MLS Weakly, 01 30 2021: Ignoring the Big Whale in the Fish Tank

It’s been one of those weeks in the domestic soccer world in which big things have moved very, very slowly. On the one hand, sure, trades great and small continue to come together and fall apart, but an air of irrelevance will swallow them up until the relevant parties land the whale in the fish tank one way or the other…

…which refers, of course, to the ongoing negotiations over the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between Major League Soccer (MLS) and its players’ union (MLSPA). Because my thinking on that has only got more muddled and frustrated, I’ve decided to bury the comments on it at the end of the post. I mean, why not pretend the lockout threatened by the owners won’t happen all the way up to the moment when it does? Let’s pull of a reverse mullet and put the party in the front and the business in the back.

A couple players moved around - e.g., Kelyn Rowe signed with the Seattle Sounders, Atlanta United signed some old dude (37) for a year, and the Portland Timbers are still somehow working on “finalizing” the signing of right back Josecarlos Van Rankin - which doesn’t give much to talk about on that front. The U.S. Men’s National Team* plays a game tomorrow against Trinidad & Tobgao - and I will watch it, thirsty bastard that I am, while refusing to give in to the hype of the countdown to kickoff timer that U.S. Soccer posted (for now) on its site, or the idea that I’ll watch anything of consequence when I turn in, never mind three of them.

[*Ed. - The U.S. Women’s National Team has three games in February and I still feel…funny, I guess about watching one national team, but not the other. The only response/defense I have is that I need a certain amount of context in order to enjoy (or, more accurately, judge something) and that leaves time to enjoy one national team, and so I stick with the one I started with…even as I believe I won’t live to see the U.S. Men win a World Cup….ooh, a poll!]

Thus beginneth and endeth league-wide news. The league released an outline of the 2021 MLS schedule, but it’s unclear at time of writing that they did that for the fans or for their own purposes - specifically, to put more pressure on the players to give in on the presently-stalled CBA negotiations. Think MLS gave the MLSPA until February 5 to captiula…or, rather, agree to a shaf…or, rather, sign the CBA and move on. Y’know, for the sake of unity, a popular argument these days.

The middle section of this post will, 1) kick around some idle thoughts on the two teams I follow, Portland and FC Cincinnati, and 2) talk as if the season will happen. To start with the easy one.

Portland Timbers, Recovering from Two Hangovers
To repeat a thought, I don’t see Van Rankin changing the Timbers’ fate in 2021 - he’s just a fullback, after all - which leaves Portland in the same place it was at the end of 2020. A little poking around provides fairly clear evidence that they don’t intend to stand pat after Van Rankin and Claudio Bravo, which leaves the question of where Portland chooses to beef up its roster. I know rules that govern such things exist, but, because…all that looks about as exciting as employment classification for federal and state employees (not to mention bearing a powerful resemblance thereto), let’s look at the issue from the other side and close this section with “pick a winner, fellas!”

The two main problems that ended Portland’s 2020 were an accumulation of injuries and the defensive boners that saw them lose points and/or games - aka, the “hangovers” alluded to at the top of the section. It feels safe to assume that Jeremy Ebobisse (concussion) and Eryk Williamson (knee?) have now fully-recovered, which leaves the recoveries of Sebastian Blanco and Jaroslaw Niezgoda (right?). Get all those players back - even halfway through 2021 - and I don’t see a problem for the Timbers attack. The question then becomes, how many relapses will it take to knock the Timbers too far from competitive? To give a personal head-count, I think Blanco will sustain his recovery, but I have doubts about Niezgoda (some players are just cursed/broken) and Ebobisse (concussions can hound a fella into early retirement); add Diego Valeri’s and Diego Chara’s age (old habits die hard) and, allowing for drops/improvement in form for the rest, that’s pretty damn close to Portland’s margin for error - in the attack, that is.

The Diego Chara/age question carries over to the defensive side of the ledger, where the Timbers (more or less) swapped fullbacks in and out while basically standing pat on the central defense, only with Julio Cascante shipped to Austin FC. Given the latter, I have to assume a healthy chunk of Portland’s cash-pile will go toward calling in a central defender - specifically, someone who can push the presumed starters, Larrys Mabiala and Dario Zuparic (or is Zac McGraw any good?). The situation at fullback, as I understand it, has Van Rankin starting at right back (with Pablo Bonilla the under-study) and Bravo (backed by air?); is that settled, or will they want to buy some combination of options or a couple more stitches in the safety net?

Put all that together with the 25 players currently showing on the roster, at that leaves me with expectation of signing one central defender, one [soccer player], and some in-fill that gets the roster closer to 30. I hope that the signing of [soccer player] comes together, because 2020 gave me the heebie-jeebies about too much of the depth; related, I don’t see the team getting much value out of that depth for trades, so don’t expect any relief in that regard. From there, the question around [soccer player] becomes one of position or role. Work-arounds aren’t impossible - e.g., maybe the team can play Van Rankin or Bravo in such a way that gives Valeri, or even Blanco, with less ground to cover and more time to focus on fucking up the opposition - but doesn’t that turn the fullback situation into a depth issue, thereby making an argument for another left back (alternately, can a current player get repurposed as a back-up left back)?

In summary, that’s a firm expectation of a center-back (and panic if it doesn’t happen), plus one more new player and with an open mind on type. I assume more can be done, but that’s my personal visible minimum (which is to say, if the Timbers sign two players, I’ll stop paying attention till results make me tune back in). All in all, if Portland adds a defender and can hold up the margin of error in the attack, I think they’ll have a fine, fun and hopeful season…

…now the other team.

FC Cincinnati & Its Many Unmet Needs
“Now, the West End boys, with 24 players on their roster, still struggle for top-shelf quality and have no DP-spots readily available. There are four netminders, but none to inspire great hope. The defense crew is solid, but needs a couple more contributors. The midfield also has some good soldiers, but no quarterback to drive play. The forward line is a worrisome blend of ‘needs to do so much more in 2021’ and unproven youngsters. And above all, there's no remains no real indicator of how this club wants to play.”

That comes from a post that listed FC Cincy as one of four MLS teams “with the most work to do” ahead of the 2021 season kickoff and I don’t think I can improve on it - not least because the “have no DP-spots readily available” wasn’t really on my radar. In a word, Christ. Given the talk about making an offer for Papu Gomez (that failed), I have to assume they can buy done someone’s DP contract (Allan Cruz, even if they all seem like fair game?), so that’s some flexibility. Going the other way, putting the stark need for some kind of attacking coherence on any one player’s shoulders feels like an ask on the order of fishes and loaves. So that means more dudes…

I don’t know what Cincy has for GAM/TAM/WING-BOOM-BAM, but I do see they bartered an international spot out of Nashville. Going the other way, I see teams like the Colorado Rapids and Houston Dynamo FC taking the moneyball path and wonder whether Cincinnati can take the same road (a question of the pool of available players and the ability to pull it off); there’s some value in getting a player who has proved effective, etc. If they can swing both (but…HOW?!), so much the better. Yeah, yeah, this keeps coming around like a broken record, but can they dish Haris Medunjanin? If yes, do it.

For what it’s worth, I’d stand pat on ‘keepers (Przemyslaw Tyton/Cody Cropper should carry them) and on forwards (if crossing my fingers to the breaking point), and worry about that spine. I assume a starting central defender is in the cards, so that’s one down. Even with Ronald Mattarita in town, Cincy looks thin at fullback, so that’s one more. They want to get “a No. 10,” of course, the “quarterback to drive play,” but another midfielder - one who plays some kind of role that answers the question of how to play someone else - feels like a useful concept as well. Fitting all that under the cap offers a challenge all its own.

So, that’s a central defender, a fullback and one-to-two midfielders. Hell, chucking a player - or, if they can find a trade, trading for one - could be just as wise, but I don’t talk about trades till after they happen and for the same reason shy/stupid kids don’t raise their hands in class (i.e., I feel like I’m missing three steps in how they work and thus remain silent and shrink). Put it all together and, like the quote says, you have a problem that’s bigger than signing better personnel. One thing’s for sure: Jaap Stam is going to earn that paycheck in 2021…

…which assumes, of course, he will have a 2021 season to manage. Time to talk the CBA.

Complete Bullshit, Amen
The Athletic ran an op-ed that interrogates the CBA negotiations in the context of the wealthiest Americans - i.e., people who own professional sports teams - generally improving their finances during the pandemic; the $1 billion in losses alleged by the league didn’t hurt them, in other words, so why act like they can’t sustain another season. The simple decision to invoke force majeure combined with the palpable rigidity of the owners’ position has to make it more tempting for the MLSPA to dig in and say, “fuck you.” The way they’ve chosen to play this in the public arena doesn’t help either. From Friday’s press release:

“MLS had made a thoughtful, fair and simple proposal to pay players 100% of their compensation in 2021 in exchange for an extension of the CBA for two years through the 2027 season. In our discussions with the MLSPA, we have emphasized the importance of the two-year extension to allow the league and clubs to recover a portion of the losses incurred in 2021 as a result of the pandemic while protecting the long-term health of the League by providing stability which promotes ongoing investment. Importantly, MLS’ proposal does not include structural changes to the CBA and doesn’t seek any additional restrictions on players’ free agency rights during the term.”

The benign, vague phrasing “in exchange for an extension of the CBA for two years” talks past what sure as hell seems like the real potential that MLS will recover more than “a portion of the losses incurred in 2021” between a new TV contract (then again, MLS ratings have been pretty damn static historically) and the expected boost from North America hosting the 2026 World Cup. Taken together, it’s telling players to enjoy an appetizer and with the expectation of missing two main courses; a pile of insults that seems to grow every time The Soccer Don speaks.

Most of my thinking on this has turned on that logic - the idea of the players accepting stability today for taking a pass on two clear moments of leverage (e.g., the TV deal and the World Cup) - but, in light of who has what leverage now, I’m left wondering how much choice the players have. In the most basic terms, the respective “skin in the game” is their livelihoods for the players versus a growing array of sunk costs for the owners (e.g., stadiums, training facilities, academies, etc). One side (the players) need the league to continue in order to put food on the table, for one, but, for a number of these players, losing MLS means losing a place to showcase what they can do to other leagues around the world - i.e., it removes a means for future/alternate employment. That’s a lot of skin. The owners, on the other hand, will be just fine without MLS; losing money sucks - and losing a lot of it sucks worse - but most of them operate MLS teams for their ego and not their livelihoods, at least as I understand it. Moreover, specific as all that infrastructure is, those remain saleable assets, stuff that can be sold and, if necessary, repurposed.

I guess my other thought is that this dynamic will only change if/when MLS grows to where the owners will feel actual pain if the league shuts down. I don’t know whether or not that point will ever be reached; I just don’t see it happening until, say, TV revenues get real, real big. To look at it, then, from the other direction, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to bargain at the back-end, after the owners have made whatever loot they can out of the TV deal and the World Cup bump. Assuming that comes to pass, the players will have a bigger pile of money to point at and say, “pay up, motherfuckers.”

I have no idea, honestly, and I’m confident I’d be pissed at the way the league has handled all this were I directly on the receiving end. The one thing I do know is that I won’t blame the players if a lock-out happens.