I don't care how much you like Ecks or O'Dea. You can't pay defenders 400K in this league. Nobody does.
Payne/Nelsen inherited this cap situation, they didn't cause it.
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff
agreed ....as nice a guy as he is he is too expensive and too predictable..........I was hoping this year he would settle in and use his head more than his ?, aggressiveness , which is how a smart footballer always beats him...simply by letting him over-react. But I do concur that I wdon't want to dump heartlessly a old stalwart simply for a cheaper one. Would love it if he simply took a pay cut.
ALL HELL'S BROKEN LOOSEhttp://gfycat.com/SharpKindArrowana
Why didnt we make a move for agudelo.......?!?!!?
I know a guy who runs a Premier League fantasy footy podcast who lives in Australia. He follows the A-League pretty closely.
On Twitter I asked him tonight what he thought the kind of player Jeremy Brockie will be for TFC. Below is his 140 character (in this case less) response:
Lighting fast & tricky, but lazy off the ball. A player you want when you're winning, not when you are up against it.
Thought I would share his insight.
I'm a kiwi who supports the Wellington Phoenix and follows the A-league pretty religiously.
Brockie is a good player who's getting better every year. He started his resurgence at the now defunct North Queensland Fury and continued with the Newcastle Jets - most were surprised that Newcastle didn't push harder to keep him when he came to us.
He's known in the A-League for scoring pretty ridiculous goals out of nothing - he's not exactly a goal poacher. He does however have a very laid-back temperament which can be hugely frustrating at times - I'm expecting you guys to get a little annoyed while watching him. I wouldn't say he's 'lazy' as such; just the way he plays means that you won't notice him tracking back very often.
However, he basically carried us goals-wise this season; almost winning the golden boot despite the fact we were atrocious all season. That points to the fact that he can still do well in a struggling team, which may suit TFC. I think he'll work well under Nelsen as they will already have a great understanding after being in many, many New Zealand camps together over the years.
Think it's a good stop-gap pick-up for you. Have been following your results and it seems like you're lacking a bit of depth - your first 11 looks good but after that it drops off badly. Think that Brockie will help with this - having another natural goal scorer in your squad can't be a bad thing.
He sounds like a younger Hassli, which is ok. We just need an alternative to Earnshaw, and really - if this guy can score the long distance, and Earnshaw is just a goal poacher and nips in on mistakes, then that's probably a good pairing.
Also from the Phoenix here re Brockie, wouldn't say he's lightening fast or a dribbler type tbh. He's more a frustrating natural talent with great striking technique (finisher + spectacular shot) that has been applying himself better in the last few seasons and is developing nicely. Some of his goals are quite prodigious, but he goes in and out of games as mentioned and seems to be able to score from winger or striker but needs to bring others in more.
The leagues are prob closer in level than you think, though the MLS has a few years more development and a greater scale. We have our washed up euro superstars just like you (Brockie scored more than the big 1 Del Piero) and defending is okay - our CB boxall was ex 20 caps in Vancouver and couldn't get a run in Wellington last season (prob should of tho), and the NZ CB Boyens is a travelled MLS journeyman and couldn't get near our national team after his first few efforts. (Its difficult to apply examples like tho as there are many factors - but we aren't far off and sometimes pay more by the looks of your salaries...)
Brockie will be an interesting watch GL to you all from NZ will be watching you guys with hope this year. Here are his goals from the year before the other video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM82dAsX0KM
Last edited by Luneburg; 05-07-2013 at 10:54 PM.
Brockie bringing his groupies along with him?
just kidding, thanks for the input guys!
Don't worry - us kiwis know exactly how you feel. We endured 2 failed franchises before comparatively successful Wellington was created. (though not this season, obviously!)
Pretty impressed that you still get 20k to show up most weeks.
Pretty sure Boxall has 20 appearances in three years but only a few emergency starts; he was a supplemental draft pick who didn't stick with the team. Same sort of story with Andy Boyens who we had at TFC; he's not an MLS journeyman, his MLS career was a total failure. Neither showed the ability, at any time, to be able to compete in MLS.
And having watched A-League and MLS, I'd say the latter is noticeably stronger. A-League is more like MLS in 1997. Neither is knocking on the top leagues' doors, mind you. There are days when both leagues look as bad as the English conference and days when they have two teams that look like they could compete in the Championship. Ditto with Greece, Scotland, Sweden and most other b-level professional football. Some days good, some days bad.
I really hope moving a natural CB who by all accounts has lost a step this last season the LB is not why Caldwell was brought in. He's an upgrade over what we have now at CB - I really hope that is the reason.
To put it even more bluntly, our team for part of last year (prior to Nelsen) actually held the record as the worst professional footy team in the world. That's a degree of ineptitude that is monumental.
Hope you Kiwis can enjoy following our team. Also we hope that Nelsen can work miracles.
Last edited by Oldtimer; 05-08-2013 at 08:27 AM.
MLS is a tough, physical league, that emphasizes speed, and features plastic fields, grueling travel, extreme weather, and incompetent refs. - NK Toronto
This link was posted elsewhere in the forum: http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/...n%20Loan/66774
But it brings up an interesting point in that the GM of the team feels the A-League off-season is too long (some have expressed that opinion about MLS too) and in a sense, a partnership between TFC and Wellington would make sense to resolve that problem (for those who agree it is one).
The two leagues play during each other's off-season. Brockie is obviously a top player for them. Wellington can loan us a top player or two in their off-season to expose them to higher level play. TFC in return can loan a squad player or two in our off-season in order to get them competitive game time that the reserve league doesn't really provide as much. Both leagues are salary-capped so there's not really cap-management issues (we can fit Wellington higher salaried players due to bigger cap and TFC squad players make less and would fit in better with the lower A-league cap) supposing the lending team doesn't pick up the tab entirely.
I could go and on but it seems to me there's a lot of potential in such a relationship. Thoughts?
Any opportunity for an off season loan is a good thing.
I would be surprised if he switched but then again TFC is hardly spoiled for choice. Caldwell captained bcfc under hughton in there playoff campaign last season as cb. He has EPL experience with other clubs like Wigan and was reportedly key in burnleys promotion campaign.
I believe his play came under fire this season as suggested in an earlier post and has been stuck on the bench. Hopefully that has given him time to become rejuvenated.
In an odd twist with a TFC connection he has lost his place in the centre to Paul Robinson who bcfc signed on 1 month rolling contracts in the fall last year after he spent some time training with tfc. Robbo came on as fullback and has made the switch to CB and earned a 1 year contract for next season. Lets hope this happens for Caldwell!
It does indeed. However, the GM of Wellington clearly expects Brockie to come back so it pre-supposes the existence of a gentleman's agreement that TFC will not exercise its option to buy. It theoretically could, but then would be a pariah of a team worldwide (or at least in MLS and in the eyes of Wellington). Brockie seems to be a good player for Wellington and may turn out to be good as well with TFC, but it's still not the sort of player on which you'd want to ruin your reputation. Or alternatively, the two teams could agree on an exorbitant fee (such as $10 million, way in excess of any real market value) that TFC would never pay in order to satisfy the "option to buy" that MLS mandates and re-assure Wellington that it will get its player back.
The league approves all deals. I could certainly see TFC sliding a gentleman's agreement around here and there, but the league is going to catch on if it becomes a common practice I'd think.
That said, I wonder if the league would be opposed to such a partnership with a league like the A-League. The whole loan with option to buy thing, as I understand it is to prevent MLS clubs from partnering with a much better club and bringing in a bunch of high quality players on the cheap. Imagine if City's owners do buy a club in NY and decide they wanted to loan out a bunch of EPL quality players to that team on $55k/year. That's a very different use case than what you outlined.
“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
So I'm assuming cuts are imminent, or will the club magically come up with more international spots?
^ I'm assuming the same thing, Koevs is not far away from coming back too.