Quit the Friggin’ Whining
by tedski
I’ve been listening to the various soccer podcasts and I ran across one called Around the League, where various jounalists and über-fans comment on their respective favorite teams.
For the Los Angeles Galaxy, the representative was ESPN radio host Dave Denholm. According to Mr. Denholm, the Galaxy’s woes are because of David Beckham. Okay, I don’t entirely buy that, but it is a theory that a lot of fans have: that Beckham being on the team has meant that some other important players have been cast off.
Like I said, I don’t buy it. Earlier incarnations of the team took much bigger hits when Luis Hernandez and Carlos Hermosillo were brought on board, but somehow that didn’t have the same effect. Also, the Galaxy was losing games before Beckham came on board.
But never mind all that, we’ll say that Beckham coming on forced the team to get rid of decent other players (who these guys are, I don’t know) and this has made the team into a losing franchise.
Denholm’s take: that it is unfair that other teams didn’t take on a big dollar player. Why, if all the other teams blew cash on a single star, necessitating casting off worthy but moderately expensive other players, then everyone would suck as much as the Galaxy.
Eh?
Walking Around Money
by tedski
The talk among the soccer punditocracy is that the next collective bargaining agreement will bring an increase in the salary cap and an increase in roster size. The folks that are saying this think that this will mean more depth on the squads (especially now that MLS teams have obigations in other competitions) and that they will attract more quality American players.
I’m trying to figure out how the math works for this though. I mean, a larger roster would necessitate an increase in salary cap, but who is to say that the owners will increase the salary cap enough to actually increase the salary of the current players? My worry is that the increase in the salary cap will only be enough to allow teams to increase their rosters to include more players at the “mom’s couch and Ramen for dinner” level.