Exactly. Part of playing possession based footy is keeping possession. Herrera is a terrific example of that. Good post
Ulrich2019 Offseason Thread
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Exactly. Part of playing possession based footy is keeping possession. Herrera is a terrific example of that. Good post
Ulrich
With the exception of a stinker or two, he shined for the USMNT, so playing against high caliber opponents he more than held his own.
What’s the difference in what he’s doing (per your description) and what a talented person at a crap company goes through? You can be a savant in your field, but if part of a larger team that doesn’t produce to the same level, the team’s rollout will look less than desirable and possibly like ass. That doesn’t mean the lone star is shitty, just that it’s a team with a cumulative low ceiling.
Because in soccer the opportunities you get are a direct result of professional scouts evaluations of your abilities, it doesn't correlate to the corporate world. You don't end up in Korea in your prime if you're good. You don't bounce from one club to another each in a less skilled league with each move if you're good. At some point when professional talent evaluators are consistently indicating that player isn't good based on the opportunities being offered to that player it might be time to admit that he's not good and the people that do this for a living know more than us.
He scored one spectacular goal for the USMNT against Germany and rode an inflated rep for years because of it. If Mix shined so brightly for the USMNT he'd still be getting call ups and he wouldn't be playing in Korea.
Soccer uses scouts, the corporate world uses recruiters. Both are paid professions. No difference in the analogy.
Mix has never been a scorer. He’s a box-2-box midfielder and his stats are similar across all stints. 38 caps for the MNT is hardly hanging his hat on a single goal vs Germany, he scored 6 for the MNT.
Nobody has to like him, or or think he should have played more for NYCFC, but disparaging him for the choice he’s made to play in Korea is a bit crazy - same as anybody disparaging you/I for the companies we chose to work for - people have different priorities at different points in their lives.
Yes, recruiters fishing around on linkedin and through other networking means are the same as scouting networks going to games to watch players actually do their job and having access to hours to footage to make an evaluation is exactly the same.
I admit I am making a presumption that Mix chose Korea because he had few if any better options but the presumption is supported by the trajectory of his previous club quality level progression as well. If he had considerably better offers and he's just not choosing them I could be wrong. I also am not pointing it out to disparage Mix, I am trying to make a comment that maybe the people that do this for a living are better at this than we as fans are. Which at this time of pessimism about the current NYCFC roster moves gives me a bit of hope. I hope Medina is amazing and all m posts complaining about him make me look like a fool next year. The narrative when Mix left was that the front office, coaching staff and the team was a bunch of idiots for not leveraging his superior talents and that their must have been some grand off field conspiracy for him not working out here. I'd say at this point from purley a soccer standpoint the team is looking pretty validated in their evaluation of his talent.
Correlation does not prove causality.
To your last sentence, they also allowed a career 2nd division player to play multiple matches last year with zero contribution and a red card within minutes of his first action. It was an atrocious evaluation of talent.
Amagat, Berget, Medina are all data points that suggest the team may not be that great at choosing the right players or maybe that's just a hard business where you win some and you lose some. I think we all hated the Amagat signing and I also think it's unfair to use Amagat as a data point for this discussion at all because if we are being honest that was Dome wanting his guy and the team supporting their new coach.
Beyond Mix I'm specifically talking about players that are on the roster that the majority of the fan base feels are underutilized and the general presumption is that the team is clueless and doesn't know what they are doing. I'd say at this point we are starting to have a reasonable number of these type players that have left the team and for the most part through their post departure performance validated that the team's assessment of their abilities. I can't think of a single player that has moved on and made the team look foolish. We covered Mix, I'd also lump Mullins and Poku into the same bucket. Both to differing degrees had the fans clamoring for them to get more time, both moved on and never really lived up to anywhere near the levels of performance our fanbase passionately advocated they were capable of.
On the contrary, Mullins did quite well when he went to DC. Injuries took him down. He may not have been the same player when he returned and hence the trade.
Poking also did well at Miami, scoring 13/50 which is a good strike rate for a midfielder. He took the money and went to Russia where getting time as a player of African descent is not easy. In hindsight that wasn’t a good career decision but perhaps the financial side was worth it.
Yeah bpth did fine but nothing near what the fan base vocally claimed they were capable of. People talked about Poku like he was a top 10 player we just refused to play. He went down a division a played above average. We've seen how top usl players do when stepping up to the MLS so I think it's fair to say that Poku's USL performance likely indicates he was a touch overrated by our fan base and his lack of planning time want nearly as unwarranted as most claimed in hindsight.
It was the NASL but I understand your point.
He also may not have been overrated by the fan base when on the team, as the rosters he was a part of were kinda atrocious. He was better than Grabavoy. He was better than the dude that played in the Indian Super League.
NASL was 13/50. Now in USL with Tampa at 1/15. But doesn't really detract from your main point.
Also let's remember Okoli had a great record in the USL, and he looked pretty atrocious with us. And he got chances, was not underused. He was lumbering, with bad feet, etc. So there may be a substantial gap
He got chances but most were out of position. Not making this support of his suspect abilities, but the way Cincy used him versus the way NYCFC is night/day. It’s always a shame when clubs obtain players and use them as if they’re joystick jockeys playing FIFA thinking players can be slotted into any number of positions/tactics. Okoli was hamstrung in a three forward system where Villa plays the striker who floats to the left side. We’re seeing the same problems with Berget not being played in a two-forward setup. At some point, maybe it’s the scouts/manager going after players not appropriate for the system.
Bunch of people on Twitter have included "NYCFC" in their handle to indicate their loyalty. Fine, except if the account is not exclusively about NYCFC it's annoying because when someone searches twitter for "nycfc" every tweet from these accounts come up no matter what it's about.
There's one guy in particular who is an NYCFC fan and an Islanders fan. Since soccer season is over and hockey is active, every one of his tweets right now is about the Islanders. And he tweets a lot. So I muted him. Problem solved.
Except, the software engineers at Twitter think for some reason I still want responses to an account I muted to come up in my searches. So now my "nycfc" searches return every tweet from every conversation the muted account engages in. And he's very actively tweeting with lots of other people about the Islanders. So I have now muted 10 people, solely for the otherwise inoffensive activity of discussing the Islanders on Twitter all because (A) one idiot decided to put "nycfc" in his account handle when the account is not really devoted to NYCFC, and (B) twitter is stupid.
There's one guy in particular who is an NYCFC fan and an Islanders fan. Since soccer season is over and hockey is active, every one of his tweets right now is about the Islanders. And he tweets a lot. So I muted him. Problem solved.
Except, the software engineers at Twitter think for some reason I still want responses to an account I muted to come up in my searches. So now my "nycfc" searches return every tweet from every conversation the muted account engages in. And he's very actively tweeting with lots of other people about the Islanders. So I have now muted 10 people, solely for the otherwise inoffensive activity of discussing the Islanders on Twitter all because (A) one idiot decided to put "nycfc" in his account handle when the account is not really devoted to NYCFC, and (B) twitter is stupid.
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This was supposed to be in the vent thread, but whatever. I kind of fits in Offseason
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You feeling OK? Usually your analyses are totally accurate.
Haha I did this too, thought I was the only one that searched "NYCFC" on Twitter enough to be bothered by it.
First Preseason announcement: https://www.nycfc.com/post/2018/12/17/new-york-city-fc-announce-preseason-friendly-nashville
NYCFC vs. Nashville SC
Friday, February 22
First Tennessee Park
NYCFC vs. Nashville SC
Friday, February 22
First Tennessee Park
ah, lets see if playing in baseball stadium works to our advantage
This will be 8 days before the season opener on March 2, so it seems likely to be the last pre-season game.
I am curious to know where the Club will run its camp this year, but I don't think this news really tells us anything.
I am curious to know where the Club will run its camp this year, but I don't think this news really tells us anything.
