Bless Their Hearts (RBNJ Talk Here)
- Thread starter Midas Mulligan
- Start date
I'm slightly concerned they're gearing up for some big moves/investment to try and claw back a little relevance, in the face of our stadium development and recent Cup. I mean in some ways it would be good for us and MLS to have a quality, relevant rivalry more like in LA.
Bring it.
Sucks that I have to root against my Swede Forsberg. But he’s also almost as old as Tinnerholm already. I like him but I’d be much more concerned if they were signing a younger DP on the way up. 4 years is a long deal for a 32 year old.
Agree with this. Soccer in this city will be much better if both teams are good and relevant. We should want them to be good, because it will make beating them even sweeter.
I would think it would also pressure CFG to up their game.
Doubtful, if CFG had any ego attached to NYCFC that would pressure them to up their game based on getting upstaged by other team's signings we would have seen it when Messi and friends arrived in Miami.
CFG is like RB I see your 32-year-old still in his prime Bundesliga and Champions League proven player signing and I raise you two South American 17-year-olds that no one has heard of. Take that!
CFG had enough of an ego to give us 7 years straight of postseason soccer, an MLS Cup, a conference final, and the best record in the league from 2016-2022.
CFG wants to, at the very least, be the preeminent team in New York. They will want to toast the Red Bulls in this city. They want to win trophies in this league, and in every league they play in. They have a roster-building technique that they believe works in this league, which is why they're still not going after Messi-type signings. But to think they don't want to win in this league or don't care about this team ... I'm not sure how much more evidence you need that they do care.
The club's roster-building approach in the last two years vs the first 5 years of the club is not the same. Leading up to our cup win the team consistently signed a mix of young prospects and proven veteran players. Look at the key veterans who were brought in as proven players on the 2021 team:
Tinnerholm (age when he joined NYCFC: 27)
Sean Johnson (28)
Chanot (27)
Callens (26)
Gudi (28)
Ibeagha (29)
Maxi (30)
Alfredo Morales (30)
Rocah (27)
Heber (28)
Some of those players had a bigger on-field impact than others but they all had considerable experience and provided a veteran presence in the locker room. Since then the team has almost exclusively signed young prospects while letting go of nearly all of our veteran leadership. They are treating NYCFC like a CFG farm team and it just resulted in one of our worst seasons ever so IMO they 100% deserve to get called out on it.
What does CFG need to do to prove to me that they care more about winning than pumping prospects through the CFG system? Use one DP spot to sign another Maxi-level player. Bring in a striker like Heber on a TAM deal who has played in big leagues and had results. Find players that are good enough to start but also have the age and experience that players like Santi will listen to them when he starts getting wound up in a game and someone needs to tell him to chill out. Who in our current starting lineup has the experience and respect of their fellow players to guide the team on the field, organize the press, keep a heated player away from the ref, or tell a struggling Magno to keep shooting that the goals will come?
This is what a rebuilding year looks like. It's funny, after 2021 most people here said they get a pass for any amount of bad play for a year, that they had earned that. Thing is, our player contracts didn't line up that way. We still had the trail end of that championship build for a year. Our rebuild happened in 2023 instead. They pretty explicitly said that the structure of MLS requires that you either go through a bad year like this now and then or settle for playing middle of the pack by making signings to keep you just good enough, but not real contenders.
I don't disagree that this is a rebuild and that it was inevitable. My issue is that they are not rebuilding in a way that is similar to what led to our success in the past. The club is wildly undervaluing professional experience in favor of low experience high upside prospects. As a measure of experience look at the amount of senior national team games the players that left had vs the players they brought in. Additionally, almost all of the players that left had Sr. national team appearances and high-level league experience upon their arrival with the club.
Key Veterans Out in 2023 (Sr. national team appearances + highest league played in prior to MLS)
Johnson (13, MLS)
Tinnerholm (9, Sweeden 1st + Europa league + Chamions League)
Callens (38, Spain 1st)
Heber (0, Italy 1st)
Maxi (1, Italy 1st)
Chanot (67, France 1st, Belgium 1st)
Avg National team app per player: 21.3
Key Players IN in 2023
Bakrar (4, Croatia 1st)
Santi (0, Uraguay 1st)
Fernandez (0, Argentina 1st)
Ilenic (0, Slovenia 1st)
Ladezma (1, Netherlands 1st)
Freese (0, MLS)
Alonso Martínez (12, Costa Rica 1st)
Avg National team app per player: 2.4
Again I understand that rebuilds are necessary. My issue is not that we are rebuilding it is how we are rebuilding. To me, they are prioritizing high upside, low experience prospects over sure-thing veterans with leadership experience and it's hurting us.
Why is Santi included as a key player in in 2023? I know the team brought him back, but then wouldn't Sands and Maxi also be included in that?
Why is Ledezma included as a key player in in 2023? He was in on loan, which expired, but so was Cufre and Perea.
Fair point I was going quickly and wasn't super consistent on player selection. So say we drop Santi and Ladezma. Does it change the point?
No issue with the point of they brought in more experienced players before. That's clear.
I do take issue with the national team appearance math since they include callups after they joined NYCFC:
Johnson: 5 appearances before joining (4 friendlies, 1 Gold Cup)
Callens: 10 appearances before joining (all friendlies)
Chanot: 20 appearances before joining (11 friendlies, 1 WCQ, 9 Euros qualifiers - for Luxembourg, which I feel confident saying that most of the list of incoming players this year would get appearances for)
Yes, the additions have been much younger. I don't think highlighting the national team appearances and then averaging them out by player while excluding players on both sides provides any additional weight on that.
And also, in a rebuild you're always going to have younger players. When you think the rebuild is over, you start incorporating more veteran players.
Also, we already had a good leadership core in Parks, Martins, Sands, etc. I would expect we'll bring in a couple veterans this offseason in addition to more young players. If this is going to be a selling league, it's going to be a league that features more younger players than in the past. The days of Chris Wingert taking roster spaces in MLS are over.
Also, we already had a good leadership core in Parks, Martins, Sands, etc. I would expect we'll bring in a couple veterans this offseason in addition to more young players. If this is going to be a selling league, it's going to be a league that features more younger players than in the past. The days of Chris Wingert taking roster spaces in MLS are over.
Honestly that's fair. Someone posted this on Twitter absent the context that's it's a special ticket pack and everyone thought season tickets holders were getting screwed. But it is standard for marquee games to be excluded from these promotions.
Meanwhile, I can't even with that bull figurine.
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