I find it baffling they haven't made Masai the CEO of MLSE already, there isn't a more perfect candidate. He was being hunted a few years ago by English clubs if I'm not mistaken.Originally Posted by Mr. Inbetween
Great person who knows sports, what the fans want, the corporate environment, and can deal with a challenging board of Bell/Rogers.
regarding muilula, interesting comparison could be made to hlongwane from the south african league who signed for minnesota.
he didn't pull up any trees in his first MLS season, after appearing mostly from the bench only 6 g/a in 1600 mins.
(funnily enough this is still a better rate than the average g/a he was getting in the south african league prior to the transfer)
this year however he's made the step up to starter and has 8 goals an 2 assists in a little under 2k mins, which is quite impressive.
Yep. If this goes through we need to look at this move under the lens of a prospect as opposed to a “ready to produce right away” type of player.
Hopefully management is smart (laughing as I write that) enough to position him as such with the fanbase rather than everyone look at him as our goal scoring saviour.
luckily the season (in terms of the league) is largely over so we can use it to bed him in and he can hopefully hit ground running in 2024.
Luckily he'll probably be stepping right in to replace Bernardeschi so goals, assists, & chance creation aren't expected anymore anyway.
sad but true
But can he vape on the plane?
I guess I have absolutely no idea but… colour me skeptical (not cynical) on the idea that (i) we have the ability to scout and sign a South African U22, and (ii) that this player wants to come here, as we are a joke with no vision or management right now. What happens when this guy sees the Ibarra quotes?
Toronto FC has literally never moved a young player up in its existence- not since Edu, anyway.
I'll believe it when I see it.
Last edited by ensco; 07-18-2023 at 11:41 AM.
"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
This is a crapshoot at best.
If it works out, Hernandez looks like a genius.
If it doesn’t, few will be surprised.
I think you analyze everything as a fan rather than a player. For this guy, he probably sees it as a move up to a better league, in a better & safer country, and with better pay. That's the main thing here. He has the ability to be seen on a larger stage. Prior to yesterday I never heard of that team and mostly nobody else in the world has either. People know MLS and more people will be watching it now than ever before.
Also as for our run of misery it's not for lack of resources, which is important. We spend money and we have infrastructure. We just have nobody smart enough to make the right choices with that money. As for the Ibarra comments, sure we haven't sold anyone off on an upgrade since Edu but we also didn't have whatever millions of people buying Apple MLS Season Pass to see Messi either. More attention means more opportunity to be noticed and when you're coming from somewhere like he is, that matters.
I think you raise good points but I don’t think ENSCO’s entirely wrong either. In the player’s shoes, one of my big questions would be “what can you do to advance my career?”
And with TFC management being completely in flux it’s hard to take anything you hear seriously.
But if the money’s good, maybe he views MLS as a better stepping stone to Europe than Saudi or one of those other leagues. My guess is South African footballers aren’t yet a hot commodity so he’s not generating the interest his agent might hope. So he’s looking at odd options rather than going to a common football finishing school like Porto or the like…
The benefit of going to a team in flux (to be nice to us) is that he will start or get decent minutes and he probably wouldn't be promised that elsewhere, at least not right away. Plus there's some new player in Miami that is bringing some extra attention to the league so maybe he sees value in that too.
Yeah but again, who is making that promise of playing time and what is their job security? The faces in management here could be changing quickly.
On Masai
Rogers boy hates him and tried to get him fired 2 years ago.
Fair enough to be skeptical if past is prologue. TFC have limited to no ability to to scout and sign a SA U22. IMO, this is a MU initiative via his Giants of Africa, international circle of friends, connect with Mamelodi Sundowner FC Billionaire owner and CAF President Dr. Patrice Motsepe; a recommendation or bone being thrown. IIUC, SA standard of living is not exciting and their violent crime rate is one of the highest in the world. Probably, Toronto/FC is an opportunity for him to just 'get out of Dodge', as well as, a stepping stone to better economic opportunity? BTW, there seems to be a pipeline to MLS emerging. The Union just signed an opponent of Muilula from Stellenbosch FC as an U22; defender Olwethu Makhanya.
Hernandez is making that claim and based on our roster after Bernardeschi leaves, who else do we even have of any use to start there? That really doesn't really rely on the job security of who is in power but moreso that we have minimal offensively talented players on our roster currently and by the time he arrives we'll probably have none. Unless he turns out to be total shit, he will get minutes.
He has 15 goals in 31 games this season and a good highlight reel. That's their scouting. MLS has had three other South African players do well in the last eighteen months, so they're seeing it as a comparable league in terms of talent.
So it's a crapshoot, but one in which the kid in question has already demonstrated publicly that he has some skill.
Sometimes, I think these conversations are grossly overcomplicated. If a player has no proof-of-value, because they haven't produced much where they are, it's very difficult to predict just on perceived skill how he'll do.
If a player has 15 goals in 31 games in a professional league, and they've seen tape, they have a pretty good idea of what they're getting.
The intangibles in situations like this are mostly character based. Is he easy to get along with? Will he fuck up the locker room? Will being in a tougher league crush his spirit?
That part is the crapshoot. Less so if you have agent/scout contacts in the country who can assess them properly, but still a crapshoot.
I still think we might see a second forward signing. I think they see this guy as a striker, based on his reel, not a winger. But he's also only 22 and has one year as a full-time pro (although local reporters said he's been in the team's youth system for nine years).
Have I missed something? One rumor out of Bologna does not, to me, indicate anything. I mean common sense would be to cut that tie as soon as possible, given how toxic the dude seems to be and how he's faded. But maybe they're not going anywhere.
That Edward Rogers, he is so different than anyone on the Bell side of things when it comes to MLSE , guess that is the reality of being a family fun company. I assume if Bell and Larry wanted Masai as president they could plot a way to get it done. I have always thought there was a path to him getting it, just really depends on the direction MLSE wanted to go with the hire.
Remember The Man, The Legend, The Goal 5-12-07 and All That #9 Left On The Pitch, Thanks For The Memories !!!
Nothing more than internet rumblings etc, nothing legit on Berna's future and what it might entail has not be discussed, suggested in any legitimate media channels.
Remember The Man, The Legend, The Goal 5-12-07 and All That #9 Left On The Pitch, Thanks For The Memories !!!
a bunch of fairly mainstream outlets were reporting mutual interest from berna and bologna.
doesn't mean anything gets done as salary could be a stumbling block, but there's been lots of smoke.
Probably most of the noise is being driven by their agents so they probably want out very badly. Not sure both can get done but I think they'll do what they can to dump Bernardeschi. Seems like Hernandez wants all the "bad" guys in the Athletic article out and I would too.
Just to be clear, "Having watched him play a few times in CAF Champions League games" is code for "I've never heard of this fucking guy in my life, but anonymity makes me brave."
Fair, he plays out of necessity at this point.
Wouldn't be so sure, that account is pretty encyclopedic and also has been incredibly critical of the club.
Isn't CAF on fubo?
No, it's not.
I'm pretty sure. That account has never broken anything that wasn't out 10 mins earlier on google news or twitter. Unless he happens to be from the same town in South Africa and getting games by some sort of subscription, I see no way he could possibly have "watched him play a few times".
There ARE however highlights from his Champions League games on youtube.
They're not very impressive; in fact, the reason I posted that OTHER highlight reel was because I'd seen the aforementioned already and he looked unimpressive, but the highlight reel of his OTHER appearances in the league was quite good.
Last edited by jloome; 07-18-2023 at 02:25 PM.
it is on fubo, via bein sports, i just checked, so would be pretty easily accessible.
some people love football and watch as much as physically possible. not my thing, but some people do it.
and it's an aggregator not a journalist.
The other thing is the equation changes so so much on this kind of signing
You sign an elite level Italian winger on 14m a season, you pretty much can't afford to fail, ever. And you also guarantee you'll never get a penny back on resale, so they better deliver all of their value on the field and sell alot of jerseys and tickets off it. No ifs ands or buts, it's succeed by dominating the league or have it be branded a complete failure
You sign a young dp at low wages who, if he succeeds, has resale value which could cover the expense of signing a few of them? A 20% success rate is probably enough to make the whole thing break even between potential money you recoup over the long term and improved on field performances vs expense and cap/roster spot hit
Crapshoot is a vague term but if you can get to a point where you think this kind of signing works out even around 1 out of 3 or just under 1 out of 2 times, you've actually struck gold.
You can't assess these as one offs, or decide if it's good or bad based on if one person fails or not. You need a large sample and to accept that many will fail and many will be 'just okay' and that's perfectly fine for this strategy
To be clear, I've absolutely no idea whatsoever if this is a good signing, or a signing being made on a sound basis, or not. It might be a Bill Manning Transfermarkt special and very very poorly thought out. I've no clue. But the way we assess these signings should be night and day vs say a traditional DP
Last edited by JoesphNdo; 07-18-2023 at 02:39 PM.
I still don't believe him. "I just happened to be watching a South African club team on an app that has dozens of football matches and...I also just happen to be a TFC aggregator and... I also just happened to notice how good this guy was, despite him not actually doing anything in that tournament... and..."
Yeah whatever. He's full of shit, would be my take. But I'm a cynic.
Also, a lot of the stuff on Fubo, including beIn and One Soccer, is not easy to find.
The sub channels aren't listed in their daily soccer schedule, you have to know they're on and look for them. I just spent two years watching Fubo almost daily and never noticed African league games, ever. And I partly grew up in Angola, so I WOULD take an interest.
So again, unless he's South African, I don't believe him.
I don't think he'd seen him before, and I don't believe TFC "noticed" or "scouted" him. They look continually at statistics from multiple leagues and have online databases that are sub only and more up to date than transfermarket. They saw 15 goals in 31 this year and that was their scouting, I believe.
Last edited by jloome; 07-18-2023 at 02:35 PM.
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