A Strategic Plan for the 2012 Minnesota Stars Roster; Continuing to Stay Competitive
On Saturday, NSC Minnesota accomplished what few would have thought possible: win the NASL Championship Series cup. Especially when the club was heading into its final regular season game needing an improbable win against the thought-to-be-invincible Carolina RailHawks just to reach the post-season tournament.
The team’s sudden ascendancy is a testament to the sage and discerning tactics of manager Manny Lagos, the bustling self-sacrificial attitude of his players, and the fact that in sporting matters, occasionally the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Once the celebrations are complete, the club will assuredly take a comprehensive look at its track record, and establish a strategy to move the team towards continued improvement. And the first thing the NSC Minnesota braintrust will observe is the fact that, outside of this year’s fable-like cup run, the club’s results have been generally mediocre. Indeed, over the course of the past two seasons, the club has accumulated 81 out of 174 points on offer– average at best.
Minnesota Stars middling results
| Season | Games played | Points per game | Goals for per game | Goals conceded per game |
| 2010 | 30 | 1.5 | 1.07 | 1.2 |
| 2011 | 28 | 1.29 | 1.07 | 1.14 |
| Totals | 58 | 1.40 | 1.07 | 1.17 |
And while the team’s players exhibited delectable form and an impassioned state during their cup victory, it is worthwhile to examine the road towards the triumph, in which the club eliminated a forgettable FC Tampa Bay team, a derailed, off-kilter Carolina RailHawks side, and an inconsistent and probably not-very-good-in-the-first-place arrangement of Fort Lauderdale players, a group which progressed in its own right by knocking off a collection of Puerto Rico performers exhausted from fixture overload and international duty.
One must not forget that NSC Minnesota also had struggles of epic proportions in the final third of the season, in which the team collected only 8 points from its last 36 on offer.
If this analysis sounds pessimistic, bear this in mind: such an interpretation is intended not to diminish the club’s tournament success, but only to validate this statement: it is logical for the team’s braintrust to ask the question, “how can we count on quality, as opposed to good fortune and inspired streaks of form, to achieve more regular and consistent success, when we have such meager means with which to buy players?”
If the club can not find a new owner with deep pockets, then perhaps there is another way: make more efficient use of the funds that are available in order to inject the team with some real quality, without disrupting the chemistry that made such a cup run possible in the first place.
For the sake of having a number in mind, let’s assume that the NSC Minnesota players make, on average, $15,000. Multiply that by the twenty-nine rostered players, and one comes up with a number of $435,000 for player payroll.
By the end of the 2011 season, the club had a whopping twenty-nine players on its books. When it was playing in only a single competition– the team was banned from the 2011 US Open Cup [the whole NASL second division was excluded]– did it need so many players? Looking at the season retrospectively, the answer is a resounding “no”. Indeed, NSC Minnesota had a colossal sixteen players that played less than 1000 minutes. And it had twelve players that played 550 or fewer minutes.
A story of underused assets
| Player | Minutes played |
| Ryan Woods | 538 |
| John Gilkerson | 504 |
| Amani Walker | 440 |
| Brian Cvilikas | 453 |
| Geison Moura | 256 |
| Anthony Hamilton | 222 |
| Sandy Gbandi | 204 |
| Luke Mulholland | 160 |
| Matt Van Oekel | 90 |
| Andrew Lorei | 90 |
| Kevin Friedland | 14 |
| Gino Mauro | 0 |
Certainly, a team with so little money available to it can’t afford to have so many players, especially when it isn’t even using them. Why not then decide to have a smaller roster of, let’s say, twenty players? Not many injuries occur at the team’s level of football, and emergency reinforcements could be acquired later if the club was struck by an unlikely rash of injuries.
Dispatching with almost a third of the roster is a good start– it would leave the team with $21,750 to pay each player, a definite improvement. However, that change alone is still not enough for the team to attract the kinds of quality players the club will need if it’s finally going to start scoring more than a measly goal per game, or improve on its embarrassing– and last place– tally of only twelve assists for the entire 2011 season.
This leads to a second proposal: the club could introduce a tiered structure to its wages.
For example, the team could decide that it would be willing to pay four players, and four players only, a very healthy salary of $50,000. Of those four players, it could buy: a center forward who has experience scoring goals at the second division level– Nicholas Addlery?; an exciting attacking midfielder to provide much-needed assists– perhaps the club could convince Luke Mulholland to stick around?; another orchestrating midfielder to help link defense to attack– Mozzi Gyorio?; and a proven, quality central defender to keep the back line organized; how about Cristian Arrieta?
The club could then offer an additional four players wages of $25,000. It could lock up some of its existing talent with these funds. The remaining twelve players could be offered wages of around $11,250, which isn’t much less than the assumed $15,000 of the club’s current cast of performers.
By distributing the club’s limited funds less evenly, and to a core nucleus of players, the team could inject some much-needed quality into the side, while still balancing the books and maintaining dressing room chemistry.
Those that think this approach sounds dramatic or unfeasible can turn to the words of Jonathan Greenfield, the enlightened defender who played with Minnesota Thunder during its final three seasons of existence; like NSC Minnesota today, Thunder had a large roster in 2009, twenty-five players in that case. Jon Greenfield had these words to say after what would end up being Thunder’s final match as a club: “…maybe get a bit stronger… get a few more experienced [players], a little more experience overall, and cut down the number of the squad, twenty-two, twenty maybe if it has to be, because ultimately, you only play with fourteen, maybe fifteen guys.”
And one musn’t forget the fact that most, if not all, of the club’s players are out of contract after this season. Many of them will undoubtedly move on to other clubs, or other ventures– such as Joe Warren, who has intimated that he is retiring from the game for good. And as champions, some of the players will be highly sought-after by other teams, as we’ve seen already in the face of the news that Luke Mulholland is training with MLS’ New England Revolution.
If the club has to rebuild anyway, why not attempt an alternate approach to roster formation in the pursuit of betterment?
Editors note: Mike was given some poor information by me as to player status (in or out of contract) for 2012 due to some information I had and then some assumptions I made as to a general rule with D2 players that anything more than a 2-year contract is unusual. With the said, Djorn Buchholz, CEO for the Stars has informed me that the team holds option rights on all Stars players 2012 except the following: Warren, Friedland, Wasson, Hamilton, and Mulholland.
Brian Quarstad
Comments are closed.
Very nice analysis. My only question is of the list of under used players how many missed a good chunk of the season due to injury? But I agree with your conclusion. Is there any word on possible investors/ new owner?
I don’t think reducing the size of the roster is probably the answer. Those guys may not have seen playing time, but they’re no less valuable to the team than anyone else.
What sort of future do you envision a team with just 20 players might have? How are they supposed to bring new players up to replace the old ones if there aren’t roster spots for them? Sure, all our guys are out of contract anyway, but if we want to see a stable D2, owners are going to have to start focusing on development.
This is the kind of “common sense” advice arm-chair analysts from around the country will give, despite having absolutely no credentials or experience in player development or club management.
And in what world is $11,250 “not much less” than $15,000? I don’t know about you, but if someone gave me a 3.75 thousand dollar pay cut, I’d be pretty hurt and angry.
Dark Clouds could train with the team if they needed more numbers!
Great article. Well researched and written. It is worth bearing in mind that a few of the players on the roster were late season additions and a few were injured for extended periods. Lastly, a few were on amateur contracts and did not receive a dime, which means that keeping them on the roster had little effect on the overall roster budget. The players who were willing to play and train under an amateur agreement did so with the idea that they would further develop as players. And obviously, player development is a great way for a team to get stronger for the future without having to overspend on other players. The MN Twins had success with this philosophy for years. You saw what happened as soon as they got away from this core value. Personally, I believe the Stars had more talent than they’ve been getting credit for. But anyways, it was a very good, well thought out article.
Gilkerson, Mauro, Hamilton and Mulholland were all picked up fairly late in the season, which means those numbers give the false impression that we’ve had more guys not playing. Not so much “underused” as “not at the club at all.” I don’t think anyone could argue that Luke Mulholland didn’t get a lot of playing time during his ACTUAL time at the club.
And Kevin Friedland is pulling double duty.
I assume all of these guys have another job? Eleven grand doesn’t pay the rent, much less food, gas and beer.
I agree with David Smith, and would add Daniel Wasson to that list. He also was added to the roster late in the season, even though he worked in another capacity with the team prior to that. Jack Stewart is on the roster, but spent part of the season out on loan to FC Dallas.
Also, Kevin Friedland actually worked triple duty as player, assistant coach and Director of Business Development.
I like this article because it gets people talking, but if I got a pay cut of a few grand on an already league-wide low salary I would probably be looking to go elsewhere, no?
@David Smith: Gilkerson was on the roster pretty much from day one this year. Correct on the other three, especially Muhlolland and Hamilton as they were finished with their season and out of contract with the USL PRO teams. And as Gumby Grrl knows but not everyone may who reads this site, Wasson, was about #1 in minutes played in the 2010 season for the Stars was coming off rehab for a torn ACL and went from team equipment manager to get him involved with the team to a contract at the end of the season when he was deemed fit to train. However, he never saw a minute of action.
There were plenty of players on the roster this season who hardly saw any minutes whatsoever.
This “amateur contracts” contract is an annoying thing to me. There is actually no such thing with the NASL yet I hear the Stars throwing this term around. It’s fine if there is actually such a classification but basically now it means you don’t get paid unless you play in a game. To me that’s not a very professional way to do business but if you’ve got the budget of the Stars you do what you have to do. In the 2010 season there were a number of players who played under this status but one in particular played a good share of the season but was told there was no money left to pay him. While I want a team here and want the best team I can have, I still believe in the players being treated fairly. I’m not really a big fan of the mysterious amateur contract.
Mike is just making some suggestions here. As someone noted on the discussion boards, we are all a bit giddy with the success the team had late season but the reality is they didn’t actually do so great looking at the entire season. He’s thinking out of the box. Other suggestions? I do think he is correct in that a 28-30 man roster is pushing the envelope for a team with a minimal budget and one could rethink the situation.
Good grief, Gilkerson was with us the whole time? That puts him in the same camp with Andrew Lorei as guys I’d completely forgotten about.
I know a lot less than everyone else about what is legally possible re: payment, but is it ever possible for the Stars to give out bonuses?
I like the idea of the stepped pay scales mentioned as an improvement in the article, but I think the past two seasons indicate that those that seem like starters in the early season fade somewhat *cough*Melvin Tarley*cough*. I have to imagine that will likely always be the case for a team that takes on young, inexperienced players and gives them a shot.
The benefit of giving starting players bonuses on top of the regular pay (whatever that might be) is that you’d be giving money to those that were performing well. However, what’s flexible for the team might be hellishly unpredictable for players who could be better settled elsewhere.
I’m both uninformed and naive about this matter, but does anyone know if that could (legally) work or has been tried?
Also, I’d take Van Oekel out of the list for considering extraneous manpower. You need a back-up goalie.
That’s one hat I don’t think Kevin Friedland could wear.
I did not get a chance to watch many of the training sessions this season until the end. I am not going to name names, but there were several players that really did not look like they cared and were just going through the motions. On the other hand, people like Brian Cvilikas was always running hard and rightfully earned his playing time at the end of the season.
I think that Andy Lorei would be a player you want to keep around. He worked hard all season and had a great personality. I know he is playing indoor this winter and hopefully he will be back next year and get some more playing time.
In a league where every team loses money, amateur contracts are not unprofessional. They are absolutely necessary and they give players opportunities to play at a higher level than they would get otherwise. It’s important to keep things in perspective. The NASL is not the MLS, and players have the right to choose not to sign with a team if they feel that their contract offer is not fair. The players that come here and then bitch and complain about their playing time or how much they get paid need to remember that they are being given an opportunity to get better, play a game they love, and hopefully make a little money while doing it. Or, for those that don’t get paid, they can keep a positive outlook and work hard to develop into a player that can earn money down the road. It is a stepping stone to better things if they have the right attitude. Is the NASL technically a professional league? Yes, but the vast majority of players in this league do not make enough money from their contract alone that they don’t need additional jobs throughout the year. But it’s something they choose to do, and that is their choice. So forgive me if I don’t feel sorry for players that don’t get enough playing time. It’s a business and if this league is to thrive and grow in this country, then it needs to be operated as a business and teams need to be creative with their budgets. Could this year’s roster have been pared down a bit? Probably, but some of the players that didn’t play this year, have now realized an additional year of development and experience that will hopefully serve them well in upcoming seasons. Whether with the Stars or elsewhere. Neil Hlavaty and Scott Lorenz are perfect examples of that. (Obviously, at this point, I’m just addressing Brian’s comment about players being treated fairly) Lastly, I’m confused as to how there is no such thing as an amateur contract in the NASL? By definition, if a player is rostered on the team and doesn’t get paid, they are considered under amateur status. Thus, their contract is an amateur contract. What is mysterious about that? =)
Sorry, Mike. But unlike the NSC Minnesota Stars this season, I found your article to be less than the sum of its parts.
[Poster’s Note: I will be repeating a few points already brought up by other posters here. This is only to help keep my critique here cogent. I’ll try to acknowledge these posters; sorry if I miss any.]
Let me emphasize, first, that there are parts of the article that are true and valuable. I am sure there are many fans who will let the dramatic nature and successful conclusion of the season to think we are on the brink of some sort of dynasty, on the pitch and well on our way to this franchises long-term survival. I am sure that some will let the good results dim the memory of some of the struggle the team underwent to get themselves to the Cup. Such belief, as you rightly point out, would be a mistake.
You do a good job of quantifying the obvious problem. The Stars will have to be more consistent to remain at or near the top of the league standings, which will, in turn, be an important part of keeping the fans happy and giving the franchise a basis to warrant further coverage by the local media, a must for growing attendance.
However, your analysis of the origins of the problem, and your lack of evidence for the efficacy of your solutions, casts serious doubt on your recommendations to fix the problem.
For much of the rest of this response, keep the following Christopher Hitchens quote in mind: “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
Let’s examine what you assert without evidence, because there’s a lot of it.
“…thought-to-be-invincible Carolina Railhawks”
Thought by whom? Die-hard Carolina Railhawks fans, perhaps. Certainly not the teams that tied or defeated the Railhawks during the slump they suffered from after clinching the regular season title and first round bye. Certainly not the Stars and their fans, who didn’t lose to the Railhawks all season until the second leg of the semi-finals. And certainly not during the “mini-game” and shootout that put the Stars in the finals.
Okay, maybe a bit of hyperbole on your part. Excusable on it’s own, but not when combined with your evaluations of the rest of teams you mention.
“…forgettable FC Tampa Bay…” Not any more forgettable than any other NASL team that failed to win the championship. And a team that finished third in the league on a hot streak at the end of the regular season.
“…derailed, off-kilter Carolina Railhawks…” Um, is this the same team as the “thought-to-be-invincible” Carolina Railhawks?
“…inconsistent, and probably not-very-good-in-first-place arrangement of Fort Lauderdale players…” If you examine the records of every team in the NASL this past season, you’ll find the only consistant team in the league was Atlanta, who lost consistently. As for not being very good in the first place, they seemed to be good enough to be the team facing us in the final.
At least your evaluation of the reasons for Puerto Rico’s less than stellar form mentions a verifiable fact, in a significant portion of their squad being unavailable for the first leg due to international duty.
But the rest is all assertions based on biased hindsight. No evidence that Tampa Bay was particularly forgettable, that Carolina was especially derailed and off-kilter, that Fort Lauderdale was more inconsistent than anyone else or wasn’t particularly very good. An equally valid explanation for the Stars championship run is they were a good team in the first place and after a rough patch, developed into the best team they had the ability to be.
For a guy not wishing to diminish the club’s tournament success, arbitrarily trashing almost every other team in the tournament is an odd way of avoiding it. The Stars slump during the regular season made your point. All you did by derogating their opponents was diminish my confidence in your research for the remainder of your post.
“How can we count on quality, as opposed to good fortune and inspired streaks of form…” So, the Stars championship was entirely due to luck and getting psyched up at just the right times? Geez, you really need to work on that not diminishing stuff.
So, the club needs to improve their on the pitch performance by winning more consistently. And your solution is to free up salary money by cutting the size of the squad down to about 20 to 22 players and using it to buy players of a higher quality through a rather inflexible looking pay scale structure.
Okay, let’s look at your numbers.
“For the sake of having a number in mind, lets assume that the NSC Minnesota players make, on average, $15,000.” Why would I assume that? You could be theoretically correct, or you could be miles off. How about a source? And then, you proceed to base your subsequent numbers on the one you made up. If, in the business world, you were to go to an investor with a proposal that included figures with no evidence whatsoever that those figures were accurate, you would be tossed out the door so fast, you‘d leave a trail of Cherenkov radiation behind you.
Did the Stars need all those players? Mebbe yes, mebbe no. Judging a player’s worth solely by the minutes he plays in a season is ludicrous. As David Smith pointed out, Mulholland makes your “underused assets” list, despite the fact that he started every match he was available for. Hamilton, who was signed at the same time, played in just about every match over that same time period.
And as for those 16 Stars players who logged less than a thousand minutes? They would be part of the 100 players in the league who also didn’t log 1000 minutes. Which puts them in the majority. There were 191 players under contract in the NASL this season. Only 91 of them logged over 1000 minutes.
As a matter of fact, if you average out the number of players in the league, the number who logged under a thousand minutes, and the number who logged under 500, you’ll find that the average team in the NASL had a roster of 24 players of whom 12 logged less than 1000 minutes and 8 logged less than 500. By the way, I got the data these calculations are based on from NASL.com. At the risk of sounding snarky, that would be a source.
So, we are basically around four players over the league average. Boy, those Stars roster numbers don’t look quite as bad now.
But, what the heck. Let’s trim our past season’s roster by four. And just for the heck of it, let’s do it in reverse chronological order. Cut Wasson, who was under player contract for about the last three weeks of the regular season after recovering from ACL surgery while serving as the equipment manager. Cut Mulholland and Hamilton, who we signed for slightly less than two months, and cut Mauro, who is under development contract. How much money you think we’re saving there? Still think we win the title?
Admittedly, my cuts were rather arbitrary. But I don’t see how yours are less so.
You are attempting to use hindsight, a tool that no one in the Stars organization had at the beginning of the season, to determine how many players they could have done without. As Manny tells every prospective player who attends the yearly combine the Stars hold (paraphrasing here), “If you don’t get a contract offer from us, don’t give up playing! It might be because we are looking for a certain type of player or we have a certain position to fill. Or, I just missed what you had. I’m not perfect and make mistakes. You could do great elsewhere. Keep trying.”
He doesn’t have the luxury of knowing who is going to get injured. Some players will surprise him, in both good and bad ways. He’ll get better at making player evaluations and utilizations as he matures as a coach. After all, he’s only been doing it for two seasons. As great as his potential is, he can still improve. When you talk to him about the subject, he readily admits that. But in the meantime, arbitrarily cutting squad size for primarily financial reasons is a recipe for a decline in on pitch performance.
And don’t kid yourself. The reasons you use to justify your solutions are based on even more assertions without evidence. “…not many injuries at the team’s level of football”?!?!?!
Are you kidding? Do you go down to the pitch after the match? Those players are not wearing those bags of ice on their hips, legs, ankles and feet as a fashion statement. For the vast majority of professional soccer players, injury is inevitable. The majority do not necessarily need surgery, but the number of hip pointers, hammie pulls, high ankle sprains, turf toes and other assorted abrasions and contusions suffered in any given season is astounding. You might not have heard this, but the reason we accepted the loan of Scott Lorenz from Sporting KC was because we had such a rash of injuries at midfield. I was told this by a member of the front office. That would be another source.
“…emergency reinforcements could be acquired later.” We started the season with 25 players and still had to acquire reinforcements. Under your system, we’d have had to acquire nine players mid-season. When your authority on the subject, Jono, was with the Thunder, and even before, they either had an actual reserve team or a local PDL franchise such as the Twin Cities Tornado or the Rochester Thunder to serve as a de facto reserve team. That would have made the thought of a smaller roster more feasible. But under the present circumstances, relying on mid season pick-ups with no previous experience with the club is a very iffy business. Mulholland aside, the chances that mid to late season pick-ups from other organizations will make a great difference are slim. Read this thread for more:
http://www.usldiscussions.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/264384/1
So, what are we left with? A proposal for a three-tiered salary structure, based on current salary figures that you just “assumed”. No evidence how much is spent on salary. No evidence on how it is distributed. No evidence that salary is the driving force behind quality player acquisition (I know of players who have taken less money to play for a particular coach or a franchise with connections that can be used to further a players career). You claim that it will help to maintain team chemistry, although you present no evidence that it will and, as Evan, bullsear and super rookie allude to, the fact that you propose paying half your squad approximately $500 over the poverty line for a single person and $3500 dollars under it for a couple (the Kallmans, the Bracalellos and others) might weigh against such harmonious chemistry.
Here’s my (very simplified) explanation of the team’s performance, formed after watching most of the matches, from preseason to finals, and actually talking with the coaches, front office personnel and many of the players.
The team started off fairly well, considering that due to the uncertainty of the ownership situation, player signings could not start until a scant couple of months before the season began. And this included “converting” contracts signed under the previous owner. But thanks to having a fairly sizable nucleus from the previous year, there was just enough cohesion to keep us competitive, ranging between 2nd and 4th place. Unfortunately, injuries and the line-up and strategy tweaks that resulted from them disrupted an offense that was not the team’s strong point in the first place. Difficulty in maintaining possession put extra pressure on the defense. The result was the late season slump. The recovery of some injured players, the acquisition of Mulholland and, to a lesser extent, Hamilton, coupled with Manny’s gaining experience as a coach and finally settling down to a consistant line-up that could exert more offensive pressure without exposing the defense, led to our taking 7 of the last 9 points available and making our championship run. I just don’t see how your proposed system alters any of that. Maybe I would see it if you backed up your analysis with actual evidence as opposed to grab bag full of hindsights colored to fit your theories and apparently made up numbers.
As for my solution, it’s the following: Generate more revenue. Not easy at all, I’ll admit. But I have a few proposals that, bq willing, I hope to post here within a few weeks.
@2Cents, Because I asked the NASL last spring about this terminology and there was none. However, it is something that I think Manny and the Stars have been pushing. Not that others don’t do the same thing. Most teams don’t but I would guess Atlanta has similar situations this past year. I believe Manny wanted a situation where players could float between training full time with the Stars and be rostered on and playing for an NPSL team so they are getting games. I’m not opposed to that but I think the rules should be clear from the onset.
@uhclem, My God man, that is the longest “reply comment” I’ve ever seen and if I did a word count am pretty sure that it would double the original article. Also, possibly another first in that I have a IMS staff writer debating with another IMS staff writer.
“At the risk of sounding snarky…” Yes, that’s a risk isn’t it?
I’m not sure how one would review the previous season’s situation without the use of hindsight, (I can’t wait to find out!), but this article has prompted a pretty good discussion – thanks for the great read, contributors.
second what david said. most worthwhile comments section on the internet.
uhclem- you are a legend.
To bq: Yeah, it is pretty long. But it’s a lot easier to just declare things as being so then it is to declare that things may not be so and actually show the work that indicates that things may not be so. And there were so many un- or undersupported declarations…
Easier to say “All roads lead to Rome” than to say that all roads don’t necessarily lead to Rome and then show some examples of roads that don’t lead to Rome. Without the examples, all the exchange amounts to is a “No, it isn’t/Yes it is” playground argument.
To David:
Using hindsight (preferably hindsight not distorted by trying to fit it into a narrative designed to support a particular hypothesis. Also, one formed from a deep and detailed analysis of the previous season taking more than just wins, losses and playing time into account) is fine.
However, planning for the future using only hindsight, especially hindsight only covering one season in a business where things can vary greatly from season to season, is not so fine.
It’s usually a good idea to build some buffers into a system to account for human errors in judgement and unforeseen circumstances. And to have some proof that those buffers will be sufficient. It looks to me that, for the most part, he has not done so.
And finally, just to make clear my position here, it’s not that he is entirely wrong. As I said in my reply “Mebbe yes, mebbe no.” I should have also said “Mebbe kinda.” Mea culpa on that. It’s just that, in my opinion, he hasn’t come near making the case for much of his analysis nor his solution.
@uhclem
Spot on. Now if only we could find someone to fix that “tactics” article…
Thanks for the great replies everyone– this is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping to generate!
@bullsear, ordinarily I would agree that youth development is important. Unfortunately, the economics of a club like the Stars dictate alternate priorities. Namely, not going bankrupt, and fielding the most competitive team possible with nearly empty coffers.
Also, I speculate you could attract similar players with 11k USD wages as you could with 15k USD wages– both numbers are hovering around the poverty line, and would need to be supplemented with some other income source. Besides, my numbers were more to illustrate the math of my proposition than anything else.
@uhclem, I’ve heard it stated that the qualifier for “art” is how much analysis it generates. By that metric, the length of your comment validated the quality of my editorial!
I admit I didn’t have time to read your entire response– it was really long– but I appreciate the thought you put towards my idea.
I suppose my thesis was, “here is a way the Stars could perhaps afford a few really good players, even with their limited budget.”
You attack my use of hindsight as if there is some objective purview of past events, and as if you are the sole keeper of such truth. I’ll stick by the truism that “quality wins football matches”– a little cream at the top of the Stars roster might help them more consistently win games.
As for your implications that my analysis was not deep enough, in the end, editorialization boils down to this: you make a statement, and then you’ve got 900 words to attempt to back your thesis– anything more doesn’t fit the format. So I appreciate that astute readers such as yourself are willing to put in a more thorough analysis after the fact!
What the league needs is a salary cap/salary floor structure and to have a certain amount of players on each roster under the age of say 23.
A salary cap keeps all teams on a level playing field. Furthermore it keeps agents from asking for too much money from clubs for the services of their client.
A salary floor keeps the competition amongst teams in the league respectable.
A player in his 30′s is less inclined to play for $20,000 than say a player who is 19 or 20 years old.
At the same time these young players can be used for devlopment.
As a business owner, wouldn’t you like some assurances as to what your expenses are going to be?
We’ve heard NASL wants to structure themselves similar to MLS. Its about time they start looking into the business side of the game.
Armando, that’s interesting because I haven’t heard of such desires from the NASL. Not saying you’re wrong, just that I’ve never heard that – at least yet.
What I have heard from NASL in the past is that they were happy they didn’t have salary caps and other regulations because it showed they worked on more of a free market system like the rest of football around the world and it was what demarked them as being different than MLS which they liked.
@Armando, I think I agree with your salary cap and floor idea.
I am a free market, laissez faire capitalist at heart, but that approach hardly ever works without _some_ degree of oversight, especially where sporting is concerned.
The unabated free market approach has been nothing short of a disaster in Europe in modern times, when so much money has flowed into the game; half of the clubs are going bankrupt or carrying tens or hundreds of millions of Euros of debt, and the same top-flight clubs routinely take all of the glory against teams with payrolls ten or fifteen times less than theirs– for instance, either Real Madrid or Barcelona have won 23 of the last 30 Spanish Primera titles.
A salary cap isn’t really possible in Europe, but Platini has settled on the next best thing: his “Financial Fair Play” rules.
And if I’m truthful, sporting affairs are governed by a different set of ethics than “normal” businesses– the goal in sporting is to make the games as entertaining as possible. This means leveling the playing field, which is most easily accomplished with the kinds of massive wealth redistribution that most would find distasteful outside of the sporting realm.
Please see editors note that is now added at the end of this article. Thanks!
@ Brian – The things I read from David Downs makes me think he wants to move more to a MLS system and really get in bed with them. He really wants a working agreement. The NASL might have been delusional back in 2009. Reality is setting in and the red ink is everywhere. Some of the owners that forced the breakaway in 2009 are not even in the picture now.
Now we are left with the NASL being controlled by one entity. Traffic is the NASL. And who knows if Traffic will continue to prop up the league with their own loses mounting up? They are dancing on the edge of a knife.
Businesses like the NASL don’t survive in a free market system. So it is quite interesting that you say they want to embrace it. That would mean embracing their own death. They are not profitable and there are no new revenue steams on the horizon. If they can’t increase attendance to 5,000 a game for every team(and they likely won’t survive to see that), they have no way to bring in cash to offset their loses. So in that case you either fold or try to insulate yourselves from the damage, which is what MLS did with single entity. That is how they survived and grew.
The only hope I see for D2, is for it to be a purely development league, with MLS being financially involved. The hard part is convincing the MLS owners that they need more teams to further player development in this country. And that a version of MLS(MLS2) can be profitable on a smaller scale in emerging markets.
@KL, I should have Gerry address this with you as he has strong feelings about it but we have touched on this in several podcasts. I would have to agree with Gerry, that although I agree with you that MLS adds credibility to the league it certainly doesn’t sell the league and I know as a major league town with a D2 soccer franchise, it’s hard enough to sell folks on coming out to games. A purely developmental squad of MLS players is even a harder sell. Folks with D2 and D3 teams also want to see some local players and or players who have been on and around the team for a number of years that they can identify with. Examples for Minnesota would be Joe Warren and Brian Kallman and for longevity Kevin Friedland.
Just throwing the label MLS on a league or on a team does not make it a quick sell or easy sell to the average fan from those cities. Remember, we are not the average fan. We are the uber soccer geeks.
I think a hybrid of sorts that they are looking at with some flexibility seems to be the best case scenario. And as I think you have alluded to in the past and we have spoken about on the podcast, MLS does not want to pay for any of this.
But we are far off the topic of this particular post now, aren’t we.
Well, then, let me just drag it back a bit…
To Michael:
What I am attacking is the accuracy of most of your hindsight and your using it to justify your solution of a problem that we both agree about: That improving the quality of the Minnesota Stars roster would be a good thing.
True objectivity in any human endeavor is difficult to achieve, if not impossible. That includes hindsight, which is the perception of past events. However, there are differing degrees of accuracy of hindsight. Someone could theoretically claim that, in hindsight, the Silverbacks were the highest quality squad in the NASL last season. Pardon me if I wouldn’t accept that hindsight as accurate without a lot of very strong corroborating evidence. ‘Cause I got too much evidence what don’t corroborate dat.
One of the problems with your article is that, for the most part (with a couple of outstanding exceptions) you present no evidence at all on the comments you make based on your hindsight. You dismiss the Strikers as “probably not very good in the first place” without one scintilla of evidence.
You characterize the Railhawks as “derailed” and “off-kiltered”. This would be the same Railhawks who went into the semi-finals against the only team in the league that they hadn’t beaten during the regular season, held that team in their home to a scoreless draw until the 93rd minute, beat that team the next week in the second leg in Carolina, held that team scoreless for a 30 minute “mini-game” and finally lost the series by the margin of one Joe Warren shootout save.
The adjectives “derailed” and “off-kiltered” are not the ones that spring most readily to mind. And while the above do not conclusively prove that they were not derailed or off-kilter, they certainly do not support the conclusion that they were. And again, you provide NOTHING to show that they were.
Again, the only bit of evidence you provide that the playoff field was weak was your observations on the Islanders and their players missing because of international duty. If you had been able to muster something of the same about the rest of the teams, instead of just proclaiming them to be “forgettable” or “inconsistent”, you might have been able to garner some credibility on the subject. Instead, your hindsight-based observations on the tournament simply detracted from the more substantial work you did establishing the Stars’ problem through the examination of their late season slump.
As for your solution, a three-tiered pay structure with a reduction of the squad down to 20 or 22 players, you presented a case that completely consisted of, with the singular exception of the Greenfield quote, a series of proclamations without substantiation, assumptions without basis and flawed attempts at research. A case with more holes in it than Albert Hall.
Your system will improve team chemistry? Where’s the evidence?
Not many injuries occur at the team’s level of football? Why in the world should I believe this?
Mulholland is included in a list of “underused assets”? How could we have possibly used him more?
And as to the charge of my believing that my hindsights are the truth, I’m not the one who just says things are so without any evidence that they are. That’s why I use sources to back up what I say. And if I give an opinion, I make it plain that it is opinion.
For instance, when I gave my explanation for the way the Stars’ season went, I clearly labeled it as “my explanation“. If I had wanted to portray it as the “truth”, I would have referred to it as “the explanation” .
Contrast it to this: “…editorialization boils down to this: you make a statement, and then you’ve got 900 words to attempt to back your thesis– anything more doesn’t fit the format.”
First, there is no law here that says you had a limit of 900 words to work with. I have written a few editorials on this blog and Brian has never, to my relief and my detractors chagrin, limited me to 900 words. And if you do the research, you’ll discover that while a 900 word limit is common in the profession, the length seems to range from about 550 to 1800 or more for some medical, science and business journals. For instance, publications who will accept editorials up to 1200 words include: The International Journal of Dermatology, The Jewish Observer, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street *bleeding* Journal.
http://www.theopedproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47&Itemid=65
I also did a quick google search for “editorial format”. There is no “the” editorial format. At least not as you seem to reference the phrase. But here is the first entry that popped up. I think it’s worth a look:
http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/grammar-rules-and-tips/tips-on-writing-newspaper-editorial-format.html
As far as I can tell, there was no 900 word limit imposed by anything or anyone but yourself, and editorialization does not “boil down” to what you say it does. It just reads to me like an excuse for not doing a better job of making your case.
And yet, you didn’t say “In my opinion…” or “I think…” or anything similar. You just offered that stuff about editorialization up as if it were “the truth”.
Finally, while I don’t agree with the aphorism you heard stated, “The qualifier for ‘art’ is how much analysis it generates”, it did pique my interest. I tried googling “qualifier for art”, but it didn’t show up anywhere.
Say, you wouldn’t happen to have a…source…for that, wouldja?
“As far as I can tell, there was no 900 word limit imposed by anything or anyone but yourself, and editorialization does not “boil down” to what you say it does. It just reads to me like an excuse for not doing a better job of making your case.”
No, there is no limit except the common sense tells me after running a web site for over three years that most people reading a soccer news website/blog (not a medical or science journal) are going to start dozing off and skimming if you get much longer than that.
BTW- Original article = 1149 words.
Uhclems 1st response = 2151
Uhclems 2nd response = 952
Wow….kind of a downer/upper/sidewinder sort of discussion. I don’t think lamenting on the fact that NASL bleeds in a gushing fashion as opposed to a trickle really gives creedence to the intent of the article and to the current glory of the Stars.
If Traffic is really up to the task of throwing another couple bushels of gold coin this next season, then they should look towards pro-rating more of that to the Stars, they deserve it. The least amount of moolah should go towards the Silverbacks, as Boris is not funding any of this new venture, and a new coach will not matter.
MLS would probably love to work with either USL Pro or NASL for a reserve type arrangement, as long as either USL Pro or NASL fully funds all of it, and do it for the glory of MLS. I don’t see the practicality of that either.
So… for the Stars to remain competitive, they need more cash…. is it too late to Occupy Wall Street (or in this case, Occupy Traffic)?
@Brian, uhclem actually had three comments
@uhclem, I included as much evidence as I could fit into the piece, and was just throwing an idea out there for the community to mull over.
The manner of your reaction seems a bit disproportionate to the subject matter; relax, and take a deep breath! Maybe go outside and take a walk?
“Lastly, I’m confused as to how there is no such thing as an amateur contract in the NASL? By definition, if a player is rostered on the team and doesn’t get paid, they are considered under amateur status. Thus, their contract is an amateur contract. What is mysterious about that? =)”
That’s not true.
A player either has “professional” or “amateur” status in the eyes of USSF (and the NCAA, depending on if college eligibility is an issue). “Once a pro, always a pro” is the traditional way of looking at it (though you can – and players have – bought back their amateur statuses, in what I always considered a very large irony).
Let’s say you’re a soccer player, and you come out of college and you sign a professional contract and you receive a salary for playing soccer. You’re a professional. If later you decide (for whatever reason) to play for a PDL team or an NPSL team or what have you, even if you may not be paid to play by that team, just being on a roster and not getting paid doesn’t make you an amateur. (It makes you charitable, but not an amateur.)
If you’ve never been a professional and you play without pay and never sign a contract that calls for you to be paid to play, you can remain an amateur (though if you sign with a professional TEAM, the NCAA has long held that’s verboten – I don’t know if the most recent NCAA reforms have changed anything in that regard).
There are people who, for whatever reason, want to keep their amateur status (much like golfers, so they can compete in US Amateur events and whatnot) or get it back. That’s their decision. But you can’t go back and forth and back and forth depending on your roster status.
But one thing you CAN’T do is sign a contract with a professional team and compete on a professional team and keep your NCAA eligibility, regardless of whether or not you get paid. And if you play for an NASL team as an amateur, that’s your decision, but you should never do something that you’re very good at for free.
You CAN play with a PDL team (which is “out of season” for an NCAA student-athlete) and retain your NCAA eligibility. (Again, they’ve recently done some finagling with the rules, so part of this may different than it used to be.)
I stop reading uhclem’s posts after a few paragraphs, or after he gets really snotty (usually around the 2nd or 3rd paragraph). Good overall conversation though! Back before the Thunder went under, the player salary would range from $500 – $2500/mo. I believe they also got housing.
@DarkCirrus, from what I understand the overall pay in 2nd division has been reduced significantly across the board on all teams. Even the Impact’s payroll has dropped the last couple of years, or at least that’s what I’ve been told by some pretty reliable sources. However, the Stars are still below most teams.
In case anyone is still reading the comments here, I noticed this in my news feeds today. Maybe Paul Jewell read this post (har har):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/15772863.stm
“We’ve got lots of numbers but we’d like a bit more quality. Sometimes you have to trim it to move forward.” -Paul Jewell
I don’t really follow English football very closely– the style of play is a bit too half-witted for me– but someone who does will have to let me know if the tactic works for Ipswich Town.
That’s our local boy who is also the US MNT U-20 Cody Croppers team. Jewell and the Championship side have struggled this season as they have with previous coaches as well as Roy Keane. Ipswhich is 15 of 24 teams currently.