Missed Opportunities

by CarlosT on Nov 13, 2009 2:11 AM PST in Major League Soccer Comment 10 comments

On May 26th, 2009 the whole world found out that this player would be available on a free transfer:

For those of you not familiar with him, Juninho Pernambucano is probably the world's best free kick taker. Give him a free kick within 35 yards and you're facing a very dangerous situation. Add in smooth as silk dribbling ability and precision passing and you've got an attacking midfielder of the highest caliber.

Available for free.

So, where is Juninho now? A month after announcing his departure from Lyon, Juninho signed a contract with a club in Qatar. From what Dave tells me, Qatar is a vanity league, where oil tycoons play at owning soccer clubs as a fun way to spend their ridiculous piles of cash. Is anyone else seeing the problem here? At the time of Juninho's announcement, there were nine DP slots open in MLS. If I were Don Garber I'm on the phone to each and every MLS GM with one of those free slots as soon as that press conference is over. I would harangue them until one of them committed to getting Juninho's signature on an MLS contract. Then I'd go and grab him by the scruff of the neck, toss him in the seat next to me on a flight to Lyon and we make sure Juninho is wearing a USA flag on his left sleeve ASAP.

For a league that's striving to establish its credibility and convert soccer fans into MLS fans, a player such as Juninho would have been perfect. A creative attacking force in the run of play, his amazing free kicks would negate the usual strategy of constant fouling adopted in this very physical league to stifle skillful players. Take a good look at some of those free kicks and imagine them playing as highlights on American TV. Imagine the electricity at games featuring Juninho's new MLS club as the crowd becomes instantly charged with anticipation any time the referee blew his whistle and pointed toward their opponents' goal.

MLS' cautious approach has served it well in the past, but the league also needs to push the franchises to make sure they're bringing in the best talent they can afford. Clubs sitting on their DP slots when a major talent like Juninho is within MLS' reach are hurting the league and depriving American fans of the top level players they long to see. MLS can't be cavalier about opportunities like these. It's rare when a top player becomes available under such favorable conditions. Next time, MLS needs to be ready with a game plan to get him on board.

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He was signed to about a 2M$ deal

and has 3 goals in 10 matches for Al-Gharrafa the reigning Champions in the League. This year al-Gharrafa sits at 2nd in the 12 team league with a+10 GD and 17 points in 7 played. He immediately wore the C

Gharrafa also has Younis Mahmoud, the stellar Iraqi player.

I am not a Supporter
I am not a Fan
I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart

by Sounder At Heart on Nov 13, 2009 7:35 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

Juninho's contract is right in the middle for a DP

$2 million would have put him in third out of seven behind Beckham and Blanco and just ahead of Angel.

by CarlosT on Nov 13, 2009 10:22 AM PST up reply actions 1 recs

Not a name

In MLS as much as we might think just getting good players would be enough, it isn’t a DP has to be able to pay their own salary in season ticket sales, merchandise sales, and sponsorship deals. So could you see Juninho Pernambucano doing that in any market in MLS?

Blanco sold tickets, jerseys and helped with a Best Buy sponsorship deal, Beckham the same, Freddie also meets those requirements. To a lesser degree Juan Pablo has done that for New York, but others have simply failed to do that and while players like GBS and Landin are very talented they also are nowhere near as expensive as others.

I would say that MLS has to continue to focus on players that can basically pay for themselves as DP’s, at least for now.

by denz on Nov 13, 2009 9:41 AM PST reply actions 1 recs

MLS is failing if they sign DPs based on marketability

Because winning sells. It sells a lot.

Plus a talent like this is a solid signing with credibility for the soccer purist, not the non-soccer fan.

I am not a Supporter
I am not a Fan
I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart

by Sounder At Heart on Nov 13, 2009 10:25 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I would love to think so

OK, in a perfect world yes, but soccer in america isn’t a purist world it is deeply in need of simply getting a basic foundation of fans established. I will use your sounders as an example, with almost 15,000 NFL seat license fans being among your first season ticket holders you needed a way to convert them to soccer and I believe you have done it a couple ways:
1) Exciting Stadium Experience, you have the best of both worlds with a great stadium and a great location but if you look around the league that isn’t the case anywhere else. You also had a great PR campaign on how to be a fan.

2) Personalities, brining in big names like Keller and Ljungberg caught the interest of fans, but when we came up on week 2, I couldn’t find but one of 40 people wearing SSFC gear that could name 5 players on the squad. Names sell and names bring fans, I don’t imagine I will be winning my “who can name more players” bets in the local bars next weekend or next year, but they know the rest because they cared about the big names.

3) Winning has an impact but two of the 3 teams with 13 wins this year (Columbus and Chivas) were below the league average in home attendance (16,037), while DC United with just 9 wins was above the average as was TFC.

So I really am sticking with what will help the league grow and not have us repeat mistakes of the NASL, that is getting names that people with a casual soccer knowledge will know. I think Henry(New York-2011) would be a great signing as would Ruud(RSL-2010 or 11) would be examples that I think improve the qaulity of the game and are big enough names to almost pay for themselves.

by denz on Nov 13, 2009 12:32 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Except that the facts don't match what you claim

Sounders received no spike in sales from Keller, nor from Ljungberg. They had 15,000 sold before Keller. 16,800 is the number before Ljungberg.

DPs with fairly large names, but lacking skills didn’t help DC, or KC, or Dallas in the past.

I’m a fully believer that Henry will be here quickly. Ruud I don’t quite believe yet. Both of those would be great.

But as GBS can change a game with a single free kick Juninho would change an entire season. If only hits 10% of free kicks within 35 yards the Sounders would have scored another goal every other match if all else remains the same.

I am not a Supporter
I am not a Fan
I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart

by Sounder At Heart on Nov 13, 2009 1:25 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Big if

They sold 15,000 because of the offers to those holding Qwest seat license. I know too many people who bought them because of that sales pitch, but wouldn’t have made more than a handful of matches without Freddie and Kasey. Umm I wouldn’t consider KC’s or Dallas’s DP to be names of any level of interest, even in DC’s case not even close to a name that 10% of soccer fans would have known. Hell even Juan Pablo was unknown to most before coming over.

Getting a player to score on 10% of their free kicks is a great thought, never going to happen in any league unless you ban keepers. There are plenty of players who could make a difference on teams, but unless that team can make money by having them, there is no and will be no interest. Paying a guy 2 million a year and only getting 1,000 season ticket sales out of it won’t work for this league. Teams already are losing money in most cases and this would only make it worse.

DP’s have value, but not as much as people think when it comes to play on the pitch. How far did GBS get this year, or JPA, of Landin, or Blanco, or the list goes on. Hell only the team with 2 DP’s and a bunch of under the table deals for other players stands in the way of one of the lowest budget teams from winning the Cup. LA’s total salary is more than 7 million dollars higher than RSL’s, and if they couldn’t make that back off Endorsements, jerseys, and other deals they would be going under as a business.

Hope to see you up in Seattle, and look for my blog to join your’s here on SB Nation later this week (I hope)

by denz on Nov 16, 2009 12:20 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I will be easily found

I’m all over the Supporters Summit events so I can be found

The best way though is the smaller event at the Elysian Fields on Sat Night 6P-9P

I am not a Supporter
I am not a Fan
I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart

by Sounder At Heart on Nov 16, 2009 1:29 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Good statistics are hard to find

Juninho scored on around 10% of all his shots last year, but that doesn’t tell us specifically about his free kicks.

Even if he were not well known enough at the beginning, had he been signed Juninho would have become a name, considering that he’s a much better player than any in the league. Also, I don’t think that Ljungberg was that much more well known than Juninho. Especially right after the signing was announced, every mentioned of Ljungberg reiterated why we should care about him, i.e. his Arsenal days, his Sweden career, etc, etc. The sales job for Juninho would have been just the same and ads with any of the amazing free kicks he’s scored would have made the case very effectively.

I truly believe that had the Sounders signed Juninho instead of Ljungberg, we’d have beaten Houston, at the least. Not that Ljungberg isn’t a great player, he is, and I think he’s a big part of how well the season went for us. But while he and Montero were the most fouled players in the league, with a total of 129 suffered, no one on the Sounders was all that serious a threat to score on the resulting free kicks. Replace Ljungberg with Juninho and those 129 fouls become a highly riskly strategy.

As for what DPs gave their teams:

Schelotto – Supporters’ Shield
Blanco – Eastern Conference Final
Landin – Western Conference Final
Ljungberg – First MLS playoff appearance for an expansion team since 1998
Beckham – MLS Cup Finals

MLS will need to sell soccer fans on MLS before they can expect to sell any casual fans. Quality play is what will bring those fans to the table. That’s going to take bringing in top quality players when the opportunity presents itself. MLS should be thinking about quality first, then about how to sell that quality to fans.

by CarlosT on Nov 17, 2009 12:28 AM PST reply actions 1 recs

I like your thoughts

I completely agree that Ljungberg was hardly a bigger name than Juninho, though “Arsenal” is probably a bigger name in the States than “Lyon.”

It’s hard to say whether having Juninho would have been better for the Sounders this year. At the least, I’d love to see him playing somewhere in MLS rather than in Qatar of all places. Call that man’s agent.

by johnnycougar on Nov 17, 2009 4:30 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs