MLS Off-Season Weekly (12/14/19): Playa Moves, Painful Realities, and an Amendment

Amended, but neither forgotten nor invalidated.

On the theory it makes some kind of sense, I’m going to start this week’s review with the league-wide news before covering the latest on the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati…

…which also relates to the reality neither of them have made much news. And, for the same reason, this will be my last soccer post of 2019. I mean, why dry-heave out content (like this guy) when the world fails to provide? I’ll be back in 2020, like one of those plants you start to dump beer on, half hoping it’ll die, so you don’t have to deal with it. (Hat-tip to a long-time friend of mine, who once had a plant named “Worf” that, as he put it “thrived on neglect.” For the record, he did not, to my knowledge, ever water Worf with beer.) So, come along for this quick round-up of news from all ‘round Major League Soccer, starting with playa moves.

Playa Moves
As a public service, I want to start by directing people to one of The Mothership’s (aka, MLSSoccer.com) better off-season features: the one-stop transfer/needs tracker, which gives little thumbnails on every team in the league till they start kicking things again. It keeps a bird’s-eye view on comings and goings, but without reinventing the wheel every week (like some kind of dumbass). And, honestly, a good chunk of what’s happening right now aren’t really “moves” – e.g., DC United buying three more years of Bill Hamid, or even Atlanta United FC making Emerson Hyndman’s States-side return official – but they still count as both smart and good actions, even if they just reassert the Status Quo Ante First Kick 2020. That said, some are more interesting than others. For instance…

So…Michael Bradley, Huh?

Sometimes, details from a story gets stuck in your head, and it muddies something that comes later – e.g., that thing about Bradley’s option automatically renewing at $6.5 million per in the event he lead Toronto FC to victory last season. As such, when I read that TFC re-signed Bradley, my first thought was, “for $6.5 million, are you fucking stupid?” (Even my inner voice is an incredible potty-mouth.) They aren’t, of course. While full terms were (annoyingly) not disclosed, Toronto burned some TAM to keep Bradley around and freed up a DP spot in the same move – i.e., reportedly the same template the Portland Timbers will use to hold onto Diego Valeri. Full disclosure, I’m weird on Bradley, in that I see him as valuable and overrated in the same glance – to apply brute logic to the question, could Toronto find a better player for his position (my answer: yes) - but, I also believe that a team can hold a player for multiple reasons.

To make a case that applies to both Bradley and Valeri, both will allow his team to maintain some valuable continuity as it transitions to the next generation. That’ll hold even as their powers tail off into senescence (just give us two more years, Diego!), but it also advertises to future signings that both teams value and reward service. Without knowing how many prime years either Bradley or Valeri have left, yes, both teams may yet discover they paid to keep a soft spot on the field, but both feel like, again, good and smart actions.

Sporting KC Finally Gets Its No. 9
Despite not knowing anything more about Alan Pulido than some stats and rumors of a whopping transfer fee, his signing impressed me enough to look at it around The Brian Fernandez Rule (i.e., “I will only believe a player will improve a team when he/she does so”). A deeper argument comes from Daniel Salloi’s thoroughgoing shit-storm of a 2019: think where SKC could have finished had he put more than one of his 49 shots in the goddamn goal (fwiw, they got eight goals from 53 shots by Kriszstian Nemeth, and he missed a shit-load as well). To finish that thought, so long as you believe Pulido will score more than one goal in 2020 – and especially if he’s a good bet to score 10 or more - you have every reason to believe SKC upgraded its attack.

Entirely related, SKC also very much died on the defensive side in 2019, with 67 goals allowed; to explain the “holy shit” nature of that number, only Cincinnati allowed more goals (75), and even Orlando City SC lopped 22 goals from their once-record-setting 2018 total (when they allowed 74 goals). They addressed that by signing Croatian defender Roberto Puncec, and the math’s the same for him as it is for Pulido: the only bar he really has to clear is being better than terrible. Call that general idea a new sub-clause to The Brian Fernandez rule, and don’t sleep on SKC in 2020. Speaking of exceptions/subclauses…

An Espinoza for Another Season
After waving away a galaxy’s worth of re-signed players – including Sacha Kljestan landing with the Los Angeles Galaxy (mentioned in the same article*) - I did want to flag the San Jose Earthquakes’ re-signing Cristian Espinoza. Why that one? Because I had massive questions about how San Jose signed him going into 2019 – or maybe just the phrasing that hinted he came to the ‘Quakes for some mentoring time with Matias Almeyda, and that he was destined to return to Spain’s Villareal or elsewhere. The objection goes back to that notion of continuity noted above – i.e., that you can’t build the a team’s core around borrowed players. Espinoza was good in 2019, and I’d expect him to be better in 2020. Beyond that, think what a stronger start could mean for the ‘Quakes next season.

(* On Kljestan, it’s a notable move, but he’s been stale long enough that I won’t pay the move any mind until he makes me. Speaking of…)

Loose Ends/Cheap Thrills
- U.S. Soccer tweaked the format for the 107th edition of the U.S. Open Cup. Probably. All I know is, I’ll get excited about this competition the same year Portland doesn’t start it’s run by playing the Seattle Sounders, followed by the San Jose Earthquakes. I need variety, goddammit.

- Because I didn’t know how to riff on it, I didn’t mention the Vancouver Whitecaps’ signing of Lucas Cavallini up above – and that’s despite the fact it could be big. That said, the ‘Caps still look short on the chance creation side, so…

- The CONCACAF Champions League draw happened last week. One can look at this a couple ways: either by carefully measuring strengths, weaknesses and status, as Matt Doyle did in his notes on it, or you can go with tradition and just map out the path one of the Mexican teams will take to win the competition no matter what happens between here and there. All the same, Doyle’s notes are worth reviewing if only for some dire details on where some of the MLS teams are right now (e.g., without a back-line in Seattle’s case, or without a coach in New York City FC’s).

- Finally, The Mothership’s Greg Seltzer compiled a dogpile of statistics about teams, coaches and individual players over the last 10 years. If nothing else, it’s a good reminder of why you keep seeing and hearing certain names and not others…not to mention the full-blown every-goddamn-day super-fantasticness of Diego Valeri. That said, Portland is disturbingly thin on the “team achievement” side, comparatively at least…which makes this hurt a little more…

Right, that just leaves news on my two adopted teams. In the order of which child is my favorite…

The Timbers; Idle(d) Concerns
Still no final word on Valeri sticking around (though your better-wired reporters keep insisting a deal is all wrapped up), and I have heard neither whisper nor peep about fresh designated player targets. Between the teams around them reloading (e.g., San Jose), or buying more ammo (e.g., SKC), and last year’s wafer-thin margin (6th place, and just five points from danger), I find that worrying, no matter how the Valeri thing resolves. Full disclosure, this bout of fretting takes its inspiration from the “roster check” posted to the Timbers official site on the team’s “enviable” midfield. Rather than argue every point made in it, I’ll just say that I take the side of all the caveats noted by the author of that post – e.g., yes, I’m very, very worried about all those players being a year older and, if I had to sum up my thoughts on Portland’s depth pieces in just one phrase, it would be this one:

“Andy Polo’s late-season resurgence to a starting role.”

Because of how I feel about Polo, I see him playing himself back into a starting role as confessing to a dearth of options - i.e., the opposite of enviable. To simplify the argument: unless you thought 2019 was a strong season for the Timbers – and for whatever reason - the prospect of another year on the most important legs, and the lack of a clear and obvious back-up plan should give you at least a touch of the willies.

In other Timbers news, word got out that Jeremy Ebobisse picked up an injury with the U.S. U-23 team, and I have couple thoughts on that:

1) It is not helpful. Whatever other qualities he has, Ebobisse’s inter-play is important to getting the most out of Valeri’s and Sebastian Blanco’s attacking qualities.

2) In the event he doesn't return for First Kick, this will hardly be the first time Portland started slow.

3) I think quite a bit of Ebobisse, both as man and player, but seeing him in the National Team conversation doesn’t make me feel great about the U.S. Men’s forward pool.

4) At least he’s on the right side of 30.

Cincinnati: Of Money and Men
No, signing a 19-year-old fullback doesn’t move the needle, and that’s regardless of which MLS ding-dong roster rule they signed him under. This sentence doesn’t help either:

“We look forward to adding Zico in the preseason to see where he is in his development.”

Wait, you haven't....never mind. Look, I’m not calling it a bad signing or even a waste of time, but I also doubt any FC Cincy fans fell to his/her knees in awe-filled wonder when they saw Zico Bailey’s name pop up in the news feed.

Cincy fans looking to feel better should pop over to Janwatze Nijkamp’s twitter feed for pictures of his dad, Ron Jans and Jeff Berding scouting “impact players” in Europe (well, maybe not Berding so much). Those looking for further comfort can count the stacks of money piling up in FC Cincinnati’s piggy-bank and dream of all the “impact players” it’ll buy…

…but that obviously leaves the work of getting those players to move to Cincinnati, and/or convincing them it actually exists. I note the latter both with affection, and a cold-eyed understanding of Cincinnati, Ohio as an international travel destination.

Right. That’s all for this week and this year. See all y’all in 2020! I’ll flag items of interest on twitter between here and there, but I’m not expecting too much until after Christmas and/or the successful negotiation of the CBA.