazy.

yeah pretty much agree with this.
Pretty much depends on where Frings is at.

[gomesv]

Not sure what to make of this. JDG did not play well for Canada recently, and, hard to give any Canadian NT member any slack given how shitty they have been for a long time now. A good mls team would smoke the Can NT any day. I think JDG is playing as well as he can, and that is simply not very well. He was overrated for years, nobody wanted him after he left Spain, and that tells a lot about Mo's stupid scouting and team building strategy. We keep reading how he would play so much better around better players, well duh. You could say that about any player. JDG was supposed to make the players around him better, and that never happened because he was and is not better than anybody on this team, he plain stinks.

I get it if you don't like the type of money he's making...... I believe he's overpaid for his contributions..... but to go as far and say he is not better than anyone on this team and that he plain stinks makes you sound like your just complaining for the sake of compaining or you just don't understand the sport.

[69Chevy396]

I get it if you don't like the type of money he's making...... I believe he's overpaid for his contributions..... but to go as far and say he is not better than anyone on this team and that he plain stinks makes you sound like your just complaining for the sake of compaining or you just don't understand the sport.

JDG is a mediocre cm. Every mls team has a starter on their team that is better than him, who could he replace on any club but for Vancouver? He contributes nothing offensively. He does not tackle. He is easy to beat. He makes the odd nice little pass, but so what, everybody does that. Of the starters on the club right now, who is worse than him? I think I know a little about the sport, enough to know that he is a shit player

[prizby]

Israel is beautiful, but not everybody wants to live there.

depends what part of israel and whether you go by the internationally recognized israel or what the israeli's call israel


back to JDG...if he leaves, we could always make a spalsh at the centre back position...Matthew Upson is available and he keeps holding out on Wolves for the last little while...i wonder why

[Waggy]

depends what part of israel and whether you go by the internationally recognized israel or what the israeli's call israel


back to JDG...if he leaves, we could always make a spalsh at the centre back position...Matthew Upson is available and he keeps holding out on Wolves for the last little while...i wonder why

Hah. The West Bank is pretty nice in the cities. And the countryside is pretty nice too. Gaza on the other hand...

The kibbutz I was on near Haifa had the club in it that the basketball and soccer teams would frequent to on thurs/fri/sat evenings (it has a huge hip hop club inside it). I can safely say almost all the ones I used to see enjoyed their time there immensly lol.


On JDG. I dunno. I always was part of the "He's playing with WAY less talented' people, but I do have questions about the intensity (or lack there of) in his play. I certainly think the money can be better spent, and we certainly have enough people who can play his position. On the other hand if playing with more talented people makes him play like he IS worth the money then I'm all for it. Basically I want bang for my DP buck, whether thats JDG, Matrix or someone else entirely

[ag futbol]

I am by no means his biggest fan, but the XI on the pitch are better with him than without him - especially considering the technical formation Winter is using. Yes he's turned the ball over on occasion, yes he's dribbled into problems before, yes he does not have a 100% pass success rate. But if I had to pick the XI game in and game out, JDG would make the pitch every single time.

Exactly.

When the next opportunity comes to move the guy we can take it and sign a better DP, but I seriously doubt that's coming before the end of the year.

In the mean time we can all collectively hold our balls and realize that despite not playing up to the level of his salary, he's not hurting our team out there.

[Alonso]

Don't forget that asset costs (things like grass or the academy) aren't accounted for as $20 million up front on their balance sheet. It's 20 million divided by expected lifespan. Say that academy will be used for 20 years, then on their books it's a $1 million annual expenditure (plus whatever depreciation). Which isn't that much.

Say their expendatures anually are 6 mil payroll (with 3 DPs), 5 mil stadium costs (including stands, grass and taxes), 2 million academy, ?? marketing and they don't have THAT many real big expenses. It's not unreasonable for TFC to be bringing in 15 or 20 million bucks in revenue a year. In fact 5 or 10 more wouldn't surprise me either. yes thats verify simplified and yes I pulled the stadium costs thing out of my ass (does TFC pay annually for the stadium? or are they only on the hook for upkeep? if it's just upkeep we're looking at a MUCH lower number), but you get the point.

Yeah exactly.

[Roogsy]

Just crunching some quick numbers based on $40 average ticket price.

I have no idea how the profit sharing works so thats a huge unknown.

But I also think that their is absolutely no way in hell ML$E would spend Guessing Here:

$20 million on an Academy
$5 Million on grass
$15 Million on North Stands (this is out of the blue, please correct me if you know differently)
$14 Million on salaries over the 4 years

= $54 Million in spending

if they only make a few million a year say $12 Million over the last 4 years.

Not believing that for even one second. I would assume they made at least $54 Million over the last four years and probably more.

You're using expenditures to approximate revenues? Even worse, expenditures that are depreciated over a long period of time? There is no way that this can even come close to calculating team revenues.

Waggy's explanation of asset costs is actually in argument in favour of reducing estimated revenues, not increasing them.

[RedRum]

This is over-done hyperbole.

You only have to look at the game he played against Vancouver when he found Plata on the run with that 30 yard pass to set up a goal. Not many players on our team are capable of completing that pass (check Gargan on the highlight reel last game for evidence).

Anyway, I'm not thrilled with his performance here by any means but he occasionally shows moments of what he's capable of. Suspect that his injuries are more pervasive than we all suspect and he could be done playing professionally post TFC.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Alonso]

You're using expenditures to approximate revenues? Even worse, expenditures that are depreciated over a long period of time? There is no way that this can even come close to calculating team revenues.

Waggy's explanation of asset costs is actually in argument in favour of reducing estimated revenues, not increasing them.

Yeah man. I don't have access to their books.

Plus I'm also guesstimating from $40 ticket price and $20 in concessions per game.

Plus extrapolating what a company like ML$E expects for returns, and assessing if they've spent x amount then they are making pretty good y amount because on top of those expenses they ARE making a very good return.

I don't have anything to work with except conjecture, but I also have common sense that tells me that they are making significantly more then a few million per year. Much more.

[Roogsy]

Except that we have to apply basic accounting in order to even take a stab at guessing what their revenues are.

Let me put it this way. If you were to buy a $250k home, does your revenue need to be $250k per year?

No? Why not. Because the cost of that asset is spread across many years.

The same applies to all business, including sports. TFC does not need to make $20million profit per year in order to invest $20million into the team.

And the best evidence of that is 1) their franchise value and 2) how regularly they will be making such lofty investments.

How much do you want to bet there is no $20million investment in 2012? If not, by your rationale, the team would be making a multi-million dollar profit. Hardly the case considering before they even invested these figures into the team, the team declared only a $1million profit last year (or thereabouts).

I am one of the fiercest critics of MLSE, but in order to make our case to the team about how they should be managed, we really have to use reasonable estimations of their financial situation.

Now...if you mis-stated your post and meant to indicate that you think their revenues pre-expenses were $20million, I'd understand. But straight profit? TFC's revenues would be massive. And TFC would be worth well north of $100million, and it most certainly is not. Considering seasons tickets, concessions and television contracts, there is no way TFC's revenue come even close.

[Empirical]

De Guz is a great player. He has not yet lived up to expectations, but we are stronger with him. Lets quit the bitching and making him feel bad!

This Isreali striker stud looks good tho!

[Mikey]

I highly doubt he is going to Isreal, I think they got excited before realising we have the other deguzman.....

[English Rachel]

Good riddance. Please just go.

If only he had read my letter (the one that got deleted), perhaps he would have taken note....

What a big fat waste of energy and money. After Jack and I championed for him to be here, to identifying his lacklustre approach to being a TFC player, I have now come to truly despise him.

He won't go in for challenges, he loses possession ALL THE TIME and I will never forgive him for jumping OUT OF THE WAY of the on-target free kick that he was part of the wall for.... he's made it clear from the start that he doesn't want to be here and his play has shown the same.

All this talk of him not being able to adapt to the slower pace or lower skill level of his teammates and opponents is astonishing after all this time...

Rant over.

[Pookie]

Considering seasons tickets, concessions and television contracts, there is no way TFC's revenue come even close.

I agree and with the fact that TFC is an Owner-Operator, not Owner, I wonder aloud how much flexibility we really have from the league to spend, spend spend.

This is a profit sharing league. If TFC spends beyond its means, the Owner (MLS) and the rest of the Owner/Operators (Franchise Investors) suffer. Do we really have the league's support in chasing very expensive DPs?

Of course, the Owner might decide that a playoff bound TFC offers more potential for revenue than say a NE (who average 5,000 playoff tickets sold).

It's a very interesting question to me. They need to protect our revenue stream, whatever it is. To do that there needs to be a limit on spending and assured revenues.

That's why I always go back to the notion that we shouldn't be lobbying MLSE for lower ticket prices, we should be hitting the league with the view that the long term stability of the franchise's revenue stream is in jeopardy given the pricing policies.

[Oldtimer]

That's why I always go back to the notion that we shouldn't be lobbying MLSE for lower ticket prices, we should be hitting the league with the view that the long term stability of the franchise's revenue stream is in jeopardy given the pricing policies.

Very good point. It was Garber that worked out things when they blew up last fall and proposed the "free game" solution. MLS is well aware that ML$E messed up what was a sterling franchise off the field.

[Davenport]

I hope he's leaving. Every dollar give to him has been a waste.

[Oldtimer]

On the plus side, Torsten Frings once again led the team superbly and was involved throughout. The German had 119 touches in the game, significantly more than any other player on the pitch. His reading of the game and distribution continue to impress. Julian de Guzman also shone following his introduction into the match off the bench in the second half. It was great to see de Guzman finally get off the mark with his first goal for the club, but he also had an extremely impressive 96% success rate with his passing.

http://www.tsn.ca/blogs/luke_wileman/?id=373437

first time I saw that stat.

Are we finally seeing the la liga Julian?

[ManUtd4ever]

JDG was definitely a bright spot for TFC on Saturday. Hopefully, his performance was not an aberration.

[Ageroo]

http://www.tsn.ca/blogs/luke_wileman/?id=373437

first time I saw that stat.

Are we finally seeing the la liga Julian?

let's hope so.....

[Ossington Mental Youth]

he definitely had a great game, only question is will he be able to keep it up.

[Ageroo]

he definitely had a great game, only question is will he be able to keep it up.

We shall see....if his TFC form keeps up, then I would say no....lol... let's just hope this goal may be the kick in the pants he needs.

To me it seems like Winter is giving him more freedom to let loose shots on net....every game since his return he seems to be making attempts on goal. The previous incarnation of Julian didn't seem like he wanted to shoot at all.

[Pachuco]

I don't know. We have so many other wholes to plug that it would be silly to keep him around after the season even if he can play like the old JDG could. Fact of the matter is he's not versatile at all, and so having two DPs in the same position is kinda silly if you ask me. His time ran out once Frings was brought in in my opinion.

BTW - JDG's had games like the 30mins he had on Saturday. His problem is consistently playing at that level. So I wouldn't say just because he had a good 30 minutes that we are seeing the JDG of old. We are just seeing the same old JDG if you know what I mean

I am glad he finally popped one in the net for us though. maybe that inspires some confidence and he plays like he can the rest of the season. We sure could use him in the CCL.