Photo: Mick Anderson/Courtesy of ekstrabladet.dk
San Jose Earthquakes announced on Thursday that they won the rights to 25-year-old forward Marcus Tracy via the weighted lottery allocation process.
Union head coach John Hackworth said after the announcement, “We’re extremely disappointed we didn’t win a chance to have Marcus join our organization. It’s unfortunate.”
Tracy was reported to be training with the Union last week. This week, John Hackworth acknowledged the club was interested in acquiring his rights.
On Wednesday, the league confirmed eight MLS clubs would participate in the weighted lottery. New England Revolution had a 33.2 percent chance of winning the lottery based on their performance over the club’s last 34 regular season matches. The Union’s chances were ranked No. 3 at 16.8 percent. San Jose was ranked at No. 7 with a 4.6 percent chance of winning the lottery.
Tracy, born in Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill section although raised in Connecticut, won the 2008 Hermann Trophy while at Wake Forrest, scoring 30 goals and 23 assists in 77 appearances. He was selected 56th overall at the 2009 SuperDraft by Houston on Jan. 15, the same day he signed a 3-year contract Danish club Aalborg BK.
Tracy’s time with Aalborg was marked by limited appearances due to patellar tendinitis in both knees and in three years with the club he made only 15 league appearances, scoring twice.
After making seven appearances and three starts in the 2008-2009 season, Tracy made eight appearances and four starts in the 2009-2010 season before being sidelined with injury. With no appearances in the 2010-2011 season, Aalborg announced on Oct. 3 2011 that Tracy’s contract would not be renewed.
On Sept. 7, 2012, MLSsoccer.com reported that Tracy was training with the Union and considering signing with MLS while also entertaining offers from Greece and Sweden. His agent, Lyle Yorks, said in the report, “We are hoping to have something finalized for him in the coming days.”
On Sept. 11, the league announced it had signed Tracy, although the terms of the contract have not been disclosed. Houston’s rights to Tracy had lapsed because he had been out of the league for more than two years and his rights were made available via the weighted lottery system. Teams interested in pursuing Tracy had until the end of Wednesday, Sept. 12, to declare their interest in participating in the lottery.
Union head coach John Hackworth confirmed in his weekly press conference on Wednesday that the club was interested in acquiring Tracy. Hackworth described Tracy as a player who would be more likely to make an impact on the team in the future rather than near-term because he was not 100 percent fit.
Kinda ridiculous TBH. Let the player signs where he want, let the teams negotiate on their own.
The worst part is this is all in the name of parity, but there still isn’t. NY and LA hog the DPs. NY and LA and Seattle are the premier destinations for foreigners. That’s just how it is.
The MLS needs to accept that and get rid of all these ruls that only hurt the lower tier teams instead of hurting them.
The more I think about it the lottery makes no sense. How exactly does the MLS have the rights to this player? How come smaller teams can’t go out and find the best players and them without being pitted against each other. While the big teams get to sign all sorts of DP’s. I know the MLS treating each team like a franchise keeps salaries low and the league competitive but teams aren’t franchises they are actively competing against each other. They are gonna find themselves in court one of these days for being a monopoly.
MLS has the rights to every player. Clubs aren’t franchises, they are considered “owner-operators”. And the players did take them to court, they can opt out at anytime and go play elsewhere. But since MLS is itself a single entity and negotiates all contracts, they can’t opt out of MLS Team A for Team B unless the league and those teams agree.
The lottery makes sense in that light, since the only way the league can look above board in allocating out players they sign is to randomly allow teams to win the player. Which just points to how contorted MLS rules are, that this scenario is logical.
Can we still trade for him?
Who? Bakary Soumare?
We can, I suppose, but Yallop’s comments make it sound like he’s keeping Tracy on the Quakes’ roster.
I’m personally not that upset, considering the guys has bad knees. Maybe he’ll turn into a star, but I’m not sure we missed much.
The Union lost because of Hackworth’s tactical ineptitude and dreadful finishing. Yeah. Those two things, and Freddy Adu. Also, Zack MacMath is too short and doesn’t know when to come off his line. Let’s all hope they can regroup and bounce back on Saturday.