WASHINGTON, DC (Jun 12, 2008) USSoccerPlayers -- The latest working example of squad depth makes the ESPN2 Primetime game tonight live from Houston and what should be a basic question.
Houston - New England
9pm - ESPN2
We start with the injury report:
HOUSTON DYNAMO - QUESTIONABLE: DF Wade Barrett (L adductor strain)
NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION - OUT: FW Taylor Twellman (R ankle sprain), DF Rob Valentino (R hamstring strain); DOUBTFUL: MF Gary Flood (L ankle sprain); QUESTIONABLE: MF Argenis Fernandez (R quadriceps strain); PROBABLE: FW Adam Cristman (R toe sprain), GK Brad Knighton (R foot bone bruise)
Not so bad considering, especially if your loyalties lie towards Texas. Should we even bother with the international absences? Well, ok.
HOUSTON: Brian Ching (USA; World Cup qualifying); Pat Onstad, Dwayne De Rosario (Canada; World Cup qualifying)
NEW ENGLAND: Kenny Mansally (Gambia; World Cup qualifying); Shalrie Joseph (Grenada; World Cup qualifying); Khano Smith (Bermuda; World Cup qualifying)
Not to put too fine a point point, but there have been reserve league games with stronger starting elevens. Houston is minus their starting forwards and keeper, New England has one of their three primary play makers and Matt Reis. Advantage New England, in yet another totally unnecessary reason for Major League Soccer to at least respect CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying if not the rest of the international calendar.
After all, why would a League that doesn't pay enough for quality up and down the rosters at the best of tiems worry about losing players to international duty? A long time ago, a highly placed American soccer official once argued that the US audience only cared about the shirts not who was in them. MLS is well on its way towards trying to prove that point.
Relative Worth
Why is it that a North American league with no way for a player to obtain free agency within that league while selling player contracts overseas is just accepted?
With Jozy Altidore's move to Spain, it seems like the real issue for MLS is how to divide the profit, not whether they had any business engaging in that sort of system to begin with. It's simply taken for granted that a player contracted to MLS is their property on the international transfer market. Should it be?
That's not an American concept. Even with the limited examples where North American teams have bought player rights from foreign clubs, the usual method of getting a player is by trading or waiting for free agency. It takes the focus off the literal selling of players, one of the dirtier aspects of world soccer that should have been outmoded a long time ago.
Europe now has limited free agency in the fourth year of the contract and other rules meant to increase the ability for free transfers. They've also gt the odd ability for a player to actually buy his own transfer rights and move himself, the kind of working criticism of a system that seems lost on those continuing to prop it up.
As it stands, the only way for a player to block a transfer is to not agree to personal terms. Considering that Altidore was remarkably underpaid by Major League Soccer, that wouldn't have been likely even had he been motivated to stay. This is another example where MLS is simply taking too much for granted in a country where Curt Flood made the obvious point almost 40 years ago.
When an existing international standard (the transfer system) benefits this League, they're all for it. When they decide it doesn't (the international calendar) they go their own way.
Two Months for Galindo
Chivas USA's Maykel Galindo might miss up to eight additional weeks after his second sports hernia surgery. Galindo had surgery preseason and then reinjured his groin on May 11th against New England. Yes, that would be Chivas USA's leading scorer from 2007, as the press release so helpfully reminded us. Yes, there are other reasons riding shotgun with that to suggest Chivas USA is waiting for a much better squad than the one that currently has them within three points of the top of the Western Conference.
