MLS Off-Season Weekly: Looming, Gaping Holes, A Smart Move (with Caveats), and, Crap, The CBA!

"What do we want? More charter flights! When do we want them? More often!"

If you thought a holiday weekend would slow down the news in the Extended Major League Soccer Universe, you have no goddamn idea how media works. The news is thick and dank, so let’s dig in – starting with one of the two teams I follow (followed by the other one, then a bunch of league-wide news/perspective/angry-uncle ramblings):

Portland Timbers: Stumbling Toward the Next Plan A
Absent any updates on the Valeri Situation, my attention wandered to other parts of the Timbers’ roster – and it turns out I wasn’t alone in that:

“The truth is Chara's probably not high-scoring enough to suit Portland's needs, but it's hard to figure what their budget will be after what happened with Brian Fernandez. There are also rumors that they're leaning in the direction of getting another center forward anyway, and pushing Jeremy Ebobisse out to the wing once again.”

Personally, I’ve had Chara on my mind lately, but in a wholly different way – i.e., less about his alleged limitations (which Timbers fans have internalized by now) than his clear and absolute gifts, and what that means both in terms of managing his minutes over the next season or two and to the impending post-Chara future. So, no, he doesn’t score often (when he does, he times it for maximal effect - like his tackles), but I’ve never seen a player with his capacity for covering ground and knack for ferreting the ball off players’ feet; I’m not sure he can be replaced like-for-like (the same goes for Valeri, with some twists, as I’ll get into below). And that’s why I brought up managing minutes in 2020 and, like, one year beyond, just as much as I pointed toward the post-Chara future. Assuming he comes back, Cristhian Paredes doesn’t play the same game as Chara, or at least not to the same effect, and neither does anyone who has partnered with him so far (and if Paredes doesn’t come back, the same will apply to whomever replaces him). As such, when Chara’s not out there – whether resting for a game or two, or in the Chara-less future - the players around the area Chara vacates will need to adjust in terms of positioning, and adjust expectations as to how and how much of the ground behind or in front of them (as applicable) gets covered. That doesn’t have to be bad, but it will be, without question, different. Next question – and I ask out non-rhetorically (because I don’t know the answer) - how much does it throw players to make those kinds of shifts from one game to the next. Moreover, is what I’m describing even a meaningful issue? I think it is, obviously, but what do I know? Anyway, just fretting about the inevitable…

As for Valeri, I’ve been thinking about how he makes Portland’s attack work, and the larger question of whether that came in phases. For what it’s worth, I’d answer “yes” to the latter – and by way of 2017 Valeri – but the “how” part of that question poses some questions about the…y’know, other inevitable. First, what does (or did) Valeri do that made him such an effective attacker? The fact that he’s scored as many goals as he’s provided assists only complicates the idea of replacing him. And that’s why I’d argue Valeri and Chara pose the same problem, only at different positions. Trying to find like-for-like replacements feels like a fool’s errand, but that also means that, barring some cloning or a tactical miracle, both Timbers’ staff and fans need to brace themselves for an unfamiliar look, or that they need to accept that whatever kind of high press Portland has deployed in the past (fwiw, I think this was effectively rare, but still…), the personnel they have will go some very real distance to deciding the defensive and, frankly, attacking posture the team will take, so…yeah, I just think it could be a mess for a while, and a successful one, hopefully. Speaking of messes…

FC Cincinnati: A Brain, via the Re-Entry Draft
In terms of immediate and/or potential on-field impact, getting (former?)-Philadelphia Union midfielder, Haris Medunjanin, into contract negotiations feels like a good and wise choice, mostly because, in some ways, he’s (a sliver of) what FC Cincinnati missed in 2019. Do I think he’d be good for the team? Yes, and potentially with a “hell” thrown in front of it. Why? Because Medunjanin can play a killer range and style of passes; he’s also several steps above competent at pacing an attack besides (Full Disclosure: this is based on less than weekly viewing, i.e., the only kind you should trust, but he’s passed every eye test I’ve seen personally). That said, this statement (from here) is borderline useless:

“Nothing’s official until Haris Medunjanin signs a contract, but once that’s sorted, FC Cincinnati have just added more competition in an area of the park that was already the club’s strength.”

Based on what I’ve seen, Medunjanin is not a defensive midfielder in the sense that article implies; moreover, the game he plays requires defensive cover. Medunjanin will only be an asset to this team so long as FC Cincy has players both in front of (e.g., Darren Mattocks, Kekuta Manneh, and, if needs be, Fanendo Adi), and behind/besides (e.g., Allan Cruz, Caleb Stanko, Fatai Alashe, Leonardo Bertone…then again, is he too much like the last player?), but he does not defend, and he’s not big on movement, generally, so, assuming he goes to Cincinnati, his game will be a lot of roaming around a central space and playing really useful passes while the people around him keep the bad things from happening.

More than anything else, seeing Cincy stand pat bugged the shit out of me. I figured they’d do something at some point, of course, and I believe (with all my beating heart) that they need another difference-maker or two above Medunjanin (the suggestion in this article speaks volumes about that), but he should give Cincinnati some options on how to play. that said, I’m also on board for the big idea of keeping most of the same team together. Build the foundation, then try to figure out how to win shit.

One more detail caught my eye around FC Cincy this past week – e.g., Meg Whitman’s big-ass (aka, $100 million/20%) stake in the team. As noted in The Cincinnati Enquirer article on the same (also, $ site), Whitman invested in the Sacramento Republic before pulling out (and parting on good terms), but she and her husband are obviously sophisticated investors, and they just invested in domestic soccer for a second time, and that tells you something about the state of the game’s future, both in Cincinnati and in this country…which is a fine segue into something I’ve completely forgotten was looming over this off-season. Time to take it league-wide…

Oh, Yeah, the CBA Could Doom the Season
But, 1) I see no reason why it should, and 2) part of that comes from investments like Whitman’s. I know strikes can happen in even the biggest leagues, but, unlike the bad old days of contraction, it feels like there’s enough money floating around to make what the league offers the players several steps above insulting, and therefore something they’ll say yes to, even if it takes a couple rounds. The one article I read on this (now I’m an expert!) puts the chances of a breakdown at 20% (how he arrived at that number…dunno) and, sure, run with it. Carlisle gets some interesting nuggets in there (e.g., the charter flight thing), but I wanted to draw out two of them. First:

“It is expected that the next media rights deal will be multiples higher than the existing deal, which pays MLS $90 million a year.”

I guess that surprises me because I only see chatter about decent TV rating for MLS Product maybe once or twice a year; feels like the opposite is the norm. I clipped some low-hanging notes on the numbers and…I don’t know, are those numbers good? It’s going up in recent seasons, and I guess that’s what matters. More to the point, I can’t see MLS getting a worse TV deal(s), but “multiples”? And here’s the other one:

“It's not necessary to try and tell our front offices how to sign players; they're perfectly capable of doing that themselves. And frankly, if they're not, then they should suffer the consequences, and that's the kind of accountability that we want to see happen.”

Yes, get rid of TAM, dial back the central planning, embrace accountability, and so on. On another level, aren’t some teams doing some version of falling behind the “big teams” like Seattle, Toronto, Atlanta, LAFC, etc. For instance, don’t teams like Chicago and Orlando feel eternally hapless? (Also, does Portland feel like a mid-market team to you, or…?). At any rate, I’d like to see the team just hold a firm line on a salary cap, while also keeping some basic mechanisms to enforce parity in place, just not as many of them. Let teams become shit, because 1) it’s entertaining, and 2) it makes for better tales of redemption.

Right, that’s the big stuff, and the specific stuff. Let’s close out on the random stuff, which will mostly be about…

Where Are All the Waldos: Moves, Trades and Acquisitions
But, first, Zlatan pissed off Malmo fans something fierce, so they attacked his statue. Fun!

The Mothership posted an article on the “10 biggest off-season moves so far,” and, to cut that list down a bit:

- The Rapids made some moves to solidify its defense – e.g., making Lalas Abubakar’s loan permanent, and bringing in Aaron Trusty (good), and Drew Moor (eh). That should provide enough security for another fun season in Colorado.

- Going the other way, I’m not clear on what Dallas expects to get out of Fafa Picault (acquired from Philly, and for real money). I’ve seen Picault have moments, but I haven’t seen enough to convince me he’s up to hauling them to loftier heights.

- I’ll be watching Maikel Chang with RSL to see how far he’ll walk on the path from Cuba through the USL to MLS. I’m a fan of the Cuban exile stories.

- Next:
“Fer's probably more attack-minded than the tempo-inclined Nagbe, but he's still in his prime (29) and on a contract that expires in the summer.”
The “Fer” in that sentence is Leroy Fer, who I know nothing about. I have, on the other hand, obsessed over Nagbe for several consecutive seasons, and know in my bones what he’ll deliver to Columbus – i.e., the same maddening thing he delivers wherever he goes, more, and yet somehow much less, than expected.

- Finally, that article closes with some promising players – e.g., Alexander Buttner (NE Revs; Dutch defender), Alvaro Medan (Chicago; Spanish MF/playmaker), Hany Muktar (Nashville; German playmaker), Matias Pellegrini (Miami; “the next Miguel Almiron”) and there’s Mexican striker Alan Pulido (Chivas) lurking in the wings as well – but I’m filing them all under The Brian Fernandez Rule: I’ll accept them as good and useful players after one full, regular season; till then, any of them could be over-hyped busts.

Last (so ignore that “finally”), Matt Doyle proposed shopping targets for nearly all the teams in MLS (Dallas is the rare exception), and he has interesting notes on most teams. I have two notes on that:

1) I flog this horse a lot, but if you’ve watched MLS from Season 1, the kinds of players that are realistically within reach for the league melts your brain a little. Sure, I’m a little nostalgic for the days when the shopping list topped out at Central America’s best, I’m digging the kid-in-a-candy-store thing too.

2) The juiciest entries in that article are: Columbus, Colorado, Houston, Inter Miami (um….team?), Minnesota, Nashville (Castillo), New England, and Philadelphia, but with an honorable mention for L’Impact Montreal, who Doyle directs to 36-year-old Thiago Silva, and I can’t believe that’s sound advice, but I’m also obsessed with aging, and the video embedded in that section, the one with the kid at Glastonbury, is just a fucking hoot.

All right, that’s enough for this week’s edition. See you next!