MLS Offseason 2018-19: #SavedTheCrew

Titans Bastard

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Why does everything about the MLS in Austin move have to be drenched in douchiness?

Jeff Rueter
@jeffrueter


"Thank you, Anthony Precourt, not just for bringing MLS to Austin, but for *the way* you brought MLS to Austin." - Steve Adler, Mayor

Yikes. #MLS2ATX
 

Titans Bastard

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Josef Martinez has signed a five-year contract extension with Atlanta. That's big news for them. Still no resolution to the Almiron sale saga. It feels like they aren't going to get the $30m that they want and now that Pity Martinez is very obviously about to be unveiled, any foreign club who is paying attention knows that Atlanta *has* to get rid of one of their DPs. If they didn't have the leverage before to get $30m, it's unlikely they'll find it now.


Houston picked up Marlon Hairston from Colorado. Hairston is a useful depth piece at RB and RW. It's always felt to me that Hairston was capable of providing some real quality at RB, but he's never quite put it together and now he's 24. In Colorado, he's already been replaced with Keegan Rosenberry. In Houston, he'll compete with Chris Duvall and maybe AJ DeLaGarza.

Meanwhile, the Rapids signed a couple of academy players: Sam Raben, a CB, and Matt Hundley, a forward/winger out of UCLA. Raben is a college senior, while Hundley was only a freshman and is viewed as the stronger prospect. I'm working on a project identifying the metro area of origin for all American-developed players and Denver is #1 in per-capita player production on the men's side. They are good on the women's side, too.

Atlanta signed 19 year old English/Portuguese winger Dion Pereira. He's only made two appearances for Watford, so he's an unknown.

Seattle signed 19 year old GK Trey Muse to a homegrown contract. Muse is originally from Louisville, but was recruited to the Sounders academy and has since played two years at Indiana. He's pretty good from what I hear, and I expect he'll get heavy usage in the USL, as well as be part of the U20 World Cup team.

Orlando signed 23 year old Brazilian RB Ruan. He has a tepid track record mostly in Serie B of Brazil. The released pointedly mentioned that he signed a one-year deal, which I guess shows how much Orlando is invested in him. The main alternatives at RB are journeyman R.J. Allen and Kyle Smith, a former DIII soccer player who came through the USL and played under current Orlando manager James O'Connor at Louisville City. Seems like a wide-open competition.

Chicago picked up the rights to 23 year old winger/forward Amando Moreno, who is a NYRB academy product who has had two stints at the club that sandwiched a spell at Tijuana. He's never had a real sustained period of success, but Chicago is basically the US Soccer equivalent of a Quadruple-A club, so that might be a good fit for him.

Some re-signings:
  • Ema Boateng & Rolf Feltscher at LA Galaxy
  • Tsubasa Endoh & Jordan Hamilton at TFC
  • Walker Zimmerman at LAFC — this is the big one, as Zimmerman was rumored to be looking abroad.
  • LAFC also announced that Danilo Silva and Dejan Jakovic had re-signed. So after some serious questions about their CB corps, they ended up re-signing their top three CBs from the end of last season. They need someone else, too; Jakovic isn't the sort of player who should be getting 1000+ minutes as a 3rd CB at this point in his career.


https://www.timbers.com/post/2019/01/16/portland-timbers-acquire-mls-rights-defender-claude-dielna-new-england-revolution

"The Portland Timbers have acquired the MLS rights to defender Claude Dielna from the New England Revolution in exchange for $100,000 in General Allocation Money (GAM)."
He's a mediocrity. Hopefully for the Timbers' sake they aren't paying him as much as the Revs were. There has been a league-wide epidemic of expensive and bad foreign CB signings, but the Dielna/Mancienne combo in New England was...special.
 

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Josef Martinez has signed a five-year contract extension with Atlanta. That's big news for them. Still no resolution to the Almiron sale saga. It feels like they aren't going to get the $30m that they want and now that Pity Martinez is very obviously about to be unveiled, any foreign club who is paying attention knows that Atlanta *has* to get rid of one of their DPs. If they didn't have the leverage before to get $30m, it's unlikely they'll find it now.


Houston picked up Marlon Hairston from Colorado. Hairston is a useful depth piece at RB and RW. It's always felt to me that Hairston was capable of providing some real quality at RB, but he's never quite put it together and now he's 24. In Colorado, he's already been replaced with Keegan Rosenberry. In Houston, he'll compete with Chris Duvall and maybe AJ DeLaGarza.

Meanwhile, the Rapids signed a couple of academy players: Sam Raben, a CB, and Matt Hundley, a forward/winger out of UCLA. Raben is a college senior, while Hundley was only a freshman and is viewed as the stronger prospect. I'm working on a project identifying the metro area of origin for all American-developed players and Denver is #1 in per-capita player production on the men's side. They are good on the women's side, too.

Atlanta signed 19 year old English/Portuguese winger Dion Pereira. He's only made two appearances for Watford, so he's an unknown.

Seattle signed 19 year old GK Trey Muse to a homegrown contract. Muse is originally from Louisville, but was recruited to the Sounders academy and has since played two years at Indiana. He's pretty good from what I hear, and I expect he'll get heavy usage in the USL, as well as be part of the U20 World Cup team.

Orlando signed 23 year old Brazilian RB Ruan. He has a tepid track record mostly in Serie B of Brazil. The released pointedly mentioned that he signed a one-year deal, which I guess shows how much Orlando is invested in him. The main alternatives at RB are journeyman R.J. Allen and Kyle Smith, a former DIII soccer player who came through the USL and played under current Orlando manager James O'Connor at Louisville City. Seems like a wide-open competition.

Chicago picked up the rights to 23 year old winger/forward Amando Moreno, who is a NYRB academy product who has had two stints at the club that sandwiched a spell at Tijuana. He's never had a real sustained period of success, but Chicago is basically the US Soccer equivalent of a Quadruple-A club, so that might be a good fit for him.

Some re-signings:
  • Ema Boateng & Rolf Feltscher at LA Galaxy
  • Tsubasa Endoh & Jordan Hamilton at TFC
  • Walker Zimmerman at LAFC — this is the big one, as Zimmerman was rumored to be looking abroad.
  • LAFC also announced that Danilo Silva and Dejan Jakovic had re-signed. So after some serious questions about their CB corps, they ended up re-signing their top three CBs from the end of last season. They need someone else, too; Jakovic isn't the sort of player who should be getting 1000+ minutes as a 3rd CB at this point in his career.




He's a mediocrity. Hopefully for the Timbers' sake they aren't paying him as much as the Revs were. There has been a league-wide epidemic of expensive and bad foreign CB signings, but the Dielna/Mancienne combo in New England was...special.
Atlanta has options. Two most likely would be
1. Loan out Barco, there would be plenty of interest
2. Get Pity to pull a Zlatan, sign for the max non-DP for one year with the promise of a big raise in year 2.
 

Titans Bastard

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  • NYCFC has taken 21 year old CM Keaton Parks on loan from Benfica. Parks is from Dallas but operated outside of high-level (DA) club soccer because he wanted to play for his HS team. Through connections, he wound up bypassing SMU for Varzim, a lower-level Portuguese team. He quickly did well in the second division, but wound up getting frozen out of the team due to the small-time shenanigans that seem to crop up among Portuguese clubs so often. A court let him out of his deal and he signed for Benfica, where he's played mostly for their B team. He made his first team debut last year but hasn't had much luck in 2018-19. Parks' skillset doesn't match his body: he has great feet and is a silky passer, but he's a lumbering 6'4" dude. I think he's an interesting prospect, but he also runs a high risk of being one of those CM tweeners who is highly technical but isn't creative enough for the #10 and is too weak on defense to be trusted in a deeper-lying role (Jose Francisco Torres syndrome). Anyway, NYCFC's midfield is an open question because Yangel Herrera is 100% gone and it's Dome Torrent's first offseason. Hope he plays.
  • Cincinnati signed 22 year old Costa Rican CM Allan Cruz from Herediano. I don't really understand Cincinnati's strategy here because they already have Bertone, Ulloa, Alashe, Alexander, and Bone at CM. Their attack is going to be absolute trash if they don't make at least two more significant signings in that area.
  • Portland signed 25 year old Slovenian GK Aljaz Ivacic. He's spent his whole career in Slovenia, mostly with Olimpija Ljubljana. For whatever it's worth, he's now making the bench for NT games though he's still uncapped. I'd guess there will be a fairly open battle for the starting job between him and Jeff Attinella.
  • Vancouver signed 21 year old Canadian CB Derek Cornelius from Javor Ivanjica of Serbia. They've dealt both Kendall Waston and Tim Parker in the last 12 months and have a lot to do to shore up central defense. Not sure whether or not this guy is part of the solution.
  • The Revs signed another academy player! This one is Justin Rennicks, a forward from Hamilton, MA. Rennicks' played two seasons at Indiana and recently boosted his stock with a solid performance at the CONCACAF U20 Championship. I don't think he's an elite forward prospect, as he is behind younger forwards like Weah and Sargent, but I think he could be a good playe rand I'm very pleased that the Revs were able to make this deal. His academy tenure ended ignominiously when he was suspended for the last 4-5 months of his DA career for trialing with Eintracht Frankfurt.
  • Columbus signed Robinho. No, not that Robinho — this one is a 24 year old winger who has bounced around the Brazilian second division. They also re-signed Rico Clark. He turns 36 next month, but is still trucking along as a backup CM.
  • San Jose signed 34 year old Argentine GK Daniel Vega. He once started for River Plate, but eventually gravitated to the Cypriot league and then the US lower divisions. I'm guessing that he's the veteran insurance policy for J.T. Marcinkowski, with Tarbell on the outside looking in after really blowing his shot in 2018.
 

Titans Bastard

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Tim Howard announced that the 2019 season will be his last. What a career. Anyone remember when he was sold to Manchester United and stepped straight into the XI for a season? That was over 15 years ago.


A billionaire investor has signed on to Sacramento's MLS bid. The Sacramento Republic are well-supported locally and have a stadium deal ready to go. The only thing holding them back is that MLSHQ deemed their ownership group insufficiently deep-pocketed. Now that that has changed, I could see them getting the nod soon.

https://www.sacbee.com/sports/mls/article224873330.html
 

Titans Bastard

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So many moves.

  • Toronto traded 26 year old CB Nick Hagglund to FC Cincinnati in exchange for a king's ransom of $250k in TAM and the top spot in the allocation order (a very MLS-y mechanism that gives them first crack at a certain list of USMNT players other ex-MLS players sold abroad if they decide to come back to the league). Hagglund is a useful player, but in 2018 he was somewhere on around below-average starter / above-average backup on the quality spectrum. Feels like a significant overpay. Hagglund is a local Cincinnati kid.
  • FC Cincinnati signed 25 year old American DM Caleb Stanko. Stanko has been at Freiburg forever, though he hardly ever played. He does have the distinction of playing in Liechtenstein, where he was on loan with Vaduz in the Swiss Super League a few years ago. He can play DM and fill in at CB, which seems useful, except Cincinnati already has a million CMs and DMs. It's hard to know exactly how good Stanko is because since joining Freiburg's organization in 2011, he's only played in 11 league games totaling just over 200 minutes.
  • Toronto sold Victor Vazquez. He's a quality player who was an essential piece in their 2017 title run, but he's 32, injury-prone, and apparently Al-Arabi of Qatar was offering stupid money. It makes sense to sell here.
  • Vancouver signed 26 year old Guinean winger Lass Bangoura on loan from Rayo Vallecano. He has a solid amount of La Liga experience, though he's spent recent years in the second division and on loan in Ligue 1.
  • Vancouver also signed 32 year old CM Jon Erice. He played sparingly in La Liga for Osasuna back in the day, but since moved on to the Segunda, Cypus, Greece, and back to the Spanish second division where he's been a staple with Real Oviedo and Albacete. The Whitecaps release said he's a TAM player. It feels weird that they are spending that much on a player with a relatively modest profile who is already 32.
  • Chicago signed 23 year old Polish winger Przemyslaw Frankowski from Jagiellonia Białystok. His stats in Poland are reasonable but not overwhelming. However, he did recently break into the national team, which is a good sign. Chicago still needs a lot of help, especially in defense.
  • Philly signed 32 year old French CB Aurélien Collin. He was once one of the better defenders in the league, but he really looked past it for NYRB recently. With the Union he'll surely be behind Trusty and McKenzie and probably Jack Elliott. Locker room leadership...but hopefully they don't have to use him. (Philly is becoming an assembly line for CBs anyway - Trusty '98, McKenzie '99 are starters, and they just signed Ben Ofeimu '00 to a USL deal.)
  • NYCFC finalized a new loan for 23 year old Ghanaian CM Ebenezer Ofori from Stuttgart.
  • More and more academy signings: 15 year old winger Cade Cowell signed with San Jose. 18 year old CB Aboubacar Keita left UVA to sign with Columbus. 20 year old CB Donovan Pines left Maryland to sign with DCU, who also inked 21 year old William & Mary winger Antonio Bustamante. 21 year old CM Jeremiah Gutjahr signed with Chicago after finishing his college career at Indiana. Toronto signed 18 year old CM Noble Okello.
  • It's increasingly hard even for first round draft picks to get MLS deals at this point, but the #8 overall guy, 21 year old LB Sam Junqua from Cal, signed with Houston.

And a few rumors with legs:

  • After losing Tyler Adams, NYRB appears to be in serious jeopardy of losing Kaku as well. Club América is bidding for him and via social media Kaku (and/or his agent) isn't being subtle about his interest.
  • Diego Fagundez went on the radio in Uruguay to express his desire to leave the Revs and join Nacional in Montevideo. Perhaps another Lee Nguyen situation is in the cards here... It's frustrating to see a longtime staple want out one year into Friedel's tenure. It doesn't bode well for the culture / style that he's trying to cultivate.
 

Titans Bastard

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Atlanta has made official what everybody has known for a long time: they've signed Pity Martinez.

He's a 25 year old attacking midfielder who won 2018 South American Footballer of the Year and is coming off a Copa Libertadores triumph with River Plate. Martinez recently got his first caps for Argentina. He's the biggest signing of the offseason.

https://www.atlutd.com/post/2019/01/24/atlanta-united-signs-gonzalo-pity-mart-nez

Now, Atlanta really needs to wrap up the Almiron sale. They can't carry all four of Almiron, P. Martinez, J. Martinez, and Barco.
 

Titans Bastard

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  • After losing Tyler Adams, NYRB appears to be in serious jeopardy of losing Kaku as well. Club América is bidding for him and via social media Kaku (and/or his agent) isn't being subtle about his interest
Godwin's Law alert from Kaku's agent.

 

Titans Bastard

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Big move here for Minnesota. Opara's exit from SKC was set in motion last summer, when SKC decided to sign Andreu Fontas and pay him over 3x more than Opara. Fontas turned out to be not as good as Opara and so the underpaid starter has been agitating for a raise or a move.

The TAM era has allowed MLS clubs to compete for foreign players of a higher price range and (theoretically) quality, but a lot of the $750k-$1m TAM players haven't been as good as hoped, which can unsettle the locker room.
 

Titans Bastard

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There it is. Almiron about to be sold. No word on the fee yet; Atlanta wanted $30m but it seems doubtful they'll get it.

 

Titans Bastard

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Sky sports has it at £21M so about $27.5M
Jozy's transfer to Villarreal in 2008 stood as the largest transfer fee in MLS history for over ten years and now it's been broken twice in one transfer window.
 

Titans Bastard

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More moves:

  • The Revs made a big signing, 26 year old Spanish attacking midfielder Carles Gil. They reportedly paid Deportivo La Coruña $2m for him and he'll be on a $2m/yr salay. So, he better be good!! That's definitely a transfer fee record for the club.
  • D.C. signed 27 year old Argentine right back Leonardo Jara. This guy looks like a solid signing; he's on loan from Boca Juniors, where he played >50 games after coming up through Estudiantes. DCU needed to beef up their backline and this seems like a real step in the right direction.
  • LA Galaxy signed 21 year old Mexican winger Uriel Antuna on loan from Manchester City. MCFC signed him from Santos Laguna before he ever played much in Liga MX and he's been on the Big Club Loan Tour since. Not sure how good he is, but an interesting signing.
  • LAFC signed 30 year old Salvadoran forward Rodolfo Zelaya. He's been linked with MLS clubs forever, and now he's finally here. The LAFC forward situation is crowded with Christian Ramirez and Adama Diomande.
  • Minnesota signed 28 year old Malagasy right back Romain Métanire. He's spent most of his career on clubs that have yo-yoed between Ligue 1 and Ligue 2. As of now, he looks like the starter at RB. Minnesota's bigger move was the expensive acquisition of Ike Opara. He's a good CB, even if he's getting older and he has historically been injury-prone.
  • Philly picked up a goalkeeper on loan from Red Bull Salzburg, Carlos Miguel Coronel. He's a 22 year old Brazilian who will be Andre Blake's understudy. Blake will surely miss some games this summer with the Gold Cup.
  • The Whitecaps signed 24 year old Brazilian winger Lucas Venuto from Austria Vienna. After last seasons total locker room meltdown, the Caps will probably have more turnover than any other club in the league. They've been cutting, trading, selling, and loaning all winter. The latest departure is Anthony Blondell, a young Venezuelan forward who disappointed, who goes on loan to Huachipato in the Chilean league.
  • The Whitecaps followed up with a bigger signing, 22 year old Korean midfielder Hwang In-beom, who already has 12 caps for his country. And...they signed Swiss right back Scott Sutter, who left Orlando this offseason. He'll compete with Jake Nerwinski.
  • NYRB signed another academy product, 19 year old winger Omir Fernandez, who is coming off his sophomore season at Wake Forest.
  • Chicago has been shoring up its roster a bit. Most importantly, they re-signed CB Johan Kappelhof, something that seemed in doubt earlier this offseason. They also signed David Ousted, a veteran GK, and Andre Reynolds, a 17 year old LB from their academy.
  • The Dynamo signed grizzled veteran Maynor Figueroa, who left FC Dallas this winter. He's not that good any more, but can be versatile backline depth.
  • Dallas officially sold 18 year old CB Chris Richards to Bayern. The fee was somewhere between $1.25 and $1.5m, but with a 40% sell-on clause. Good business for a young, unproven player.
  • NYCFC signed a draft pick, Luis Barraza. He's a goalkeeper from New Mexico by way of Marquette. They dumped some deadwood, too: Norwegian forward Jo Inge Berget and French/Beninese CB Cedric Houtondji, neither of whom made much of an impact last year.
  • NYCFC also signed more young American CMs: Juan Pablo Torres, who spent a year or two at Lokeren in Belgium without seeing much action. He was on the US U20 team in qualifying, but wouldn't make the team if everyone were available. They also signed 17 year old Brooklyn native Justin Haak from their academy.
 

Titans Bastard

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There's been rumors, but Giovinco's departure now seems more likely.



Toronto is paying huge money to Giovinco, Altidore, and Bradley. All three are out of contract after 2019 and all three are getting older. It's hard to sell any of them because while all still have value, none are as good as their salaries. Giovinco wants a new long-term contract, but TFC and Giovinco are far apart on the money. Selling him to a club willing to overpay on salary (Middle East or China, basically), is way for TFC to move onto the next thing, transfer a player who will probably be unhappy and unsettled, get some decent compensation (under the circumstances), and Giovinco gets paid.

Toronto spent so much money on those three in part because they sucked for so long that they needed to do something big to rejuvenate the club and the fanbase. That's happened and I think they'll still be looking for top players, but at market value from now on.
 

Titans Bastard

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Welp, Toronto makes it official:

https://www.torontofc.ca/post/2019/01/30/sebastian-giovinco-sold-al-hilal-fc


Meanwhile, the ever-reliable Goff is reporting that there is serious bidding for DCU's Luciano Acosta. Everything about this is wild to me:

Paris Saint-Germain, one of the wealthiest and most ambitious soccer clubs in the world, has made a lucrative offer for D.C. United playmaker Luciano Acosta, people familiar with the talks said Wednesday night.

The French giants are aiming to buy Acosta, 24, before the European winter transfer market closes Thursday evening. The exact figure has not been set, one source said, but is in the $10 million range.
Meanwhile, Manchester City and another Premier League club, whose identity was not disclosed, has entered the sweepstakes at the 11th hour, said those sources, who requested anonymity because they were not permitted to discuss the matter.
Acosta left training camp here Wednesday evening to fly to Europe, in case he needs to take a physical before the transfer deadline.

United has already rejected a $7.5 million offer from Saudi club Al-Hilal, one source said. D.C. officials, including co-chairman Jason Levien, said they did not want to comment.
All of this activity comes as United has been locked in negotiations with Acosta’s agent, Matias Sabbag, over a long-term contract. Sabbag has been in Washington for more than a week to talk with D.C. officials and remain in close contact with his client.

Acosta’s current deal, which earns him $652,000 in guaranteed compensation, expires after the 2019 season. However, in club soccer, players are free to negotiate with other clubs if there are six months or fewer remaining on their contract. Without a new deal, United would be in danger of losing him without compensation — known in soccer parlance as a “free transfer” — after the upcoming campaign.

United was preparing an offer that would make him one of the top earners in the league — also known as a designated player — with a four-year guaranteed deal worth up to $10 million, if he met incentives.
Acosta is a very good player, but hot damn, that's a lot of money. I'm not sure why PSG/Man City type clubs are going after him because I doubt he's at that level. But DCU won't care about that and will have a hard time saying no to this sort of offer, even before considering how disgruntled Acosta might be if they decline.



The newfound inclination of MLS clubs towards selling + the fact that there are more higher-caliber players in the league than there were a few years ago is sure making the offseason more interesting.


This trend really opens the door to recruiting more top-end South American talent.
 

Titans Bastard

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No deal for Luciano Acosta in the end...


I have to imagine he's due for a massive raise from DCU, then.
 

Titans Bastard

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Sources: MLS, Liga MX mulling 8-team tournament in second half of 2019

A long-promised cup competition between Liga MX and MLS clubs is on its way to becoming a reality in 2019, sources have told ESPN.

The tournament would involve four teams from MLS and four from Liga MX, sources confirmed to ESPN FC, while a Liga MX source told ESPN Mexico's Rene Tovar that the competition doesn't yet have a name and a format hasn't been locked in, but will take place in the second half of 2019.

The teams haven't been confirmed internally, but MLS sides from the West Coast are expected to be well-represented, as well as a Mexican club close to the border, a source told ESPN FC.
This sounds an awful lot like the old SuperLiga. Hooray?
 

Titans Bastard

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  • Follow-up on Acosta's failed transfer here. PSG's offer may not have been as large as initially reported and DC didn't want to sell for $7.5m. We'll see if that blows up in their face. I don't think that it's crazy to imagine they might ultimately get more than that for Acosta one day, but they also stood in the way of a player's move to PSG, which can easily backfire.
  • Another victim in Vancouver's ongoing roster purge: Efrain Juarez has departed the club. The former Mexican international was a disappointment in 2018. The Whitecaps only have eight players left who actually played minutes last season.
  • The Whitecaps signed 21 year old CB Jasser Khmiri from Stade Tunisien. He's an unknown, as it's hard to come by information on players who have only played in Africa, but he's been on the fringe of Tunisia's national team. The Caps needs one more center back, so I guess we'll know whether they see Khmiri as a starter depending on how big their final CB signing is.
  • DC signed a draft pick, 22 year old fullback Akeem Ward.
  • Pogba to Atlanta is almost confirmed... Well, Paul has confirmed on social media that his brother Florentin has signed. He's possibly depth, but possibly a replacement for Gonzalez Pirez, who has foreign interest.
 

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  • NYCFC splashed some serious cash on Romanian attacker Alexandru Mitrita. A $8.5m fee seems like a hell of a lot for a 23 year old whose only experience outside of the Romanian league was as a bench player for Pescara. He's done quite well for Universitatea Craiova since leaving Pescara, but it's a risky bet — especially because he's not a true #9. NYCFC is accumulating wingers and attacking mids and will have to sort out how they want to make use of them all.
  • Big news for Philly: they are in negotiations to sign Marco Fabian.
  • RSL signed a DP, 25 year old Liberian forward Sam Johnson. He's had some success in Scandinavia, most recently with Vålerenga. Players with solid but not spectacular records in the Scandinavian leagues generally haven't been impressive in MLS in recent years...
  • Toronto signed Terrence Boyd. He's 27 now and played sparingly in the 2.Bundesliga for Darmstadt. He always had limitations and hasn't had a good and healthy season since 2013/14 with Rapid Vienna. The big injury immediately following the transfer to RB Leipzig has derailed him. He'll be a backup in Toronto.
  • Bad news for the Crew: Milton Valenzuela picked up a serious knee injury in training and may be lost for the season. He's one of the top LBs in the league. Columbus acquired Waylon Francis from Seattle as a result, but that's a considerable downgrade. Francis was third choice with the Sounders behind Nouhou Tolo and Brad Smith.
  • Montreal signed 20 year old Canadian right back Zachary Brault-Guillard on loan from Lyon.
  • Here's an unusual one: SKC signed 22 year old Rwandan CB Abdul Rwatubyaye from Rayon Sports. You don't see too many signings from the Rwandan League.
  • ATL announced the rumored deal for 28 year old CB Florentin Pogba today.
  • The latest victim of the Whitecaps roster purge is Marcel de Jong, who left to sign with Pacific FC of the CPL.
 

Titans Bastard

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We're now seven days from the first CONCACAF Champions League game and 18 days until the MLS season kicks off.

  • Vancouver signed 20 year old Uruguayan forward Joaquin Ardaiz on loan from Chiasso in Switzerland. Ardaiz has had a strange career path involving a lot of loans; it looks suspiciously like there's a dodgy agent or a third-party owner or something. Anyway, he doesn't have an extensive track record, bu the Whitecaps seem to like him because he's a "young DP", although that doesn't necessarily mean they are spending a ton on him.
  • The Whitecaps also signed 25 year old Argentine CB Erik Godoy, who has nearly 150 career appearances in the Argentine league, mostly for Tigre. He looks like he might start alongside Tunisian signed Jasser Khmiri, or perhaps one of the Canadians on the team.
  • LAG signed 27 year old Uruguayan CB Diego Polenta, who comes from Nacional of Montevideo. He played a bit in Serie B some years ago before becoming a mainstay for one of the big two clubs in his home country. LA needs the help, as all their CBs were mediocre at best last year.
  • NYRB signed 18 year old Danish forward Mathias Jorgensen from OB Odense. He has played sparingly for OB, having just broken into the first team. NYRB needs to start playing for Bradley Wright-Phillips' decline. Signing a guy who will need 1-2 years to grow into the role is smart, although I have no idea how much potential this player has. I do know that NYRB has a solid track record of improving players quickly with their USL team: Tyler Adams, Aaron Long, Florian Valot, Vincent Bezecourt, et al.
  • Minnesota signed 30 year old Italian goalkeeper Vito Mannone. No doubt all the Arsenal fans on this board are now die-hard Loons supporters. He will compete with incumbent Bobby Shuttleworth for the job.
  • Montreal signed 21 year old Nigerian forward Orji Okwonkwo on loan from Bologna. He's been a bench player in Serie A and Serie B. He looks like depth, at least for now, as Montreal are rumored to be trading backup Quincy Amarikwa to DC United.
 

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There's some drama building between Toronto FC and Genk over Spanish attacking midfielder Alejandro Pozuelo. Toronto have supposedly met the release clause in his contract, which €8m. However, Genk are claiming that Pozuelo signed a waiver on the release clause that commits him to Genk until the summer transfer window. Genk are having an usually good season in Belgium and are nine points clear on the top of the table. Pozuelo is their captain and they won't be able to replace him if he leaves. Pozuelo is agitating for a move in the media.

 

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  • Vancouver has signed Colombian forward Fredy Montero, a very familiar figure to followers of MLS. It's hard to believe he's 31 now. Anyway, Montero is coming off his second stint at Sporting CP and embarking on his second stint with Vancouver. He scored 14 with the Whitecaps in 2017, but didn't have as much success in his second sojourn to Portugal. We'll see how much he has left in the tank.
  • Speaking of Sporting CP players and questions about how much left in the tank, there's a lot of solid reporting that Orlando is close to signing Nani.
  • FC Cincinnati signed Kekuta Manneh, the extremely speedy Gambian-American winger. Manneh's game is pretty one-dimension and he didn't do well in short stints in both Liga MX and the Swiss Super League. The general thinking is that Cincinnati could be a solid fit for him because they are loading up on DMs and defenders, and will probably roll out a 5-3-2 or 5-4-1. A player like Manneh would be useless on a heavy possession team, but handy on a counter-attacking team.=
  • DCU picked up Irish CM/LB Chris McCann, who was recently waived by Atlanta, where there were other options that were some combination of younger/better/cheaper. Depth signing.
  • The Timbers have been taking aggressive runs at various expensive Latin American attackers this winter, to no avail. Their latest move is bidding on Chilean forward Eduardo Vargas, who plays for Tigres. He won't come cheap; word is that they are bidding a little less than $10m at the moment.
  • Dallas signed Edwin Cerrillo, an 18 year central midfielder, from their academy. With the new reserve team in USL League One, I have high hopes for FCD taking their academy pipeline to the next level.
 

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NYRB re-signed Aaron Long.


Long was still on the $73k/yr contract that he received when he was bumped up to the MLS roster in late 2016. Since then, he won the starting job in 2017, won MLS Defender of the Year on 2018, and is now somewhere on the USMNT depth chart.

Given that he's a "TAM" signing per NYRB's release, he's probably making, at the bare minimum, 10x more now. We'll find out at the next MLSPA salary info dump!
 

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Orlando signed Nani to a three year deal.


This sums up how I feel:

 

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It's still the offseason in some ways, but today is the day of the first competitive games of 2019!

Independiente (Panama) vs. Toronto
Guastatoya (Guatemala) vs. Houston

YahooSports.com has the English streaming rights to CCL, so presumably there will be feeds on their site at 8pm and 10pm respectively.
 

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TFC is starting the year much the same way they went through 2018: with lots of injuries:



Altidore, DeLeon, Moor, Zavaleta are injured, so Terrence Boyd starts up top, the rookie Griffin Dorsey is at right wing, and the normal LB Justin Morrow on the opposite.

TFC will really need to sign another winger or two for depth and quality purposes if they are going to roll with a 4-3-3 this year.
 

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lol, Toronto totally dominated the first ten minutes then gave up a soft goal. Classic CCL performance so far.
 

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Nashville SC....before (USL version):



After (MLS version):




The switch is not getting good reviews, and rightly so.
 

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A Tale Of Two NFL/MLS Owners.

Can you imagine Bob Kraft going to a game in Heredia, Costa Rica?


George Bello, the 17 year old Great Left Back Hope, is starting for Atlanta by the way.
 

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ILIE SANCHEZ! Outstanding strike to put SKC up 3-0 against Toluca. It's amazing how good and comfortable they look against a Liga MX team after a 3+ month layoff.
 

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A Tale Of Two NFL/MLS Owners.

Can you imagine Bob Kraft going to a game in Heredia, Costa Rica?


George Bello, the 17 year old Great Left Back Hope, is starting for Atlanta by the way.
February is great weather in Costa Rica. Could’ve made it a nice little winter trip.
 

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Yeah, Marin just spent 45 minutes roasting Michael Parkhurst.

Frank de Boer hasn't gotten the memo about road games in CONCACAF. They are basically running and gunning and Atlanta's defense has been scrambling on transition. The wingbacks were basically playing as wingers in the first half.
 

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Well, 3-1 Herediano. Atlanta can definitely turn that around at home, but only if Frank de Boer sorts out his tactics. The defensive line was incredibly disorganized and the team defense in general was wildly stretched from the very beginning. They definitely didn't look like the 2018 Atlanta.

Weird CCL so far:

MLS: 3-0-2 (W-D-L)
Liga MX: 1-1-2
Everyone Else: 3-1-3
 

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Well, 3-1 Herediano. Atlanta can definitely turn that around at home, but only if Frank de Boer sorts out his tactics. The defensive line was incredibly disorganized and the team defense in general was wildly stretched from the very beginning. They definitely didn't look like the 2018 Atlanta.

Weird CCL so far:

MLS: 3-0-2 (W-D-L)
Liga MX: 1-1-2
Everyone Else: 3-1-3
Is he using the 3-4-3 that he insisted on with Palace?
 

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Is he using the 3-4-3 that he insisted on with Palace?
I don't know much about his tactics at Palace, but this 3-4-3 forced the back three to do a tremendous amount of scrambling and 1v1 defending. Herediano was creating constant danger on the break, in part because Jimmy Marin was great, but largely because they had a 5v3 numerical advantage with frightening frequency. It's as if the DMs and wingbacks were told they didn't actually need to track back half the time.
 

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CCL returns. Houston and Toronto host second legs. The Dynamo are in good shape after their road win and Toronto, uh, are not. Elsewhere, Tigres has to turn around a 1-0 deficit to Deportivo Saprissa, which they should be able to do.

Moves:
  • Portland took 29 year old Paraguayan RB Jorge Moreira on loan from River Plate. Assuming he's solid, they are very set at the position as they already have Zarek Valentin.
  • NYRB sold 22 year old Cameroonian Anatole Abang to a Chinese 2nd division club. He just didn't work out and has been on loan for the last year or two.
  • LAFC signed a few young players. All are speculative but low-risk signings. They are collecting reasonably young Americans and seeing what they can do with them — they signed Josh Perez, Shaft Brewer, and John Murphy last year.
    • Lamar Batista, a giant 20 year CB who spent two years with Portland Timbers 2
    • Philip Ejimadu, a mysterious 19 year old Brazilian-Nigerian-American GK who had been with a minor Brazilian club
    • Adrien Perez, a 23 year old attacker who has been balling with a pro indoor soccer team since college
    • Niko Hämäläinen, a 21 year old Finnish-American LB who is on loan from QPR and who just got his first cap for Finland
  • FC Dallas signed their top draft pick, Canadian CB Callum Montgomery. Supposedly he's actually solid.
  • Orlando signed GK Brian Rowe, last of Vancouver. I guess he has a solid chance of starting given Orlando's paltry competition at the position.
  • C.J. Sapong has been traded from Philly to Chicago. The Union have plenty of forwards as it stands and Sapong is being paid a hefty sum for a likely backup. The Fire have much less depth at the position, so it could be a better home for him.
  • The Revs signed one of their first-round picks, winger DeJuan Jones. He's fast, apparently.
  • Seattle signed Saad Abdul-Salaam and waived Jordan McCrary - both right backs.
  • Colorado signed former DCU center back Kofi Opare; he's solid depth.
  • Toronto signed French-American goalkeeper Quentin Westberg, who was with Auxerre and has spent a long career at various French clubs. He's a guy who has been a starter at the third tier and touch-and-go in the second tier. Alex Bono has been bad since 2017, but I'm not sure Westberg is any better.
 

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Wow, tonight Independiente look worse in Toronto than Toronto did in Panama. 16 F conditions probably doesn't help! It's all Toronto, but only 1-0 now. They are looking like they'll get enough chances to score four, but I'm not convinced they have the quality up top to capitalize.

The good news for Toronto is that all signs point to the Alejandro Pozuelo transfer going through.
 

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LA Galaxy are about to sell Ola Kamara to a club in China.


Kamaa was a solid signing, but his presence on the roster was made awkward when Zlatan arrived. Selling him means that the Galaxy won't be carrying a guy who will either be out of position or a high-priced backup. They need some salary cap space to potentially buy down the salary cap hit of one of their four DPs to be compliant with MLS roster rules, anyway.