Photo: Earl Gardner
Don’t forget to register your opinions in our first-ever post season poll. The poll will close tonight at midnight.
Philadelphia Union
Here’s the latest on the Carlos Valdes situation. An article on the Santa Fe website (crappy Google translation here) from Friday said the Colombian club “has a 40% stake in the player’s rights.” An article also from Friday at elespectador.com (crappy Google translation here), and another from Saturday at La Banda Deportiva (crappy Google translation here), confirm this ownership portioning, each saying that the Union own 60% of Valdes’ rights.
Check out our roundup of results for the Union Academy U-15/16 and U-17/18 teams at the US Soccer Development Academy’s Winter Showcase in Florida. Union Academy players Andrew Verdi, Isaiah Young, and Matthew Real, along with PA Classic’s Sean O’Hearn, also saw playing time in the U-15/16 Red Team’s 2-0 loss to the U-15/16 Blue Team at the US Development Academy Select Showcase in Florida on Thursday. Also on Thursday, PA Classics Austin Maloney played for the U-17-18 Blue Team in the 0-0 draw with the Red Team.
YSC Sports and YSC Academy are the recipients of the Union’s annual Spirit Award.
Brian Carroll and Zac MacMath have been sharing their knowledge with two New Jersey youth teams.
Local
The Union’s USL partners were honored on Friday. The Harrisburg City Islanders were recognized by USL for reaching the 10 year mark and Reading United won the PDL’s Communications Award.
The South Jersey Times has named its high school boys’ soccer all-stars. Tyler Skye, who has played for the Union academy team and scored 24 goals for Cumberland, is among them.
College Cup
In Friday’s first semifinal at PPL Park, Notre Dame defeated New Mexico, 2-0. The second semifinal saw two former Union academy players and potential Homegrown signings face off, Darius Madison for Virginia and Zack Steffen for Maryland. The Terrapins won 2-1 to reach the final with Steffen making some huge saves. More on that semifinal from the Washington Post, and the AP.
In Sunday’s final, Notre Dame defeated Maryland 2-1. It was Notre Dame’s first national men’s soccer title and West Chester native Andrew O’Malley, a graduate of Wilmington’s Salesianum High School, scored the game-winning goal. More on the game from NCAA.com, MLSsoccer.com, and The AP.
MLS
A tough week for Real Salt Lake that began with losing the MLS Cup final, and continued with head coach Jason Kreis moving to NYC FC, ended with the announcement on Friday that CONCACAF had approved US Soccer’s request to amend how MLS teams qualify for the CONCACAF Champions League. With the new rule meaning that the winner of the conference opposite the MLS Supporters’ Shield winner now qualifies, it is the Portland Timbers who will play in the next edition of the tournament. Under the old rules, RSL would have qualified as MLS Cup runners-up. Cue frustration in Salt Lake and celebration in Portland.
Toronto FC announced on Friday the signing of 24-year-old forward Brazilian striker Gilberto Oliveira Souza Junior as a Designated Player.
Later that day, the Toronto Sun’s Kurtis Larson reported,
“The Toronto Sun has learned Tottenham Hotspur striker Jermain Defoe will join Toronto FC next season in what’s sure to be the biggest off-season move MLS-wide — both financially and tactically.
“The Reds are believed to be dropping as much as $10 million on a transfer fee to secure the services of a player they’ll pay upward of $150,000 per week, numbers that will make Defoe the highest-paid player in MLS history.
“It’s unclear whether the 31-year-old will join the Reds before next summer’s World Cup, but TFC general manager Tim Bezbatchenko told the Sun last weekend he’s working to have both DPs settled in Toronto before next season.”
No official word on such a move has yet come from TFC. Stay tuned.
At the Washington Post, Steven Goff reports that DC United is in the running to sign Eddie Johnson from Seattle, along with Chivas USA and the LA Galaxy. I wonder which club Johnson prefers?
The offseason moves keep a coming:
- FC Dallas acquired Adam Moffat from Seattle in exchange for the rights to Kenny Cooper and allocation money.
- Chicago acquired Lovel Palmer from Real Salt Lake in exchange for allocation money.
- Sporting Kansas City acquired Sal Zizzo from Portland in exchange for allocation money.
- DC United announced they had permanently signed Conor Doyle from Derby County.
Red Bulls coach Mike Petke says he signed Bobby Convey for competition, depth, and versatility. Petke also said, “Bobby, very much, I eye him as well as being able to play at the left back position…Bobby has played the left back position. He scored two goals against in the playoffs a couple of years ago from the left back position to knock us out with San Jose. He’s very versatile in that aspect. He’s a fighting player, likes to get into a tackle, and also has quality with the ball at his feet, and he’s for sure someone we can use at the left back position as well.”
Is Clint Dempsey headed to Fulham for an offseason loan? The Guardian says yes.
Landon Donovan says he will not be going on loan during this offseason and that he has no plans to play in Mexico.
The Vancouver Whitecaps are expected to announce assistant coach Carl Robinson as their new head coach at a press conference today.
The Chicago Fire will open a soccer center in the summer of 2014. Great idea.
The Brian Ching Testimonial Game was played on Saturday and Ching scored six goals. Other highlights included Landon Donovan in goal, Craig Waibel pulling a fan out of the stands as a sub for himself, Steve Ralston climbing on Hunter Freeman’s shoulders to defend a corner kick, and the ref giving Houston Dynamo coach Dominic Kinnear a yellow card as soon as he stepped onto the field to enter the game and then giving himself a yellow card. More testimonials, please!
NWSL
Looks like former USWNT coach Tony DiCicco is a candidate for head coach at the league’s newest team, the Houston Dash.
US
In the inaugural CONCACAF Awards, Alex Morgan was named Female Player of the Year, Tim Howard Goalkeeper of the Year, and Jurgen Klinsmann was named Coach of the Year.
US Soccer has a quote sheet from Sunil Gulati and Jurgen Klinsmann following the announcement that the USMNT coach had signed a deal extending his contract until 2018 that makes for some interesting reading.
At ESPN, Roger Bennett says the US won’t be intimidated by their foes in Group G.
At the LA Times, Kevin Baxter talks to Bruce Arena, Brian McBride, and Eric Wynalda about the challenges facing the US in the long lead-up to the World Cup in June.
ESPN has an updated interactive SPI World Cup group stage projections graphic thingee.
Hershey, Pa. native and PA Classics player Christian Pulisic was named tournament MVP after the US U-17s defeated Brazil 4-1 on Friday at the Nike International Friendlies in Florida. Pulisic had a goal and an assist in the game which saw the Brazilians, down to nine players after two straight red cards, refusing to cross the midway line by the end of the contest.
Here are highlights from the game. You can see Pulisic’s goal at the 2:30 mark.
US U-15 BNT coach Hugo Perez talks about the team’s showing at the Development Academy Winter Showcase where the team went 1-1-1 against “advanced competition.”
Elsewhere
The Champions League and Europa League knockout stage draws took place this morning. ESPN has five thoughts on the Champions League draw with more reaction from ProSoccerTalk, The Guardian, The AP, and no doubt scores of other websites by the time you read this.
SI has a look at the use of goal-line technology at the Club World Cup.
Construction at the World Cup stadium in Manaus has been halted after the deaths of two workers on Saturday. The deaths could result in a strike.
Sepp Blatter has managed to get a Swiss court to ban a book of cartoons about him by artist and former pro footballer Olé Andersen. Blatter’s lawyers somehow convinced the court that he “has a good reputation and if the cartoons were published he would never be able to repair the damage.” The ruling is effectively a world-wide ban. Transparency in Sports writes, “The court has warned Andersen that if any of the cartoons are published anywhere in the world, he could be fined up to 10,000 Swiss Francs.”
Cristiano Ronaldo has opened his CR 7 museum. How nice.
Wait. how do they have 40% of Valdes’ rights? Does that mean they get 40% of a transfer fee?
I am lost.
And if the other 60% are split between the Union, MLS and Valdes himself, what are we really looking to gain from selling him? $500k? $400k? That’s if the $1.5M numbers I’ve seen rumored are close.
At this point, the Union are better served with him paired with Parke and Okugo pushed up. If they were netting $1M I would expect that plowed back into the team, but for that little net gain, might as well use the remainder for Okugo/Jack extensions.
My assumption is that Sante Fe settled for an amount and paid the Union/MLS 40% of the set transfer value. I’m sure they’ll pay the remaining 60% back at some point in the near future.
Remember that we are still working with the club where Valdes came from on loan in the first place. This “40% stake in his rights” may be partial control of a player (see Carlos Tevez for a good example of this business practice) or it may be that a sell-on clause exists where Santa Fe get 40% of any fee paid for Valdes if he’s sold within so many years. Sell on clauses are not uncommon for young players and would typically lower the initial cost of purchasing a contract. Doubtful that we’ll ever get a lot of clarity on his contractual situation but this will play itself out in the next few weeks.
it is spelled COLOMBIA not Columbia.