2021/2022 International Duty

Why did Scally sign his homegrown? I get that we won't see eye to eye on this -- but either way it seems very unlikely that Claudio acted in the best interest of his employer, which gets us back to our original disagreement on the term "conflict of interest".

This is a crazy argument to me. Claudio is the kid's father. He is a father first, employee second. He is under no obligation to do anything for his son in regards to NYCFC. Clearly Gio was a prospect that was above MLS, and there was never any chance he was going to play here. Signing him so we could get a transfer fee is not something that would have had a demonstrable impact on NYCFC in the long-term.
 
This is a crazy argument to me. Claudio is the kid's father. He is a father first, employee second. He is under no obligation to do anything for his son in regards to NYCFC. Clearly Gio was a prospect that was above MLS, and there was never any chance he was going to play here. Signing him so we could get a transfer fee is not something that would have had a demonstrable impact on NYCFC in the long-term.
You must have missed his earlier post?

Not MLS' fault at all. There are laws in this country that prevent a child below a certain age from signing a professional sports contract. MLS/NYCFC never had a chance to sign him because Claudio believed that signing a contract with MLS would make Gio less attractive to an acquiring team and limit his choices. Without a signed pro contract, he was free to sign anywhere he wanted for, well, free.

Notice that Claudio left (December '19) almost immediately after Gio signed with Dortmund (July '19). It was obviously in the works before, but he had to wait until the season ended.

I can't blame Claudio for putting the needs of his son ahead of the needs of the club, but I certainly blame NYCFC for allowing him to do so.
 
In hindsight, I'm pretty fairly convinced that both club and Claudio understood that one of the reasons Reyna took the job was so he could oversee his son's development and not hand control over it at any step until he signed his first pro contract. Once the kid left, Claudio left, which wasn't necessarily his original plan, but it's obvious that a primary factor that drew him here and kept him here was gone and created an opening.

Meanwhile, the club I'm sure was fine with this because they wanted Claudio as Sporting Director, not just to be in charge of the First Team, but the entire development program, for which which Reyna had very solid credentials. If that meant they had to develop Gio, never sign him, and get nothing else out of Gio's presence, they were fine with that because they got a very fine Academy out of it, having Reyna in charge never hurt recruiting, and his knowledge of the US talent pool is always valuable in a US league.

Which makes me want to address a couple of points often raised about Reyna's time as Sporting Director. It is often stated that Kreis gets full blame for the 2015 squad and that, beyond 2015, our SD is little more than an administrator because Manchester calls all the shots. I think both are nonsense (including now with Lee as SD but I'll stick to Reyna). The idea that Reyna took the job as SD and then said, "sure Jason, you run the expansion draft and I'll just watch" is preposterous. Kreis obviously had major input, but it had to be a collaboration. I know there are a couple of quotes out there saying Kries was in charge and got everything he wanted, but taking that sort of interview fodder as absolute truth is silly. Reyna did not just take the SD title and then sit there. It's an insult to him to suggest he did so, no matter how much you want to hate on Kreis. Grabavoy with the first pick? Yeah, that's Kreis. But Wingert with the last pick? That's Reyna putting the brakes on Kreis and saying you don't get to pick another one of your guys until the last round, and if Orlando blocks it by picking someone else from RSL too bad. And I'm sure Reyna had input on picks in between as well, plus probably the Mix signing. They both were blindsided by the Lampard fiasco (I never said Manchester isn't involved at all).

Post-2015, again, I cannot believe Reyna took the title and salary and then just sat in his office, did whatever the CFG scouts told him to do, and spent most of his time watching academy film of his son. I doubt Austin would have hired him if he couldn't account for his activities better than that the last few years. I doubt Lee just takes orders also. I can believe our SDs have both resources and constraints that some other MLS SDs don't have. And everyone has budgets (both cap related and team imposed). But I don't think they're just signing papers at the instructions of some Mancunians.
 
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In hindsight, I'm pretty fairly convinced that both club and Claudio understood that one of the reasons Reyna took the job was so he could oversee his son's development and not hand control over it at any step until he signed his first pro contract. Once the kid left, Claudio left, which wasn't necessarily his original plan, but it's obvious that a primary factor that drew him here and kept him here was gone and created an opening.

Meanwhile, the club I'm sure was fine with this because they wanted Claudio as Sporting Director, not just to be in charge of the First Team, but the entire development program, for which which Reyna had very solid credentials. If that meant they had to develop Gio, never sign him, and get nothing else out of Gio's presence, they were fine with that because they got a very fine Academy out of it, having Reyna in charge never hurt recruiting, and his knowledge of the US talent pool is always valuable in a US league.

Which makes me want to address a couple of points often raised about Reyna's time as Sporting Director. It is often stated that Kreis gets full blame for the 2015 squad and that, beyond 2015, our SD is little more than an administrator because Manchester calls all the shots. I think both are nonsense (including now with Lee as SD but I'll stick to Reyna). The idea that Reyna took the job as SD and then said, "sure Jason, you run the expansion draft and I'll just watch" is preposterous. Kreis obviously had major input, but it had to be a collaboration. I know there are a couple of quotes out there saying Kries was in charge and got everything he wanted, but taking that sort of interview fodder as absolute truth is silly. Reyna did not just take the SD title and then sit there. It's an insult to him to suggest he did so, no matter how much you want to hate on Kreis. Grabavoy with the first pick? Yeah, that's Kreis. But Wingert with the last pick? That's Reyna putting the brakes on Kreis and saying you don't get to pick another one of your guys until the last round, and if Orlando blocks it by picking someone else from RSL too bad. And I'm sure Reyna had input on picks in between as well, plus probably the Mix signing. They both were blindsided by the Lampard fiasco (I never said Manchester isn't involved at all).

Post-2015, again, I cannot believe Reyna took the title and salary and then just sat in his office, did whatever the CFG scouts told him to do, and spent most of his time watching academy film of his son. I doubt Austin would have hired him if he couldn't account for his activities better than that the last few years. I doubt Lee just takes orders also. I can believe our SDs have both resources and constraints that some other MLS SDs don't have. And everyone has budgets (both cap related and team imposed). But I don't think they're just signing papers at the instructions of some Mancunians.

Absolutely agree with this -- does Manchester have input? Of course they do -- and they probably have greater input on the major signings like Mitrita or Maxi or Medina. But on other signings, we use the CFG resources to find players, but those decisions are made by New York. My guess is that any signing above the salary cap is going to be at least vetted by CFG, but that other signings are purely NY-based decisions.
 
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Why did Scally sign his homegrown? I get that we won't see eye to eye on this -- but either way it seems very unlikely that Claudio acted in the best interest of his employer, which gets us back to our original disagreement on the term "conflict of interest".

Then blame Claudio for all the other guys we missed out on equally
 
In hindsight, I'm pretty fairly convinced that both club and Claudio understood that one of the reasons Reyna took the job was so he could oversee his son's development and not hand control over it at any step until he signed his first pro contract. Once the kid left, Claudio left, which wasn't necessarily his original plan, but it's obvious that a primary factor that drew him here and kept him here was gone and created an opening.

Meanwhile, the club I'm sure was fine with this because they wanted Claudio as Sporting Director, not just to be in charge of the First Team, but the entire development program, for which which Reyna had very solid credentials. If that meant they had to develop Gio, never sign him, and get nothing else out of Gio's presence, they were fine with that because they got a very fine Academy out of it, having Reyna in charge never hurt recruiting, and his knowledge of the US talent pool is always valuable in a US league.

Which makes me want to address a couple of points often raised about Reyna's time as Sporting Director. It is often stated that Kreis gets full blame for the 2015 squad and that, beyond 2015, our SD is little more than an administrator because Manchester calls all the shots. I think both are nonsense (including now with Lee as SD but I'll stick to Reyna). The idea that Reyna took the job as SD and then said, "sure Jason, you run the expansion draft and I'll just watch" is preposterous. Kreis obviously had major input, but it had to be a collaboration. I know there are a couple of quotes out there saying Kries was in charge and got everything he wanted, but taking that sort of interview fodder as absolute truth is silly. Reyna did not just take the SD title and then sit there. It's an insult to him to suggest he did so, no matter how much you want to hate on Kreis. Grabavoy with the first pick? Yeah, that's Kreis. But Wingert with the last pick? That's Reyna putting the brakes on Kreis and saying you don't get to pick another one of your guys until the last round, and if Orlando blocks it by picking someone else from RSL too bad. And I'm sure Reyna had input on picks in between as well, plus probably the Mix signing. They both were blindsided by the Lampard fiasco (I never said Manchester isn't involved at all).

Post-2015, again, I cannot believe Reyna took the title and salary and then just sat in his office, did whatever the CFG scouts told him to do, and spent most of his time watching academy film of his son. I doubt Austin would have hired him if he couldn't account for his activities better than that the last few years. I doubt Lee just takes orders also. I can believe our SDs have both resources and constraints that some other MLS SDs don't have. And everyone has budgets (both cap related and team imposed). But I don't think they're just signing papers at the instructions of some Mancunians.

Gio was 10 when Claudio took the job. This is absurd.
 
Being discussed in the 2021 Roster Discussion thread, but here for record keeping purposes...
Callens, Chanot, Sands, and Gudi for September WCQs

 
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Luxembourg 1-0 up on Azerbaijan... however Chanot didn't make the squad for the MD. So he gets a break. Which I'm very fine with lol.
 
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As I was typing up that I was surprised he didn't even make the bench, I just realized why. He received a red card in their last WCQ.
OH WELL THAT WOULD HELP EXPLAIN WHY LMAO

...And thy're up 2-0 without him. And Portugal is slipping right now. If Portugal stays losing and Luxembourg somehow win their next game against Serbia, they'll be two points ahead of Portugal. with games tied up. wow!
 
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Chanot starting for Luxembourg against Portugal. Already 3-0 Portugal after 20 minutes, including 2 penalties converted by Ronaldo. None of that involving Chanot as all those attacks were down the left side of the defense.
 
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Chanot and Luxembourg knocked silly by Portugal 5-0, including a Ronaldo hat trick (2 of them penalties). Still, Chanot actually played well. I saw 4 of the goals, and each came through the other side. Chanot was also strong building out of the back against the Portugal press.

Tonight, we get Peru and Callens against Argentina and Lionel Messi.