Photo courtesy of Philadelphia Union
Philadelphia Union
Bořek Dočkal finally signs! Sounds like it’s a one-year loan with no option to buy. Here are write-ups at Philly.com and MLSsoccer.com.
Dočkal speaks!
Blake and Ilsinho got green cards, so now the Union have $175K in GAM.
Notes from Curtin’s presser yesterday.
Decent turnout at the Union’s meet-and-greet last night at Dave & Buster’s in Center City.
Earnie Stewart’s vision for the Union and what he expects from Accam.
The Union’s youth movement.
Union U15s complete GA Cup friendlies unbeaten.
Local
In a preseason friendly, Villanova beat Bethlehem Steel, 3-2.
MLS
The Armchair Analyst broke down all the teams into five tiers, with the Union near the bottom, just above Minnesota and LAFC. That’s even with Dočkal.
The Dynamo are proud of their diversity with 24 players from 10 different countries.
U.S. Soccer
The man who brought you Pulisic says: Europe first.
Around the globe
Twelve footballers forever living in the shadow of their more successful siblings.
Tottenham reached the FA Cup quarter-finals in a game dominated by VAR controversies.
Neymar will miss his Champions League match against Real Madrid because of surgery on his fractured foot.
Dortmund chief craps on English fans.
Highlight of the day
Nice Twitter thread, with GIFs, on Dočkal. Check the whole thing out by clicking here.
https://twitter.com/JogaBonito_USA/status/968913779873509376
That article about Pulisic’s agent is excellent. Well researched and so much useful info in it.
Agreed, that was very good.
The tiers write-up feels like it gives most teams youth players the benefit of the doubt while hyping up their signings, but ours it’s glosses over our additions while downplaying our youth.
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5 tiers seems to many anyway. There really should be 3 because that’s how I see the league.
I didn’t think it was as bad as you did. He fully admits to not having seen Dockal play (like almost all of us). The youth thing I believe is more about the positions they play. How many teams start a 19 year old CB? Add in if Real gets major minutes at LB and Rosenberry takes his spot back, they’d be the youngest back line by far. Rosenberry would be the “grizzled vet”. It’s hard to say that this is a successful formula going into a season. I really hope it will be, but I can’t fault someone for saying it won’t be.
That’s a lot of ifs though on the backline. It easily could be the same as last year except for Trusty for Marquez/Gooch with the same 2 midfielders in front of them and we were good on D. Just saying is Columbus 2 tiers better than us? They seem to get a lot of benefits of the doubt while we get none. But who knows.
Is Columbus two tiers ahead? Probably not. I’m with you there. Where the difference comes in for me is obviously the coach. For as middling as Columbus is/was, what has Burkhalter done with what he’s been given? I’d say a good bit more than Curtin. One of these teams made a playoff run last year. The other did what they usually do.
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I guess I’m more looking at the write-up than the tier. The tier becomes irrelevant for me because can anyone say the Union deserve not to be towards the bottom till proving otherwise?
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And yes there are a lot of if’s on the backline. I’m pretty sure Rosenberry will start and that still makes them not that experienced even if Fabi starts. Again, I really think they should be bottom tier till proving themselves.
Yeah that’s fair enough and this really is the year for Curtin to show he belongs. I guess I view MLS in like 2 real tiers in general. Basically the big spenders and the middle to low spenders. But the big spenders have become fewer in number and a couple of them have been bad on top of that (Orlando/LA last year). Anyway, glad to finally get the season started with some new young blood in there instead of the overpriced average older guys.
The extra DP slot, international slot and the additional GAM make me raise an eyebrow. Then I remember who owns the team and the eyebrow goes right back down again…
Keeping their options open so they can float that they tried to signs someone….
The DP buy down was just ownership using money that doesn’t come from their pockets to open a spot so they can get paid by the other teams using all 3 spots. That’s all.
That’s not accurate though. They used discretionary TAM which does come from their pocket. Per the rules they brought down one DP to open a spot and had to sign another at a higher cost than the one they already had. This leaves them an open DP spot, which could be used to sign the young Venezuelan during the summer that’s been rumored. But no matter what they do, this transaction had some real money and not Garber bucks involved.
Also keep in mind that if Dockal ends up looking more and more like a one year rental then the Union have a DP spot to possibly sign a longer term option if available during the summer window. And the summer window is when many teams is Europe are willing to deal since that is their offseason.