Daily news roundups

News roundup: Jay Sugarman wants to spend, Lewandowski to MLS?, and German Thanksgiving

Union

SUGARMAN SPEAKS! He says the Union are going to spend more, but that doesn’t mean they’ll go star chasing.

Jim Curtin says he will play more Union Academy players.

Andre Blake is up for CONCACAF Male Player of the Year.

Could this be a new way to get butts in the seats?

MLS

Any problems Anthony Precourt is having with attendance or support are self inflicted.
#SaveTheCrew.

He may be the face of USMNT disappointment, but our neighbors to the north still love Michael Bradley.

San Jose has hired a head coach! Mikael Stahre, a Swede who was coaching currently-in-fourth-place BK Hacken. Chris Leitch, the interim head coach, returns to his role as technical director.

Despite the league’s growth, MLS still struggles with visibility. Especially in the playoffs.

LAFC has it’s first crazy transfer rumor.

National Team

Before the Revierderby, Bundesliga rivals Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie showed their (stars and) stripes by sharing a Thanksgiving meal. More on that game later.

2018 will kick off with a January Camp Cupcake friendly vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina.

USWNT is well represented for CONCACAF Female Player of the Year voting.

World

BVB blew a four goal lead at home. Schalke 04 isn’t playing games.

Messi signed a new contract with Barcelona through 2021. And then he got robbed.

Premier League wages keep going up.

26 Comments

  1. The Gorgon Mirror says:

    New England finished 3 points ahead of Philadelphia. Brad Friedel.
    .
    Montreal finished 3 points behind Philadelphia. Remi Garde.
    .
    Both franchises have hired new managers with extensive world pedigree and influence from some great managers to inform their craft.
    .
    There was a moment of bouyance with this team for 3 months with Noguiera and Barnetta in the middle… beyond that, forgive me for not being too optimistic while the two closest teams in the standings have clearly upgraded.
    .
    We shall sit and observe, watch it all… and to those who think the manager really doesn’t matter, I can’t help ya.
    .

    • Brad Friedel has less experience than Curtin did as a coach. They are essentially starting at zero.

      • yes, i’m not sure why anyone would be excited by that hire. he is anything but a well pedigreed coach

      • The Gorgon Mirror says:

        okay… you’re right.
        .
        He carries a UEFA A license…. is notoriously fastidious.
        .
        and had a 17 year 450 start, Premier League career for some of the best clubs in the country, most recently under Pochettino, but if that affords him a start at zero, so be it.
        .
        oh my, sigh.
        .
        .
        I will expect a full retraction from you both.

      • 1. No
        2. Fuck you
        3. I can get a drivers license but that doesn’t make me an experienced driver.

      • The Gorgon Mirror says:

        now this is a proper way to start off after a tidy Thanksgiving break.
        .
        though the Fuck You was a bit unnecessary.
        .
        I push buttons, its what I do here and when New England are a consistent top of the table contender it’ll be me saying, told ya so.

      • He fastidiously managed his academy right into bankruptcy. #teamsieve!

    • He did manage the U.S. U-19s, so he has some experience, at least with younger kids, but that doesn’t always translate. Certain managers with lots of experience have struggled here, while others like Caleb Porter who had college experience find success. Ben Olsen has had some success managing shortly after playing, same with Mike Petke. You never really know – Friedel doesn’t have experience managing at this level, but I would definitely agree that it is an upgrade over Heaps, all things considered at the present time.

      • I read a lot of pissing and moaning about the Friedel appointment, but the guy’s player’s resume might be the best of any American player: Liverpool, Spurs, Aston Villa and Blackburn, who he helped earn promotion. Won a Football League cup, Starting XI of the year player in the PL, was the second keeper in PL history to score a goal from open play, etc. Keepers aren’t known as the best managers, but Friedel has, if nothing else, earned a shot.

  2. In other Union brass lies and misdirections, Ernie Stewart will be completely open to all guidance and comments, the team will feature a transitional formation that targets the opponent for each game, all substitutions will be made during most games and at strategic times, the parking lots will be paved, a new entertainment and food center will be built along the waterfront, the teams scouting network will reach 5 employees, playing time will feature a rotation and create competition at all levels, finally CJ Sapong will be given a break from time to time and not be moved to wing when a sub at forward enters the game.

    • They never seriously stated that the parking lots will be paved.

    • It’s funny I got half-excited for a second, until I read the whole article. It’s just more of the same BS. So when Stewart brings in the next boat load of players and they do badly, do we actually get to blame him this coming season?

    • Every interview of Curtin, Stewart & McDermott features some variation of the “Jay has never said no to any of our requests to spend money” quote as well as the “we’ll never spend like TFC or ATL”. These must be two of the main talking points that Matt Bodiford gives each of them to emphasize.

  3. Fivethirtyeight have a pretty good podcast up about Charles Reep, the father of soccer analytics and how his bad math created direct soccer tactics and kind of ruined soccer.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-one-mans-bad-math-helped-ruin-decades-of-english-soccer/?ex_cid=story-twitter

  4. Bobby Warshaw has a new podcast out answering questions about his book and more. Have not listened to it yet but will tonight.

  5. The Union will spend more money because the league will give them more TAM. Sugar daddy isn’t opening up his checkbook and spending any of his money.

    • +100000

      .

      Jay is not spending any of his own money.

    • Somebody, or plural, are absorbing the losses associated with the Academy, both school and pitch, and with the Bethlehem Steel.
      .
      Complain from as complete a picture as possible? Or does that take the fun out of it!
      .
      We will know nothing more than we do now until the morning of December 10th.

      • We know nothing?

        .

        (gestures towards previous 8 years of horrific soccer and shitty business management.)

        .

        Jay doesn’t care, in so much that this crappy product doesn’t ultimately impact his sale price. Even when he talks about spending more, he immediately backpedals.

        .

        But yeah, I’m sure Year 9 of DOOP will be different.

  6. John O'Donnell says:

    I find it hard to believe that Jay isn’t spending any money. There is to much infrastructure being built that benefits his bottom line for other people to be doing it as charity. Yes they have new partners in the academy and training facility but how would they benefit if Jay sold the team? I would imagine that the payouts from SUM and expansion are being put back into the team. Now if you don’t consider that Jay’s money, what would you say if he pocketed it?

  7. John O'Donnell says:

    Taylor Twellman had some interesting comments about MLS t.v. ratings. Bottom line, EPL isn’t the problem but catching Liga MX is. Here’s a link on Twitter to catch what he said.
    https://twitter.com/NERevolution/status/934512032795172865

    • One point from TT that for the data point of my family is true. We have DirecTV and MLS Direct Kick. Our adult children (ages 20-25) watch all the Union games on their phones/laptops from various bandit streaming sites. When your best demographic is in that age group, have fun trying to monetize that.

    • I feel like MLS should put down the measuring sticks and just work on getting better. I mean that broadly. Catching up to European standards and ratings are always going to be hard when those leagues feature the best players in the world. I’ve coached intramural soccer for years. Never had a kid show up in an MLS kit. Not even a Union jersey. But they’re at practice in Ronaldo and Messi jerseys.

      Competing with Liga MX is a more interesting issue. I suspect, but don’t know, that a lot of Liga MX fans are people in the states who still have ties to their communities and clubs. And you still have a better quality game in that league (I don’t think that’s debatable given CONCACAF CL results). And here, best thing MLS could do is make the quality of the game better. Get more people to watch CCL and win some titles.

      • Economics rule the world, even soccer eventually. The problem is the “measuring stick” used is ratings (ie viewers/eyeballs) That is how ad rates are set, which drives how much ESPN, FOX, et al pay for broadcast rights. Broadcast rights $ pay for a good portion of what you see on the field. Can’t pay for better on the field if you can’t prove that your are reaching big numbers of viewers. BTW, I don’t think that this is a MLS problem alone. I think it is becoming a problem for all sports. Especially acute if your target demographic skews young.(NBA)

      • All of the above are fair arguments and/or correct statements, but the fact is that I don’t have cable – I stream through Playstation Vue – so even though I watch almost every game on ESPN & Fox, I don’t register on their rating scale. Union games NOT on CSN or 6ABC I stream via MLS Live on AppleTV or my iPad, neither of which register on the ratings scale. NFL is dealing with the same problem. Until those companies figure out how to monitor streaming services – or at least consider how many may be using it to set prices and ads – the numbers will never tell the entire story.
        ——
        And FWIW most of the time when streaming on Vue there are no commercials – just a floating Playstation symbol saying “Commerical break – your program will resume shortly.” That must drive companies NUTS to know their product is not being featured for potentially half of the viewers watching the program on alternate sources.

  8. Mr. Tannenwald forgot or didn’t have the temerity to ask if the new money will be limited to the TAM increase. I was disappointed by that.
    .
    Actually, though, the most important part of the article was the statement by Sugarman that he would welcome selling shares of the team. I appreciate that that will be roundly dismissed but I ask people to give that some thought. I think that could be very interesting.

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