Josh Wolff Trade From Soccer America MLS Confidential Newsletter: "THE BOTTOM LINE: Money, plain and simple, was the primary reason the Fire was trying to trade Josh Wolff before the Aug. 15 deadline. With new contracts for Ante Razov and Wolff kicking in next year at the maximum and Peter Nowak set to play one more season, Chicago needs salary-cap room even though Hristo Stoitchkov will be leaving. The Metros offered a swap of Wolff for Rodrigo Faria and were denied."
His contract is running out after this season. Unless he agrees to a massive paycut (unlikely) he won't be back. So, short answer, yes, we were.
Interesting they tried to trade Wolff instead of Razov. Now that Wolff has a serious injury and no one would likely trade for him until he proves his health, I wonder if the Fire will feel compelled to trade Ante in the offseason instead.
I wonder if they were reasoning that Ante is more likely to stick around long term, as he's already had his tour of duty overseas. Whereas Josh is yearning for greener pastures.
Faria for Josh Wolff????? Wha were they thinking to even offer that? If I had a healthy Josh Wolff I might not trade him for a healthy Clint Mathis.
that was the first thing I thought of. (which either means this is likely or that it's an incredibly obscure idea
[just a joke]Next thing you're going to tell us that Landon is one of the top 15 players in the world.[/just a joke]
take note that the fire probably didn't offer wolff for faria... that would be pretty stupid, and they have done quite well at not being stupid... so i see no reason for them to suddenly start it would make sense to me that the metros may have started the discussion with that and the fire asked for more
When you look at the entire picture, Faria for Wolff might have been a good deal for Chicago. Is Wolff more talented? Yes, definitely. On the other hand, Faria is more durable, hardly ever getting himself injured while Wolff has yet to go a season in Chicago without a major injury. Faria puts up very good numbers, and has scored more goals than Wolff this season. Faria makes 60k, compared to Wolff's 265k. All in all, that would have made a fine trade for Chicago. I don't know how well the Metros would have made out with it though. They would have the most potent striker tandem in the league in Mathis and Wolff, but I don't know how much they would scare opposing defenses from their spots on the bench nursing constant injuries. JMac
After tonight's Metro's game, NY/NJ probably couldn't trade Faria to the Ball State Soccer Club. And that's saying something.
Faria needs space to move and run around. That's his game, and he doesn't do as well in close quarters. Now that OZ has his heart set on his latest stupid formation (the 4-3-3), Faria and the other strikers keep running right into each other. After Diallo went off, Mathis moved back to midfield, and OZ tried to play a 4-5-1 with Faria being the ONLY guy up front. The Galaxy defense was then able to double and triple team the guy. Faria won't be confused with Ronaldo any time soon, but when he plays in a normal lineup with two strikers he plays very well. JMac
I wouldn't be suprised to see something creative happen where some of Stoichkov's $$ would come from a front office / coaching job.
Look at Wolff's MLS numbers, far from spectacular his WC play did little to enhance his overseas marketability. Right now, even if healthy, Razov would be more desireable then Wolff.
faria has a lot of energy and stuff and runs his a$s off, he would've probably been better suited for a track and field event... his finishing is piss poor. if faria would have finished half of the golden opportunities he had, his figures would be close to twellman and ruiz (i'm serious)....faria continues to play because of the rumored "oz is his agent" thing..... i truly believe that any other coach that has a healthy diallo and mathis would put faria on the bench and use him as a sub. mathis is best as a forward and oz starts faria in that position over him.....i just don't get....
This statement might shock US fans, but Sweeper is right. Simply put, Razov scores a lot and Wolff doesn't.
it would shock US fans becuase most US fans think that is complelty wrong. Simply put, Wolff is a better soccer player than Razov who can create for himself and others. Razov is a poacker who is dependant on his service. He is a quality finisher but I think BA knew what he was doing when he took Wolff and left Razov home.
If he's a quality finisher, then why hasn't he, uh, finished many chances? The fact is that Razov and Wolff have been getting comparable service, being on the same team and all. Maybe you can make an argument that Razov gets slightly better service than Wolff because Wolff will help set up Razov while Razov won't help set anyone up. But even that doesn't go very far in explaining why Razov is scoring a lot more goals that Wolff. I might hate his team, but I'll be the first to say that Bob Bradley isn't dumb. He's got a forward who'll be making league maximum starting in 2003 who doesn't score all that often. Wolff's a good player, but when you're a forward making league maximum in MLS, you need to produce more than just "MLS Strike Force" commercials.
I think Wolff just stars in them, he doesn't produce them. Hah. Thanks, you've been great, I'll be here all week. Both have disappointed this year. It is always going to be tough to have two good forwards on one team. The goals don't divide by two easily. We saw it in Dallas the last years. LA is teaming up Ruiz with Cobi up top, who is more of a mid. No one has been able to team up with Twellman. San Jose seems to have found the most dangerous combo.
Wolff just signed a five year deal with MLS right after the World Cup. Plus he's a married guy and all that. On the one hand, this stuff suggests he'd like to stay in the US even if he leaves Chicago. The other view of the new contract is that it allows for a bigger transfer fee if his contract is bought by some European squad, so MLS gets its share of his good fortune. Can anyone provide some real info on how the MLS salary cap works, and why the Fire have to be so screwed by it so often? As for the why part, that came up here before and someone commented that it has a lot to do with Bob Bradley' success developing young players. They start off cheap, and once he gets them to be decent players, they get too expensive. So an MLS team gets reemed for doing exactly what all the WC-USA people were saying the league is good at doing--developing new young American talent that can compete at the international level. What I'm wondering is whether paying heaps of money for a guy like Stoitchkov or Valderama is the same as paying a similar amount for someone like Beasely, who became a pro in MLS. Does the cap offer any consideration regarding long term return-on-investment?