NSC Minnesota Stars Start Camp with 35 Players
At 8:00 a.m. Thursday morning 35 players will hit the field turf of the National Sports Center’s Sports Hall for the first ever NSC Minnesota Stars preseason camp.
The training will open with 2-a-days, focusing on play in the morning and sessions that are more conditioning-oriented in the afternoon.
There are a few notable names in this camp but not many. There have never been any promises of that by the Stars management. When Manny Lagos accepted the job of director of player personnel he stated that he had a tough job ahead of him.
There are two things the NSC have struggled against. The first issue is time. The team has been up against the clock since January 7th when the USSF finally made a decision that there would be a Division II Pro League this year. Until then, the Stars could not move forward and have been sprinting along ever since to catch up with established teams.
The other issue is payroll. The NSC predicted they would be in the middle to lower half of the teams in player payroll. According to reports from sources around the league, Minnesota will have one of the lowest payrolls in Division II pro soccer in 2010.
In November of last year, Erickson told IMS there were three fundamental goals in moving forward with a professional soccer team in Minnesota:
•To preserve high-level soccer.
•To provide high-level games as an enhancement to NSC’s soccer tournaments for youth.
•To establish the pro team as a very special public/private partnership.
In February, General Manager Kris Bjerkness told IMS it was clear the third goal would not happen this season. There were more complications than originally expected in bringing investors into a non-profit organization. Bjerkness did not rule out the possibility in the future after the legal issues are examined. For now the team will have to fund itself as Paul Erickson, Executive Director of the Minnesota Amateur Sports Commission, said from the beginning NSC could do if necessary.
Bjerkness was asked if the team could take any losses attributed to start up costs in the first year or two. Bjerkness confirmed what Erickson had told IMS and what NSC CEO Steve Olson has stated at the Stakeholders Meeting in January, that the team will need to pay for itself and either break even or make a profit. Every module of the NSC must pay for itself.
While a balanced budget is commendable, it is also the reason Manny Lagos has had to make special deals with veteran players and recruited young players with little to no Division II pro soccer history under their belt.
In comparison to the rest of the league, the Stars financial strategy seems to be the exception and not the norm. Several teams are said to be spending nearly $1 million on their payroll this season, significantly more than the Stars.
IMS has also learned the partnerships that Erickson spoke of at the Stakeholders meeting with a Scandinavian team as well as a MLS team have both fallen through for this season. The NSC were also talking to a top level Brazilian club this winter concerning a player exchange. The Stars officials had been hopeful that those associations would bring in some key players saving the organization some money. As we have often seen over the years with these soccer partnerships, they take time to foster and are often not as fruitful as originally anticipated. Such is the case with the MLS, Scandinavian and Brazilian clubs. Barclay Kruse, spokesperson for the NSC, said that all parties “just ran out of time to get any deals done.” The NSC is hopeful that partnerships may still happen but a player exchange wouldn’t take place until the 2011 season.
When the players walk out on the field for the very first Stars official training session on Thursday there will be 12 contracted players. 23 have been invited as guests to the training session. Of those 35 players at training camp, only 13 have experience at Division II or higher and they will have only 23 days to prepare for their first league match.
There are many people working extremely hard and sacrificing at the NSC to keep pro soccer in Minnesota this season. For that I am appreciative. I will enjoy observing these young athletes to see if they can develop into soccer players who can compete in the very physical and demanding level of D-II soccer. With that comes the reality that there will be mistakes made on the field by these same young players. Lagos’ job will be to contain youthful miscues and keep the team playing as error free as possible through a long and grueling Division II season.
Time will tell whether NSC can accomplish goals 1 and 2 on a limited budget. If passion, effort and coaching can compensate, they might just pull it off.
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At the stakeholders meeting in January I was left with the impression from Manny’s tone and substantive comments he was acutely aware of the depth of difficulties this team and organization would face. Manny was actively avoiding being one of the sources of inflating expectations for the team while simultaneously not wanting to diminish the growing enthusiasm for the new team. Tough balancing act.
You know this only makes me want to see them succeed even more. It sounds like these will be guys with everything to gain and nothing to lose. I’m know everyone likes talking about skill and speed, I’ve always been a big fan of heart.
Thanks for a very thoughtful article!
Tough balancing act indeed!
I think it’s interesting to think about past players who people were excited about. From last season I think Terminisi is a great example and Takada was someone people were talking about after the Communicaciones game, (sorry if I slaughtered any spellings). Perhaps it’s also a tough for us as fans to balance our expectations about young and unknown players and consider both the opportunities and potential weaknesses they bring. This is equally true for our expectations about the franchise itself. I remember when Dean Johnson took over the thunder there was a good deal of banter about whether his ownership would be successful and sustainable. Here again we’re torn between wanting the best players to be brought in and to have a sustainable model. We know it’s not always possible to do both, but it’s easy to forget. Maybe NSC Minnesota should be given some more credit for ensuring the franchise will be around for a few years, despite our worries about a low pay roll and how that might affect their success on the field.
In any case, thanks for the article! I’m getting excited about this team – not to mention the awesome scarf design
So, the other monetary difference with this payroll versus the 2009 payroll of the Thunder is small when taking into account actual paychecks received? Sounds good to me! Young guys working hard to impress for the long term.
I will take heart and hard work over pomp and circumstance any day.
Believe!
Just happy to have a team. Given the situation, it makes it all that more important that we get the word out about them to everyone who may be interested in watching professional soccer in the years to come. The team is going to make money by selling tickets/merchandise/consessions. It’s very important that they at least “break even” this year before they are able to bring on additional investors in the future. Start now.
I know the sum was rather small, but The Thunder was getting some $ from MYSA before the whole MTA thing. How is the relationship between NSC and MYSA now in terms of $ support?
I am looking forward to the new team a lot, I always like to root for the scrappy underdog — the wins are always sweeter!
BQ, I highly doubt any D2 team will spend a million on player payroll. I can see a scenario where a total organization payroll exceeds a million though.
Hopefully the Stars on the field performance will be better than the front office performance leading up to the season. I don’t know if the front office will meet any of their goals as stated. On the pitch, you never know what can happen. Go Stars!
Jer, the problem with the NSC owning the D2 team is that the future of professional soccer in MN could be in jeopardy. The tax-payer funded organization, with very average management team, will find it difficult to find wins, keep players, fans and the media interested. A colossal organization failure could mean that MN will be out of the picture for D2 soccer in 2 years.
Seriously… how many times must it be corrected that the NSC is NOT a tax-payer funded organization.
I will like make this very clear,Melvin Tarley was not an invitees.
The NSC has just an average management team according to Zlatan.
It should be noted that this management team has created a facility that is second to none, has brought in millions of visitors and has helped spur tremendous growth in the north metro despite receiving zero subsidies from the state in the past decade. The same leadership that has instilled fiscal responsibility throughout an organization that operates a $1.3million sponsorship portfolio and growing due to the new team.
“An average mangement team.” This may be the funniest and most insane thing I have read on here.
Obviously there will be speedbumps, but to suggest that the people behind the NSC are just average is extremely shortsighted. This argument will never end as some will always be contrarians to reality.
I have some criticisms of the new team, but I don’t see the point of offering them until we see the team on the field for the first game as this is a brand new franchise-a franchise that will pay their players, have paying sponsors, have lots of game day staff (north gate!), and zero creditors running around town to get paid.
So, if this party only lasts two years (it will last much longer) isn’t that better than not having a team at all? Because that is where we would be if the “average” front office didn’t come along to save professional soccer in Minnesota.
MYSA was never giving the Thunder money. However, MYSA was buying youth tickets for a slightly discounted amount for each youth player in the state that played at the competitive level. Those tickets were then distributed to each team so every player received a ticket. I don’t think MYSA even had to pay for the ticket unless it was collected at the gate. There has been some previous partnering of camps and the Thunder took out ads with MYSA Soccer Times and might have even been a sponsor.
At this point and time I don’t think there is any partnership happening with MYSA or the new team.