Blackburn make bid for George John
Way to go local product and former Husky George John. This can only help the MLS (and our chances this season too).
9 months ago
Brougham Hooligan
65 comments
0 recs |
Email
PrintComments
Seriously!
A) because he’s good and B) we hopefully wouldn’t have to deal with him :)
by chrisperry1983 on Aug 18, 2011 12:36 PM PDT up reply actions
He's out anyway for the 20th
a move would probably be completed by the 30th though. I don’t see why Blackburn didn’t jump sooner though, if the move would have come before our transfer window closed, it would have given FCD a bit of time to try and replace him and stay on track for their trophies.
Holy cow
John only makes $42K in the MLS for 2011. The rumor right now is that the proposed transfer fee alone is 7 figures. I wonder if players can request transfers in the MLS like they can in Europe. I suspect Blackburn will want to pay him a little bit more.
by Brougham Hooligan on Aug 18, 2011 12:20 PM PDT reply actions
Drafted 14th overall in '09
I bet he signed a 3 year league minimum contract with FCD. That would explain his salary. He’s only really come into his own this year. While solid last year, he already has more minutes played this year, excluding his playoff minutes last year.
Are the Transfer Windows different?
On Monday’s ESPN2 EPL broadcast one of the announcers was mentioning teams getting transfer help over the next 15 days. I had thought he meant just within English teams or something. So is MLS’s transfer window voluntairily shorter or something? (I feel like a have a decent handle on this stuff, but that, plus the George John rumor now, has got me confused…)
Thanks
The major European internation transfer windows close on 8/31
The MLS international window closed on 8/14. But, the MLS roster freeze goes into effect on 9/15, so teams can still trade players and get international players not under contract until then.
by Brougham Hooligan on Aug 18, 2011 12:25 PM PDT up reply actions
The reason for the disparity
is ours is a mid-season window, while theirs is for the start of the season. I think our season-opening window is similarly long.
Outgoing players
Players can be sold from league at any time by league rules. You can only add players during specific windows.
John was probably more attractive to Blackburn because...
he holds dual citizenship – US and EU (Greece). All he has to do is get a Greek passport and all stuff you’ve seen screw up other transfers and signings vanishes. I’m happy for him. It says a lot when EPL teams are looking at uncapped Americans from the MLS. The times they are a changin.
perhaps...
we can get Blackburn to grab Omar G too…we can send him off in a plane painted to look like a large wooden badger
Conventional wisdom says that it is good for MLS to lose talent to top leagues?
Has any league become better by regularly losing talent?
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
there is a tradeoff ...
We lose an up and coming talent. We gain prestige and lots and lots of money to sign new up and coming talent…or even established talent. I don’t know how the division of the $$s works..but I would think that FCD would have to be getting a LOT to part with him in the middle of a banner MLS season and 2 successful tournament starts.
I do agree with the sentiment though…we don’t want all our talent fleeing. On the other hand, if you’re a young … say … Costa Rican … with dreams of playing in a top European league one day…and you have an MLS offer in hand or an offer to stick around and play in Costa Rica, you’re asking yourself which choice gets you closer to your ultimate goal. Signings like this make MLS much more attractive in these situations, imho, and undercut the argument that “the MLS is where you go to end a career, not start one”.
by exSlacker on Aug 18, 2011 1:29 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
I think there is a differance between losing talent to EPL,La Liga, Bundesliga then to Scandanavia.
If we can become a proven jump pad to the top leagues in Europe we will get better young talent.
I don’t think teams in contention should be selling off in the middle of the year though. Not a good policy if you want fans to think you’re interested in winning.
"The fans are excited. And the stadium, well, it ignites with explosion."
Sure, but Russia, Portugal and Turkey have become better leagues not due to selling
but keeping quality talent and buying more.
Argentina and Brasil are worse than they used to be because they lose more talent now than before.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
I'd say Argentina ande Brazil's decline is due to their teams being run horribly throughout the years.
It’s all about how well you invest.
by Aaron Campeau on Aug 18, 2011 2:22 PM PDT up reply actions
They do have significant financial issues
but are a glaring symbol of how losing talent hurts a league’s overall standing.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
The key word there is "buying"
MLS is a cheap league. I suspect no one here would pay John as a DP what Blackburn would. Russia, Portugal, and Turkey have no salary caps. They will be subject to Fair Play though.
by Brougham Hooligan on Aug 18, 2011 2:23 PM PDT up reply actions
Yes and No
The NCAA is more exciting and skilled then ever and they constantly deal with losing Seniors and gaining freshmen, now will it ever be as good as the professional sports leagues it is a feeder system for, probably not, but that doesn’t mean the skill has increased.
Basically I have a lot more hope that younger soccer players will see the transfers of George John and Stuart Holden etc. as proof that they can make good money playing soccer and that the MLS is a good 1-3 year stop before the real professional leagues start, this in turn makes the young players practice more and get better which raises the skill of the league.
And when you say that the Argentinan and Brazillian leagues aren’t as good as they used to be, how do you draw comparisons? Are they scoring less goals, or Brazillian and Argentinan teams doing worse in the Copa Liberatodores…if so if that just a product of other countries getting better at a faster rate and then random chance of an upset being increased as well?
Re the S. American leagues
I thinks he was probably referring to the contemporary fact that most of the best players leave for/are sold to European leagues, thus diluting the talent level. This wasn’t always the case. For example, until he played for the Cosmos (only three years to conclude his playing career), Pele played for Santos for 18 years.
You will hear us on Brougham, you will hear us on Occidental, you will hear us on King. Our yachts are all around you, there is no escape.
He hasn't been sold yet
so this is good news in that it shows we have premier league caliber players currently playing in the MLS.
Has Klinsmann hired someone...
…fulltime to simply stand behind George John and suggest that he play for USMNT? Because if not, I’m willing to start a collection, or even volunteer my time. Dude’s really good.
Seriously!
What does a dude have to do to get some interest from the national team? A position, that we need work on, and the man can’t even get a look, after being in one of the better center pairings in the MLS.
by Dustin Titus on Aug 18, 2011 7:29 PM PDT up reply actions
FCD fan perspective.
Losing him would suck, so if they go forward with this, you can bet the fee is at least $5mm. His contract only runs through 2012, so the other alternatives are to take a smaller offer in the winter or lose him on free transfer after next season.
Also, FCD’s CB depth was already concerning, so they’ll have to sign a FA or trade with a non-playoff team for a veteran CB (maybe Cory Gibbs). Either one would be a downgrade to keeping together a very high-chemistry backline.
But, big money is hard to turn down, and keeping a player that wants to leave is rarely ideal, either.
He was called into a NT in January, but was hurt. I’ll be shocked if Klinsmann doesn’t cap him soon.
Now, now
I hate him even more than the next guy. But I’d be a fan if he put on the jersey.
My list of people I wouldn’t root for even if they played for the Sounders is pretty short (and is almost exclusively Rapids players).
Nos Audietis
Asked Kasey last night which MLS players he'd like to see in a Sounders jersey
he named Casey and Shea.
Josh Wicks is the dude I'll never root for
Mullan, too. Think those are the two that I’d stage a Manuel Neuer/Bayern fan reaction to.
Acapulco cliff divers study his game tape for new ideas
You will hear us on Brougham, you will hear us on Occidental, you will hear us on King. Our yachts are all around you, there is no escape.
by 108Ultra on Aug 19, 2011 7:44 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Ah, say no more
I didn’t follow him a ton, other than the few games I watched him play against us with Chicago
by chrisperry1983 on Aug 19, 2011 9:26 AM PDT up reply actions
And Joey Barton
But he can’t enter the us, so it’s not likely to be a problem.
by Dustin Titus on Aug 18, 2011 7:25 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Remember that he's actually practiced with Greece
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
Right.
Attended a camp, but wasn’t capped. Has said he’s open to either, but journalists who’ve talked to him about it give the impression that if he got attention from US he’d play for Klinsmann.
I'll bet he plays for the first nation that offers him a real CAP
if it was just about being with the USA if they wanted him he would never have gone to Greece training.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
Let's also not lose sight that John is a NCAA product too
In fact, in looking at Blackburn transfer targets, they are allegedly looking at one from Hoffenheim, Bosnian striker Vedad Ibisevic, who is also a NCAA product having played at St. Louis University. The list of players that have passed through the NCAA system onto careers in the European soccer leagues is staggering. Strange that our college soccer system is so maligned by Klinsmann and others for stunting the growth of US soccer players.
by Brougham Hooligan on Aug 18, 2011 3:20 PM PDT reply actions
To be fair
The college system produces 1000s of players. Just by virtue of that fact, it’s almost inevitable that some of them will end up in Europe. I’m sure the percentage of players college produces that end up in Europe is ridiculously smaller that the percentage of players who come out of European academies and end up in European clubs.
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, MLS editor SB Nation. Follow me on Twitter. You'll Never Yacht Alone.
by Jeremiah Oshan on Aug 18, 2011 4:05 PM PDT up reply actions
What i think Klinsmann is saying...
Is that the college system can make some good players. But it does not produce Great players. We need a system that produces Great players that can take out national team to another level.
Klinsmann comments
I’m struck by a comment Klinsmann made during last summer’s World Cup about the US needing to develop a blue collar breeding ground for football players. His observation was that many of the world’s greatest football players come from economically challenged backgrounds while in the States it’s a sport more often found in affluent neighborhoods. He claimed that the hunger of wanting a better life drives players in a way that an economically stable background does not.
by Abbott Smith on Aug 19, 2011 9:32 AM PDT up reply actions
I have it on reasonably good authority
from a friend of John’s that I work with, that they are just working out the details. Now, as we’ve seen lately, the devil is in the details, but it sounds like he’s headed to England.
You will hear us on Brougham, you will hear us on Occidental, you will hear us on King. Our yachts are all around you, there is no escape.
It's not only up to him, though.
Remember, MLS and FC Dallas both have veto power. Dallas’ cost-assessment will be key. The price has to be worth giving away the best CB in the league (according to the Castrol Index’s objective analysis) in the middle a treble-potential campaign. They can still sell him in the winter, though it would certainly be for a lower price.
My wild guess is that Blackburn will have to pay a few million to get this done. That kind of price would be worth scrambling for a replacement, but I don’t think low 7-fiugures would be. Remember, CB is the only position where Dallas is really thin.
I concur
When I said “they” I meant all parties, i.e. John, the two teams and league. And if I was a journalist, my source wouldn’t be strong enough to publish with, so please take my qualifiers at face value.
You will hear us on Brougham, you will hear us on Occidental, you will hear us on King. Our yachts are all around you, there is no escape.
He's at practice in Dallas today, for what it's worth
by Aaron Campeau on Aug 19, 2011 9:24 AM PDT up reply actions
According to Tweeting this am
From Big D soccer and others, FCD is actively trading players today. One tweet said that Eric Alexander was likely traded.
by Brougham Hooligan on Aug 19, 2011 10:23 AM PDT up reply actions
Rumor that I've heard
Alexander to the T!mbers for Jeremy Hall.
I'd figure they'd go after a veteran CB.
If John leaves, the only CBs they’d have on the roster would be Ugo Ihemelu and the Stewart guy they just took on loan from USL. Maybe they’ll get Cory Gibbs or Jay DeMerritt away from their out-of-the-playoffs clubs.
Big D Soccer just posted a brief interview with George John
Pretty cool for the Northwest if John goes
I think the northwest has produced a pretty high concentration of top flight players for having a relatively low population compared to the likes of California/Florida/Texas.
But are they going to be disappointed...
when they realize he’s not the guy from that Johnny Cash movie?
by Jack Brando on Aug 19, 2011 12:35 PM PDT up reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
