Sounders, Blaise Nkufo Sever Ties, Effective Immediately
by Jeremiah Oshan on Mar 15, 2011 6:12 PM PDT
in Sounders: MLS Regular Season
Email
Print
Blaise Nkufo and the Seattle Sounders have severed ties, effective immediately. A team release has confirmed the rumors that have been swirling around for several hours.
"This move improves our flexibility with regard to the salary cap," Sounders GM Adrian Hanauer said in the release.
Unlike the situation with Freddie Ljungberg last year, this will not be a situation where the player is left in a virtual purgatory. By all appearances, the Sounders now have an open roster spot, cap space and DP slot. The release does say that Nkufo's status is "being negotiated by Sounders FC, the players representative and Major League Soccer," but it's not entirely clear what that means.
Nkufo's stint with the Sounders was particularly short, as he appeared in just 13 league games, one U.S. Open Cup match and two CONCACAF Champions League matches. During that time, he scored five goals, including the first hat trick in the team's MLS history.
The cause of the separation is still not known, but there have been rumors circulating for much of the off-season that Nkufo was unhappy. Until now, those seemed nothing more than idle speculation.
O'Brian White seems to be the obvious choice to fill Nkufo's role. He has been impressive in preseason and appears to be fully fit for the first time since his Hermann Trophy winning year in 2007.
27 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Oh wow, the roster drama surrounding this game is killer.
No Angel? No Gonzales? No Nkufo? No Zakuani? No Rickets? What’s going on here!
The move to pick up O’Brian in the offseason is looking pretty smart right now.
WE NEED GAMETHREAD!
by magistermilitum on Mar 15, 2011 6:23 PM PDT reply actions
Game thread is already up, has been for an hour
http://www.sounderatheart.com/2011/3/15/2041446/mls-first-kick-seattle-sounders-la-galaxy
Writer: ProBallNW.com
Fan: Seattle Mariners, Seattle Sounders FC, Liverpool
Twitter
Haha yeah...
That’s what I get for assuming gamethread would be the first post if it were up. Jeremiah and Dave at the game?
by magistermilitum on Mar 15, 2011 6:28 PM PDT up reply actions
We are, I'll swap there places, tho
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, North American soccer editor SB Nation and of course follow me on Twitter
by Jeremiah Oshan on Mar 15, 2011 6:28 PM PDT up reply actions
Looking forward
Has there been any chatter in regards to a new potential DP fill for Blaise? Are the Sounders going with youth now?
At the Leary Traveler holding up the Sounder at Heart scarf. Wish I were at Qwest to see Becks fail on his achilles again. GO SOUNDERS!
All we seem to know right now is that Nkufo is out.
Don’t know why for sure, or any clue of who might replace him, or when he might get replaced. It’s no guarantee they use the DP slot on someone either; since most of the transfer windows are closed right now, there’s precious few, if any, players of that sort of quality.
Writer: ProBallNW.com
Fan: Seattle Mariners, Seattle Sounders FC, Liverpool
Twitter
The transfer
window is not closed until April 15th. The problem is getting someone on a free.
i dont think it has to be a free does it?
i mean usually mls goes with frees because the transfer fee becomes part of the salary, but with a dp thats not as important
A sky of blue, a sea of green...(or claret)
by kelliott1527 on Mar 16, 2011 12:49 AM PDT up reply actions
WOWWWWWWWWWWWWW
that’s nuts
Win or lose, we will always be here for you.
by johnjahafanclub on Mar 15, 2011 6:59 PM PDT reply actions
Well
he’s not going to Vancouver.
Tweet via Joshua from ProvinceWeber (vancouver whitecaps writer): The Whitecaps have no interest in Blaise Nkufo
You can knock off the trolling now
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, North American soccer editor SB Nation and of course follow me on Twitter
by Jeremiah Oshan on Mar 15, 2011 11:46 PM PDT up reply actions
To be fair
mlsnube seems to be a Whitecaps fan, so you could understand his/her belief that teams only carry one or two forwards
Nos Audietis
by sidereal on Mar 16, 2011 12:08 AM PDT up reply actions 8 recs
When the first news broke about Nkufo
I logged on quick and dropped him from my fantasy lineup; that’s looking like a pretty good decision about now. If anyone has any stocks or mutual funds you’d like to discuss my commission is very reasonable.
Meanwhile I stuck to my guns...
I just got in and wasted two transfers to make room for a new forward. I’ll get you yet Nevtelen!!!! shakes fist at sky
Not only was he in my lineup
I had him as my F*ing captain!
Scoreboards, not billboards.
Regular season, not pre-season.
I think
i got an general idea why this moved happen.
Seattle maybe looking into the following 2012 season.
By cutting N’kufo it opens a DP spot and 335k in cap space allowing Seattle to sign a new DP at half price in the summer transfer window and bring in a new GK at same time.
2 players for the price of 1. Now with Keller retiring at the end of this season Seattle wouldn’t need to adjust their budget for the new DP.
Maybe, but I kind of doubt it
If that was their plan all along, why the last minute Nkufo news an hour before First Kick? The only way it goes down like it did was that there was some sort of issue – Nkufo deciding he simply doesn’t want to play another year maybe? I’m sure the team wouldn’t want him out there unless he was totally dedicated to giving 100%. Frankly, we’ll probably never really know exactly what it was that made this all go down like it did, but I’d be very surprised if it was the result of a clear plan by the FO like you’re suggesting.
Adrian
does somewhat explained it.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/soundersfcblog/2014506257_reaction_from_hanauer_and_othe.html
If seattle wants to get rid of N’kufo they had to do it before first kick or we are stuck with him for another year. Unfortunately it was just bad timing.
IF
seattle wants to improve the team this summer transfer window they need to have cap space and for that matter roster space. N’kufo does both open a spot, opens a DP spot and opens cap space.
Now assuming seattle gets rid of Noonan that would give us another open spot.
Yeah
if Noonan is cut, that give the team $430k-ish of salary cap space and a DP slot. That’s a LOT of flexibility.
yeah seriously. hopefully we can get someone in the summer with that
maybe they have someone in mnd
Reading between the lines as best I can here
“There’s no hiding the fact that Blaise is toward the end of his career. Everyone knows his family is in Vancouver. I wouldn’t want to answer for him, but I would think that if a good opportunity were there he would want to play. If a not-so-good opportunity was there, he wouldn’t want to play.”
It does sound like Nkufo just didn’t have his heart in spending another season away from his family and when the team saw he wasn’t 100% committed, they decided to go in another direction while there was still the opportunity to salvage something from the whole deal.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanPosts on Sounder At Heart
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
