By Ridge Mahoney The good points of mlssoccer.com are seldom mentioned in the blizzard of excoriating – and justified– criticism that has nearly smothered the site since it launched two months ago, but they do exist. Hunting for stats and information and records is painfully exasperating, and inperusing the quality and quantity of articles one […]
Soccer America Confidential
Posted inSoccer America Confidential, Story
Saborio's success is deja vu for Real Salt Lake
By Ridge Mahoney Real Salt Lake has been through this before: the impending loss of a goalscorer who wants to test the waters overseas. But this time, ithas already landed a possible replacement, though the cost of keeping Alvaro Saborio – who is on loan from Swiss club FC Sion – around for a few […]
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The Challenge of Change: Where it's working, where not
By Ridge Mahoney Replacing a head coach, overhauling a roster, or both, are really the only ways a team can improve, but change in and of itself is no guarantee, asseveral struggling teams are proving this season. In a few places, notably New York, the train is headed down the right track; not so for […]
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Squanderers of sitters, take heart
By Ridge Mahoney Kei Kamara, you are in good company. His astonishing failure to put a ball over the goal line while sliding across saidline in the Wizards-Galaxy game Saturday isn’t atypical at all of how maddening it can be to score goals in a game fraught with incongruities. A dominant team can easily lose […]
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Soccer America ranks Designated Player chase
By Ridge Mahoney Rankings are all the vogue these days regarding all things MLS, yet in this age of power rankings and other opinion-ridden rankings there’s oneglaring omission; that of ambition, of zeal, of commitment to spend. Suffice it to say, the expansion of Designated Player options gives license to those teams willing to pay […]
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The contrasting cases of Andy and Freddy
By Ridge Mahoney At the U.S. Soccer Development Academy finals last summer at Home Depot Center, I got my first look at a very talented, very young D.C. United playernamed Andy Najar. His highlight moment, or nearly so, came when he controlled a difficult ball on his chest and while under pressure, first-timed a volley […]
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Young newcomers get off the mark fast
By Ridge Mahoney In the last two weeks, MLS has announced an ambitious expansion of its Designated Player option as well as more opportunities, to go along with bettersalaries, for young players whom teams have brought through their development programs. In the past year, it has also signed a slew of young foreign players, many […]
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Reyna needs backing of the pro ranks
There’s lots to like yet much to fear about the hiring of former U.S. international Claudio Reyna as youth technical director by U.S. Soccer. He’s a product, one of the best ever, of a much-maligned system he is tasked with revamping and strengthening. Layers of bureaucracy and petty political squabbling cast across a vast countryof […]
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Might more DPs mean less for the rank-and-file?
No doubt many players at the lower end of the MLS salary scale greeted the news of more DP slots with more trepidation than excitement. MLS did chop down the salary-budget charges forDPs from $415,000 to $335,000 and will allow teams to “buy down” those cap hits with allocation money, but the modest salary-cap increases […]
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Two thumbs up for two, or three, DPs per team
MLS might have kept it simple by simply increasing the number of Designated Players each team can sign from one to two, and also allowing a team the option of using a third DP slot if it sowishes. This is what the league has done, sort of. It has also opened up the cash box […]