Doms a troll. I'm guessing he's coming back to KC to work on house issues. They changed realtors about a month back and the signs been saying "coming soon" ever since they switched.
I’m at the point that I can’t begin to offer a solution to our woes. We are just miserably bad from top to bottom. I’m wondering if we need to preemptively start a #savethelions campaign.
There’s honestly not many players I’d keep. I think we have to be willing to let Larin and Rivas walk as well. And I personally don’t want Ramos, Hines, Aja, Carrasco, Barnes, or Johnson to return. Build around Yoshi, Dwyer, Powers, Redding, and Bendik. Then fire whoever the hell is in charge of recruiting. Yoshi is the only good move we made this year. I’m not ready to call Dwyer a good move yet but I have faith in him if he stays.
Had a lot of time yesterday watching a completely uninspired and frankly one of the most unprofessional I have ever seen. Iam huge believer in xG (expected goals) will tell you a lot about a team or player if you include the eye test. Here is a good explanation of xG for those who do not know. I use that site for MLS data since it is one of the few free sites around that publish the data. http://www.americansocceranalysis.com/explanation/ Before yesterday; We had a 37.85xg (38 actual goals) and a 46.12xg against (50 allowed). It will probably be even worst after yesterday. The attack was exactly as expected. The defense was a little hard done but still close enough over the data sample to be as expected. We were who the numbers say we were. It really showed yesterday if you were watching the ESPN coverage and then watch us play. We are lack any type of explosive athletic movement in our squad. we might be the most unathletic (agility, speed, strength, and quickness) in the league. That has to change with any new additions to the squad. Here is what I would do with the roster in its current state by position. Goalkeeper - Bendik is the #1 and will continue next season. He regressed this year back to what he is; a good serviceable MLS keeper that requires a defensive unit in front to be success. Edwards Jr. is a fine backup and yesterday got hung out which should not have any bearing on his status with the team next season. Defense - The lack of depth here and the revolving door at CB hurt. Spector is the clear leader and should be partnered with Redding from day 1 next season. Sutter is good enough to be a starter at RB but needs someone to push him. Toia should be relegated to the backup spot. Aja, Hines, Alston, and Ramos should be sent packing. Piereira can be a backup/OCB until he puts on the necessary weight and strength to be a central defender in this league. Needs: Starting LB that can run the wing for 90mins getting in crosses and defend and 2 dependable backup CBs. Defensive and Central Midfield - Yoshi was a nice welcome addition. A healthy (thats a big ask) Higuita could be a very good central midfielder. Outside of those two the rest can go especially Nocerino who is on a huge salary and not returning enough to justify it. Maybe now that his BFF is gone; he will leave as well. Powers did nothing for me and would not be missed if he left. Johnson needs to go for the off the field stuff. Club has lots of good will with the community and this black eye should have been gone. I love Layera and think he will see much more playing time next season. He has the physical skill set to be a very good player. Needs: A true defensive midfielder that can be a destroyer and protector of the back 4. Attacking Midfield - Kaka leaving will open the alpha dog spot for someone to come in and take it. There are loads of options out there if ownership is willing to spend the Kaka money. We need someone that is willing to defend along with working hard to make chances. The young kid Da Silva is still 2-3 years away from being ready to take on the role. Needs: A dynamic creative player that can take over matches on a regular basis. Forwards - Larin is gone. It is Dom line to lead. If we are going to play 2 up top going forward; he needs a target man partner. Rivas and Barnes can leave. Needs: Target man partner for Dom and capable backups that bring qualities to be super subs. Overall We are going to have at least 2 DPs and hopefully all 3 available. Who knows with the whole TAM stuff. The options are there to blow it up and rebuild. They must move quick to get it to work.
Guess I need to take a longer look at Laryea. I agree with everything else. It truly pisses me off to see teams finish below us one year, make wholesale changes, and finish well above us. Meanwhile, we trip on our own dicks to say “this takes time”. This league is NOT THAT STRONG. We should be able to make the changes in one year to become competitive.
I mean...Atlanta proved that. This league isn't restricted by having the best players already on other teams. You can go get guys somewhere to be better. Period.
OCSC should have at least one DP spots available with Kaka almost sure to be gone. I would assume OCSC can get out of the Rivas deal since it has been 3 years, but buying downing it down with TAM is not difficult since it is barely a DP contract anyway. This gives you two DP spot. Sell Larin and get TAM from the sale in return because Larin + Dwyer isn't too much overlap. They also need TAM giving up too much of it to SKC, but that ship has sailed. They only players that I would lock in on are Bednik, Spector, Redding, Yotun and Dwyer. I am sure a couple of other players will be keep like Sutter and Higuita that can contribute at an OK starters, but nothing special. They really need another CB because Redding is more of a 2B or 3rd option to me right now and Spector can't go a whole season. They don't have to get a #10, but they need a creative engine as well. They also need a LB.
They need to use those 2 DP spots perfectly and things will be greatly improved. It seems that Yotun is the 3rd DP. I thought Rochez was still tying that up. Redding made huge leaps last off season. Hoping for a similar one this year especially with someone like Spector to mentor. I was incorrect about Pereira who is on season long loan. Meh he can go back.
You can do it, but OCSC screwed up their DPs royally out the gate and have stuck worse than those other teams especially Atlanta who got to build from scratch and got more TAM/GAM in place of a more expansion draft picks. The TAM/GAM is way more valuable than 5 more expansion draft picks. Also more TAM/GAM now than in 2015, so teams have more ability to craft a roster at this point than in 2015, so it is way easier to start up and get rolling as an expansion squad. Kaka was DP level for most of 2015, but then injured or barely an above-average MLS starter in 2016 and 2017 when healthy. Carlos Rivas is not even starter level in MLS Bryan Rochez is closer to a PDL level player than MLS They were basically stuck with 2 of the 3 for 3 years, which limited their rebuilding cards. Now that they should have 2 of 3 DPs off the board as well as some GAM/TAM they can do a almost complete rebuild and they need it. They got to hit though on both DPs. They need one to be in the Almiron, Martinez, Villa, Piatti tier on one of them. They other needs to be in the next tier below it in terms of impact. Pair that with Yotun and that is 3 quality DPs. You got to hit on at least 2 of 3 plus do some solid TAM/GAM work to be top-tier.
Rivas and Rochez were obvious shit players since they arrived. Everyone knew it but the front office. The Rochez deal especially has been baffling. We had ball boys that were better than him. If we go and sign 2 DPs that can even be spoken in the same breath as Piatti or Almiron, I’ll be over the moon. Just imagining having 2 10 goal players somewhere on the squad, along with Dom. I hope they are hitting the ground running on this rebuild.
There is a Brazilian midfielder that is out of contract in the summer that anyone would love to have. No chance we could get him because he would likely end up at NYC to replace Pirlo due to his club connection. A name to watch is Lucas Lima from Santos. He is out of contract at the end of the term and would be a huge get.
Rochez went off after the 2016 season. I believe Rochez was a Young DP, so there was more flexibility there and his salary was not high anyway. At some point in 2016, Martias Perez Garcia became the 3rd DP. Then prior to 2017 Brek Shea was the 3rd DP and was traded for Giles Barnes who became the 3rd DP. Orlando then bought Barnes down with TAM and Yotun became the 3rd DP. TAM become part of the MLS equation in mid-2015 when MLS introduced it so Galaxy could buy down Omar Gonzalez and bring in Giovanni Dos Santos during the middle of the season. The TAM allows teams to shuffle DPs between players unless they make more than $1 Mil, so basically OCFC has done that with their DPs the last 2 years. Kaka made over $1 Million, so he couldn't be bought down. Really OCFC didn't have all that much flexibility until prior to this season with the added TAM/GAM, but was stuck with Kaka and other high salary players who would take a lot of GAM/TAM to buy down anyway. Now entering 2018, the should have a lot of DPs and GAM/TAM coming off the books, so can do an actual rebuild.
This couple of sentences right here is what is wrong with MLS roster rules. It is we are just making up as we go along. If you want to have fun; look at Paul Tenorio's twitter header photo. It is directly from the MLS rulebook.
I don't have a ton of faith in the FO though as really what have the done to inspire any confidence. They basically traded Dom Dwyer + $1 Million in TAM for Kevin Molino when Larin + Molino > Larin + Dwyer. They will then probably sell Larin and get ~$600 TAM back, so basically traded Dwyer + $400K TAM for Larin + Molino + some amount of cash. Not exactly, but basically. I know people in Orlando really like Dwyer, but Dwyer needs to be your 4th or 5th best player to have a good team and that is a lot to give up. Also has to have somebody creating for him as Dwyer doesn't create anything on his own. Just a tenacious garbage man type and Orlando has nobody to create for him. Neither does Larin, but Larin is a better finisher. Why the two don't work well together. Hard to play with two poachers up top who can't create. Got to nail their DPs. Like 1 Top 10 player in league and 1 Top 30 player in league. Could spend half of Kaka's salary on transfer fees plus salary though and have a good chance to land both, so that is a positive for Orlando.
He was involved in the deal that we took Sao Paulo to court over because they owed us money for the Kaka loan. Iam sure that Sao Paulo is ready to talk to us again..... Oh wait he is at Sevilla. Nevermind
Chatted with one of the folks I trust on Brazil news and he has not heard/seen anything in Brazil about Ganso interest in MLS.
The contract options for goalkeeper Josh Saunders; defenders Seb Hines and Conor Donovan; midfielders Antonio Nocerino, Servando Carrasco and Dillon Powers; and forwards Giles Barnes and Hadji Barry were not exercised by the Club.
GK Earl Edwards, Jr.; Ds Rafael Ramos and Tommy Redding; MFs Cristian Higuita and Tony Rocha; and Fs Dom Dwyer, Cyle Larin and Carlos Rivas had their contract options for the 2018 season exercised
So the depth chart reads like this at the moment. GK: Bendik, Edwards, and Mason RB: Sutter and Ramos CB: Spector, Redding, and Aja LB: Toia and PC CM: Higuita, Johnson, Yoshi, Laryea, Rocha Attackers: Larin (for now), Dom, Rivas, and Da Silva There is a huge roster overhaul. With just Kaka and Nocerino off the books that is over 50% of the wage budget. Throw in Barnes leaving too and probably pushes that number to 60-65% of wage budget removed.
I would expect some of those who's option was not picked up to have a new contract with the club. In order from most confident getting a new deal with the club. Barnes, Sev, Powers, Hines, Barry, Donovan, and Saunders
He still has transfer value. A half way decent offer and he can fuck off back to Colombia to be never heard from again until he somehow shows in a Copa Sudamericana match still blazing shots out of the stadium. We all will laugh and go oh Carlos we remember those well.
This club gives us zero reason to be excited. I’m truly not enjoying this ride, but fuck it. I like Orlando and I like purple.
Sitting around and doing fuck all to address any issues while our nearest rival is out signing a player that we should have been all over. I will be an alcoholic if I drink it all in and "enjoy" it.
I guess if I looked at it like “You could have no NFL team or the Browns” I could understand where you’re coming from. My apologies. Carry on.
Its all good. I am still salty after seeing Atlanta making that move. Even more after last night watching Barco run the Sud final 1st leg as an 18 year old. Spoiler FUCK PRECOURT
Hey look more pictures and bullshit on social media. Not even a single fucking rumor of a signing. Meanwhile everyone else is out doing things.
You guys signed Dom to a 3 year extension. He still hasn’t been able to sell his house in KC poor guy.
OCB a no-go in 2018. Rumored and then disputed, but now official. Pierre da Silva that only real worthwhile player on that team anyway. Should be on OCA anyway.
Lindley signed today. He is probably the best college prospect with the most upside in my opinion and as a HGP doesn't count against the cap.
Peak MLS just keeps getting peakier. Trading fake money for a player who counts as homegrown without ever playing a single second with the club at any level. More and more just blow it up. It's like they all get really high and come up with new rules.
Ugh, fuck you guys. We gave you Collin. We gave you Dom. Now you take my Meram and my Uri. Uri is amazing. Was the best holding mid in the league when Sporting CP took him.
Soooo after all our moves I have no idea what to expect this season, which I suppose is better than outright dread.
I want to but dammit, it’s not a good time for me to make a trip to Orlando. I’m aiming for one game this season.