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MLS Ticker: Sounders land Neagle, Galaxy name Klein team president, and more

Photo by ISIphotos.com

By FRANCO PANIZO

Lamar Neagle and the Seattle Sounders just cannot get enough of one another.

Seattle re-acquired Neagle on Sunday in a trade with the Montreal Impact, marking the third time the 25-year-old midfielder will play for the Sounders. In exchange, the Sounders gave the Impact an international roster spot through the end of the 2014 season.

Neagle, who scored two goals and has two assists last season, played for the Sounders in 2009 and 2011. He did not make any appearances in 2009, but scored five goals and had two assists in nine matches in 2011.

“We are very excited about bringing Lamar back to Seattle,” said sporting director Chris Henderson said in a statement released by the club. “He is an attacking midfielder who plays smart and adds versatility to our club. Lamar scored a few key goals for us in the past while being a very consistent player. He is a great teammate and positive presence in the locker room.”

Here is some more news from around the league:

KLEIN APPOINTED AS GALAXY PRESIDENT

A former member of the LA Galaxy will be stepping into a big front office role this coming season. Retired midfielder Chris Klein was appointed Galaxy president on Monday, and one of his main tasks is overseeing the business operations of the club. Klein, who played for the Galaxy from 2007-10, had previously served as the Senior Director of the Galaxy Academy before being promoted to vice president in February 2012.

“We have always been impressed with Chris’ commitment and desire to excel on the business side of sports, and we have great confidence and faith that he will take the LA Galaxy to new levels,” said AEG President and CEO Tim Leiweke in a statement. “We admire his passion and loyalty to the brand and his desire for the Galaxy to be the greatest soccer club in the history of this sport in this country.

“What makes Chris even more valuable to the Galaxy is his ability to understand our academy system, our development system and the partnership he has with Bruce will allow the Galaxy to continue to compete for championships year after year.”

REVS, RHINOS ANNOUNCE PARTNERSHIP

The New England Revolution are the latest team to announce a USL Pro partner for the upcoming season, revealing on Monday that they have launched an affiliate program with the Rochester Rhinos. As part of the partnership, the Revolution will have to loan at least four players to the Rhinos for the season.

“We are pleased to formalize what we believe will be a beneficial partnership for both the Revolution and Rochester,” Revolution general manager Michael Burns said in a statement. “This affiliate agreement will allow a number of our players to gain increased and meaningful playing time in the Rhinos’ USL PRO schedule while we can monitor their development in conjunction with Rochester’s staff.”

Members of Rochester’s coaching staff are expected to travel to Tucson to meet the Revolution for the next stage of the team’s training camp to observe and collaborate with Revolution coaches

WHITECAPS FORMALLY ADD KOBAYASHI

The Vancouver Whitecaps finally made it official on Monday: They have signed attacking midfielder Daigo Kobayashi. The 29-year-old joins the Whitecaps after having most recently played for Japanese outfit Shimizu S-Pulse. Kobayashi has also played for Tokyo Verdy, Omiya Ardija, Stabaek and Iraklis Thessaloniki in his career.

“We’re really pleased that Daigo is going to be joining us,” said Whitecaps head coach Martin Rennie in a statement. “He’s technically very gifted and he’s got an excellent final pass. He can create goals for us and he’s got a lot to prove. Those are the type of players we want in our squad.”

QUICK KICKS

Philadelphia Union defender Carlos Valdes got his loan to Colombian side Santa Fe off to a flying start, scoring the winning goal in a 1-0 Colombian Super Cup victory against Millonarios. (REPORT)

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Honduran World Cup midfielder Walter Martinez is on trial with the Colorado Rapids. (REPORT)

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Former San Jose forward Khari Stephenson and former Toronto FC forward Peri Marosevic have both joined Real Salt Lake on trial.

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What do you think of Neagle returning to Seattle for a third time? Who would you like to see the Revolution loan to the Rhinos? Expecting Kobayashi to do well in MLS?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Speaking of the MLS, I just noticed that the links on the frontpage for MLSSoccer no longer include the Fantasy games.

    As a previously casual MLS fan who became somewhat diehard thanks to playing the official MLS Fantasy manager game, does the removal of the link signal that MLS is simply retooling the fantasy game for the 2013 season, or dropping the feature?

    Reply
  2. Chris Klein is the new President of the L.A. Galaxy? Look at that. Tom Cruise steals Katie Holmes away from him. His movie career tanks after the American Pie series winds to its conclusion. And yet, he perseveres. Maybe they can make that Stifler kid the Technical Director?

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  3. A thread from Bigsoccer Yanks Abroad says

    average pay in Bundesliga is 500- 1 million euros. Average 2 Bundesliga is 150- 250 K. Average 3 Bundesliga gets between 5-7000 K euros a month. Bonuses are also added to deals. the point is if the salary cap can be raised from 3 million to say 5 in 10 years we could get some talented top division players interested or at least solid 2 Bundesliga players. I imagine the pay is same as the French/ Italian leagues

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    • The Dynamo had a former team captain from one of the lower German leagues come in on trial a while back, who had been booted after some sort of alcohol issue there, and he couldn’t make the cut here. I’m not sure where the sweet spot is, but the reality is that MLS nestles in between the first and second division in terms of quality in comparison to the elite European leagues (B.1, EPL, La Liga) and is arguably the equivalent of many of the Scandinavian leagues. The problem being they can get paid more for the same standard over there. The elite league players are the ones who could help but they’d be dropping down in level and paycheck; which is why they often don’t come until retirement time. Now you could drop down — which is what MLS often does — and at that level our paychecks are more competitive, but I’m not sure a B.2 bench guy or Regionalliga dude is any better than what we already have. That’s the catch 22 I see, is that by the time our wages are competitive I’m not sure the foreign players are anymore…..”whoop de do, you got (now-Guam international) Ryan Guy, Ian Joy”, etc etc.

      Personally, I think we should look to Central America, the Caribbean, Asia, Australia/NZ, places where the wages are comparable if not in our favor, and we can pick who we want rather than per se who we can afford.

      There is no silver bullet and at least part of the solution is creating domestic pro team academies that are serious in the manner of Ajax, U10 up, growing our own people and not parasitizing the traditional club system.

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      • Exactly. the minimum salary for a non-EU player is 400,000 euros. MLD needs to up that salary cap. Players would rather play second division because we are barely paying at that level

      • Agreed. we could have loads of Aussies/Kiwis, central american players over here. way cheaper than local homegrown talent

  4. Isnt Chris also involved with the Swedish club Hammarby that Berhalter coached

    btw Danish club AGF just signed a deal that allows them to get youth loanees from Man City. why foesnt MLS do something similar? Maybe Spurs loan Thr Earthquakes some aspiring talent or say the Galaxy get some reserve players from Liverpool? If its not possible, what about loanees from Turkish/Belgian/Swiss/Scandinavian leagues? We can get tons of cheap talent to enhance the leagur

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    • MLS negotiates the signings of foreign players since it is a single entity structure. From what I understand, MLS isn’t very big on loans in the traditional sense of “gun for hire”. MLS only does loans if they come with pre-negotiated buy-out clauses. So rather than hiring short term mercenaries, MLS is looking to rent-to-own. I feel it is smart of MLS to adopt this stance.

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    • Does this make Chris Klein technically Bruce Arena’s boss? That would be amusing.

      As I understand it AEG, who owns LAG, also owns 49% of Hammarby (which these days is Swedish second division). I’ve seen at least one article say that Chris Klein helped pick Gregg Berhalter for Hammarby.

      I don’t think we need youth loanees from the EPL. What we need is the creme of the crop, and I’m sure the EPL would want loanees that successful back. Which would set up a Beckham scenario where you have the player for x period of time but then when that’s done you’re left with a hole to fill again. Long term that does not help our league because we have to go back to the well after each guy leaves. Worse, it could be like Landin where we literally pay a fee to work with a player who sucks. In theory this might be addressed with a purchase option, but that still doesn’t prevent getting handed a “dog,” and are EPL teams even going to give that for loanees they actually like? Also, even if you paid the fee we risk getting into a situation where we pay some sort of substantial fee up front, or upon purchase, only for the player to want to U-turn back to Europe or whereever home is when his contract is close to up…..Fredy Montero. We can buy someone but not make them stay beyond a contract.

      Brass tacks, we need to stick to developing our own people and only consider stuff like this on a limited basis. We should be making our own league not becoming a feeder for someone else. You make loan arrangements with abroad teams as their developers and you have structurally locked yourself in as their inferior. I think we’re better than that.

      Reply

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