By Dario Camacho - MIAMI, FL (Sep 26, 2011) US Soccer Players -- It’s a shame how destructive hope can sometimes be. In the case of New England, it might be the reason for its downfall in 2012. With Major League Soccer being generous this year, ten teams get to keep playing well past October 23rd. New England won't be one of them. But that wasn’t the case before the trade deadline came and went last week.
One of the impacts of extending the playoffs to ten teams is that struggling teams that normally would have thrown in the towel by this time in the season still held hope that things could work out. That 10th team would be playoff bound, even if it meant a play-in round with the 9th-seed. That essentially kept teams from trading their key or marquee players away for the rebuilding blocks needed for next year.
This year’s version of the roster freeze was nothing short of boring. No last minute blockbuster trade. No fringe club in the playoff bubble significantly strengthening its squad. The roster freeze signals the beginning of the end for the 2011 MLS regular season, and this year, mediocre teams still felt like they could make a run deep into November.
In New England, that trading chip was Shalrie Joseph. Looking at what might have occurred during the last day of trading, New England might have shot itself in the foot by not pulling the trigger and sending Joseph to a contender for allocation money and/or quality young talent to sure up a shaky back line. It’s a trade that should have been made. Even in the most flattering scenarios, New England is all but officially out of the playoffs.
Add insult to injury, and New England could potentially lose out completely with Joseph who will be out of contract by the end of this year. From the looks of things, his future lies somewhere other than New England. His August 2nd tweet on Twitter was cryptic, if not downright to the point, indicating that this might be his last year in a Revolution kit.
Even at 33, he still has hard to replace value, and teams looking for that last bit of quality to sneak them into the 10th playoff spot would bite at that opportunity. Of course, New England was every bit a part of those hopefuls looking from the outside in. Now Joseph’s value is lost on New England if he doesn’t re-sign, and some other team plucks him in free agency. The Revolution lose out completely. No playoff spot, nothing gained by keeping Joseph now, and losing him at the end of the year.
If MLS hadn’t expanded the playoff seeds and kept it to eight, New England would be a dozen points out of the final slot, well out of reach and running out of hope. The realization that the season was lost might have happened before the roster freeze, thus Joseph’s comments might have prompted Nicol to trade him to build around the young talent in New England. With the likes of Benny Feilhaber running the middle, and new DP Milton Caraglio and academy product Diego Fagundez in the up and coming category, the time would have been ripe for a Joseph trade.
This sets an ugly precedent for future seasons if Major League Soccer keeps this ten-playoff team format. It places hope, unrealistic as it might be, that even bottom-dwellers like New England, Toronto and Chivas USA, still have a mathematical chance to make the postseason this late in the season. It keeps the trading deadline devoid of the necessary trades to build for the future, and lowers the standard of play that normally would be higher if only the worthy teams deserving of the top eight seeds go through.
As it is now, New England with 27 is still mathematically capable of clinching a berth into the playoffs. Granted, they need a horrendous implosion of playing form from everyone in front of them, but mathematically speaking, still alive. A month and a half away from the final regular season whistle, this cheapens the drama that usually accompanies the end of the season playoff run.
Instead, it gives hope to teams that need no hope, but a dose of reality. In the case of New England, it gives them the realization that all things considered, the trading deadline last week should have been the beginning of their 2012 campaign. What they're left with is the ugly truth that regret is formed from a missed opportunity.
Dario Camacho makes his debut for US Soccer Players, moving from regular commentator as Pesmerga7 to columnist.
