Photo: Earl Gardner
Philadelphia Union
Is it time for the Union to sell Andre Blake?
Major League Soccer
A very limited Team of the Week from the four weekend games.
Playoff probabilities for every team. Philadelphia is down to 2%.
U.S. Soccer
The USMNT take on Honduras tonight at 5:30 p.m. ET feeling the weight of their own self-inflicted pressure.
A guide to how the U.S. can qualify.
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ICYMI: Jim O’Leary on what went wrong for the U.S. versus Costa Rica.
Around the globe
A roundup of all of yesterday’s UEFA World Cup Qualifying action, including England’s 2-1 win over Slovakia that sees them go to the top of their group.
Here’s a list of all of today’s WCQ games, including some big CONMEBOL matchups.
Issue with selling Blake is the byzantine MLS ownership system. I know he was, maybe still is Gen. Adidas. He’s probably paid for in full, which is not bad for an asset. Sell and you need to do it at the right time, because a good chunk of profits is going to MLS central. I don’t know the particulars, but I know it’s a factor that a lot of stories about selling players from MLS seems to miss. The league is not much of a selling league in all likelihood because of that issue.
I believe I remember that he “graduated” from Generation Adidas after last season. I do not recall having seen him on the GA portion of the Union’s roster when I have looked the roster up on the MLS website. All GA’s have to be on the supplemental roster, by memory.
He did graduate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Soccer_transfers_2017
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Would you guys like to know how many players were sold for $ from MLS, much less the Union? 3 transfers out. Rest are frees and loan terms.
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Blake would net 2/3s of his sale price to the team. Up to $650k can be assigned to GAM, the rest can be used to (theoretically) buy new players or fritter it away on crap like the academy. So a sale could result in no new talent, but dividend to Richie for academy expenses.
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Cool.
Calling the Academy crap is pathetic.
Like I understand you want more investment in the first team. We all do.
But every single successful MLS team has a good academy and we need to get there too. It’s a valid way of improving your team.
This is one case where the MLS Rules & Regs actually benefit the Union. The $650,000 limit – and by the way NO MORE than that can be used for non-DP players – means that the Union can’t waste more than that. It means they are forced to invest more money in the academy, money that they previously did not have and can afford to utilize without hurting the first team roster. It’s a win-win to sell Blake – he is clearly the best player on a losing team and his value is sky high after his Gold Cup performance. The only real, valid argument I can make for keeping him (besides the fact that I selfishly want to keep watching him) is that I don’t think John McCarthy is the long term solution on a Cup winning team so they would have find that, either in the academy or elsewhere. McCarthy has been great when filling in and is one of the better back-ups in the league, but is he really good enough to lead the team to a Cup? Is he Frei, Bendik, Gonzalez, Hamid caliber?
I get scottymac’s “crap like the academy” comment. I don’t have a problem with investing in the academy, but I’d prefer rooting for a winning club. I don’t want to buy tickets to watch Soccer School. Furthermore, there is clearly not a big incentive to sell players for MLS. Which would be a primary reason for investing in an academy. If the Union isn’t even moved to sell a product it got for free (draft) …. i don’t know. I’m at a loss.
On top of that, doesn’t the league cover any transfer fee for incoming players? I’m not sure the Union are on the hook for that.
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Conversely even if we do sell Blake, we only get a portion of the transfer fee in the form of TAM/GAM. I’m not sure how much teams truly benefit from selling players on.
The article is useless, there are no BUYERS for Blake at the moment. No one if offering anything for him. He might as well make an argument for selling wool sweaters in Key West. It’s nonsense.
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The guy is a great shot stopper, but he has regressed into some serious distribution issues that will not fly at all at any level higher than this. Until that’s strengthened, there aren’t going to be many, if any, knocks on the door.
He won’t be a starter right away but a lot of teams overseas will take on potential like him and fix those issues. What the Union can’t fix someone else will.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/global-club-soccer-rankings/
The Union are now listed as the 408th best team in the world!
Hey that’s neat.
We’re ranked ahead of LA Galaxy (418) and DC United (426)!
Chuck Booth’s article, the first link above, about selling Blake misnames Tomas Romero.
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Tomas, not Travis.
SIGN’EM BOTH!!!!
WE COLLECT KEEPER ASSETS!!!
Besides Honduras-US and Panama-Trinidad, the most important qualifiers today (as far as the US is concerned) are in Asia.
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Australia already beat Thailand 2-1 so if Japan can get a result in Saudi Arabia then Australia goes through and Saudi is playing for 5th place and the right to play against the 4th place team from CONCACAF. If Saudi wins, they go through and Australia is playing for 5th.
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In the other group, there are 4 teams (Korea, Syria, Uzbekistan , and China that could all finish in 3rd.
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Could be brutal if 5th place is between Australia and Korea, especially if US finishes 4th in CONCACAF meaning only 1 of those teams goes to Russia next year. We’ll know a lot more by about 3:30 this afternoon when the Saudi-Japan game ends.
Korea is through. Syria will be one half of the 5th place game.
Yes…. sell the goalkeeper. Please.
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Bring a quarterback to run an offense… in NFL parlance.