Genk has behaved throughout as though they have a strong legal hand. They are just saying: do it on our terms, or see you in court.
That's always been the question - did the player have the right to negotiate a February release?
If they are bluffing, the player has to call the bluff. TFC won't, that was always my guess and is now clear.
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
But if they feel that strongly about their position, why are they negotiating at all? Do they want the money? Or the glory? Fans prefer the glory....
Manning etc really have egg on their faces at this point. The team has been significantly weakened and they look like they don’t know what they are doing. If they get Poz, it will be forgotten to some degree - but only if the team is decent. And that requires wingers and a RB. Oh for Hasler and Raheem....
They want more than 8M. Seems pretty obvious to me. Genk is saying, sure, it's 8M in the summer, but if you want to wreck our team's league and EL runs now, it's more.
Genk are willing to risk Pozo doing this Law of 78 thing, because it means you are blackballed and have to go to China (I find this part of the story to be really interesting - sounds like the whole world football industry is in restraint of trade or similar on the blackballing around this point). Pozo might sue everyone in sight here, if wants to be Bosman Jr. He would have a point on the face of it.
Manning has no move really. Can’t go back to the board, can’t do a deal. Suspect I was wrong and it won’t happen, at least not now. This kabuki was really all about smoothing things over between the Belgian League and MLS, in the end. TFC put Pozo to the sword by participating in that ultimatum to Pozo today. Suspect that part of it was important to the Belgians.
Pozo bears some responsibility here. Players listen to their agents too much.
So we are free to move on, but probably have pretty thin pickings at this point.
We might do this for $8M in the summer, in the end. If Pozo isn’t totally pissed with us.
Last edited by ensco; 02-21-2019 at 12:31 PM.
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
We have put ourselves in quite the position, and its more likely than not you are right that we lost this one. Letting Seba and VV go without a certain replacement is a bit like selling your house before you have bought another - your negotiating position weakens dramatically as the deadline gets closer.
I still think that the club honestly thought Seba & VV would be here - you don't prep THAT much for something that is unlikely to happen now. The Seba thing could have been gamed out before hand but how many MLS clubs go into that much detail about the what ifs? They had a list of who if but didn't think about the when being this time.
Agree re VV.
Disagree re Seba. That was a bad own goal.
I argued all last year that the Seba schmozzle was inevitable, others did too. Anyone who follows Europe knows that guys don't just play out their deals. It literally never happens unless the player is retiring, or his value has fallen far below what he is being paid.
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
Well if the Poz deal falls through then I say stay the course and leave the roster as is minus a few small tweaks or loans until 2020 to take advantage of whatever the new CBA allows. No knee jerk signings to make supporters happy.
Poz is guaranteed in summer, Genk can't stop that. Personally since we've one foot put of the CCL I see no reason not to wait as a last resort rather than try get someone else in a panic, the only factor is they may worry about huge revenue drops if they don't have a DP to point too. But from a pure footballing eprspective, we'd be better off getting TAM in now and adding Poz in summer
Pozuelo is starting today, for what that's worth.
It me
$2K to watch a rebuild sounds just peachy
Screw that, I want some indication of intent to compete - and right now there's no evidence.
I can bear trashing CCL, which in itself is pretty disappointing - but as soon as the three roster holes opened up (I'm including vdW because I had counted him in with Moor/Ciman and Mavinga in the back 3) it became clear that making a run was not an option.
But I don't rate this single knockout playoff structure as being any fun unless you've got home games - which is a roundabout way of saying you've got to challenge for the shield anyway - and throwing away March to June is not very palatable to me.
Rebuild has to happen sometime and soon.
Team is too slow and papering over a few positions isn't going to get it done. We need some 2011/12 record player movement type stuff happening and hope for a DC United type second half. Tossing band aids on this probably won't help enough and might ruin 2020/21 depending on CBA.
call it what you want,but i think its a minor rebuild already.i think we need 4 or 5 new players to compete.LW.RW,AM,RB.keeper.
No, he’s retiring. He was at PSG as a sort of stopgap after Motta retired, because they couldn’t get anyone else. He basically did it as a sweetheart retire and join the club off the field kind of deal.
He’s not going anywhere and he’s slower than molasses and was barely fit enough to play while at PSG.
Genk are going out of Europa League if they don't score two goals in 35 minutes.
The keeper looked so bad on both Prague goals that he has been pulled, NHL style
Last edited by ensco; 02-21-2019 at 04:23 PM.
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
I wonder what impact (if any) it could have on Pozo negotiations if Genk are out of Europa League.
OK Genk need 3 goals in 27 minutes.
Genk and TFC really are cosmically linked it seems.
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
Genk is out folks, right now is 3-1 for Prague.
Haha, Short Bradley at it again! 1-4 Prague.