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Cosmos sign Brazilian defender Roversio

Roversio1-Osasuna (NoticiasdeNavarra)

By DAN KARELL

When the New York Cosmos began to assemble their team, they aimed for signing anywhere from 25-28 players come opening day on August 3.

As of Saturday, they’re now at 26.

The Cosmos added another final piece to their growing roster for their inaugural season in the North American Soccer League by signing Brazilian defender Roversio, pending a physical exam. The 29-year-old centerback joins the club on a free transfer.

Sources tell SBI that Roversio turned down multiple offers from Major League Soccer teams, including the Montreal Impact.

Most recently, Roversio featured for one season at Orduspor in the Turkish Super League, after spending the previous four years in Spain with Osasuna and Real Betis. The 6-foot-2-inch tall defender also has played in Portugal for Paços de Ferreira and Gil Vicente, after beginning his career in Brazil with Santa Cruz.

Upon the successful completion of his physical, Roversio will become the third Brazilian on the Cosmos squad, joining Paulo Mendes and Marcos Senna, both midfielders.

Roversio is joining the team on their pre-season trip in London, England and is set to take part in Wednesday’s friendly match against Leyton Orient.

What do you think of this news? Excited to see another former La Liga player come to the Cosmos?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Travis,

    yes, I’m guilty of not understanding MLS’s complicated rules.

    But the allocation order is not just for USMNT players. It’s for all players coming in to MLS from other leagues.

    sorry for calling you a punk btw. That was out of order.

    Reply
    • How many times do you have to be told you are wrong on this point for you to understand that you are wrong on this point?

      Reply
      • No its not! You have no idea what you’re talking about. Olmes Garcia, Nunez, Michel, Juninho, Sarvas, are just a small sample of literally dozens of players that DID NOT go through allocation. Quit trolling with your utter nonsense. You’re making fans who want to see the Cosmos grow look bad

      • No its not. Seattle didnt have to give up allocation order to get Martins this year for example. It applies only to USMNT players and I believe people that have played in MLS before but whose rights aren’t owned by a team. It is a weird rule but it definitely does not apply to all players from other leagues

  2. Why’s everyone this excited about a guy whose last club got relegated by a mile (11 points short of safety) in the Turkish league? Multiple MLS offers don’t necessarily mean he’d be a top MLS player. More likely, a bunch of MLS teams desperately need center backs right now and this guy was a free agent. Montreal needs someone younger than Nesta and Ferrari, DC needs someone bigger than Woolard and White, Dallas and Portland have lots of injuries at center back.

    Reply
    • Cosmos offered him more $. Plus MLS clubs would lose a place in allocation order to sign the player. So it’s not just financial.

      Reply
      • You need to read how allocation works. As far as I know it only applies to USMNT players, not all players coming to MLS. Otherwise people like Martins, Cahill and Henry would have had to have gone through it.

      • No, that’s not true:

        Using Allocation Money
        Allocation money can be used:
        • to sign players new to MLS (a player who did not play in MLS during the previous season);
        • to re-sign an existing MLS player;
        • to buy down the budget on a designated player;
        • in connection with the exercise of an option to purchase a player’s rights or the extension of a player’s contract for the second year provided the player was new to MLS in the immediately prior year.
        http://www.portlandtimbers.com/news/2010/12/mls-101-allocation-and-discovery

      • allocation money =/= allocation order. allocation order is used during the allocation draft to get players coming to the MLS who have played for the USMNT. allocation money is used to sign all players. you are just throwing out terms and hoping they are right. you are simply ignorant

      • thats great but you seem to think that allocation money and allocation order are the same thing, they arent

  3. Cosmos are going to tear apart NASL and MLS will come calling cosmos sooner than later but MLS needs to get a name and face and f@ck away parity. Why have cater to sucky owners

    Reply
    • Cosmos fans, at least get your players on the filed for a practice before you boast about tearing the league above you apart. Once you win your first game and if you actually last long enough to face an MLS team in the The US Open Cup then maybe you might have the opportunity to prove your soccer power. Until then, pipe down, stop disparaging the first division and pray that your ownership actually has a business plan that will see them survive more than a season or two.

      Reply
  4. This comment thread made me chuckle. The fact that folks wistfully pine for the old NASL days and think anything that says Cosmos is the promise land for American soccer is hilarious. Other then getting the rights to the fabled Cosmos name the new Cosmos has nothing to do with the old one. Pele is not all of a sudden going to turn back the clock, lace up a pair of boots and jump onto the pitch. For folks on this thread to say the Cosmos are grassroots is hillarious. They are riding the publicity associated with their storied name and madke all of their money from replica jersey sales. They already closed one of their academies. They made a big deal about fielding a team for the Paul Scholes tribute game which they got DEMOLISHED in. All that they have shown an ability to do so far is really good media work.

    Now that they have made some signings people think they will show all of the structural flaws with the MLS. Truth be told, they are in the second division league in a nation where the first division is third tier. And I say this as an MLS fan. They will play in a small college stadium in Long Island for God’s sake. There are high school football stadiums in Texas that hold more people and have better playing surfaces. Cosmos evangelists should calm down. Lets enjoy the fact that their is a financially stable professional first division in the USA and some quality down it the second division. And let’s leave it at that.

    Reply
  5. Eventually (maybe in less than 5 years) the Cosmos will be the best soccer club in the U.S. Why is this? It’s simple; they aren’t burdened by MLS’s overreaching regulations that actually harm clubs. I’ll just give a few examples:

    1)The MLS salary cap makes it so clubs spend most of their wages on DP contracts and then very little on the majority of the roster. Just look at NYRB. Their wage bill last year was $15 million but $13 million of it went to just three players(Henry, Marquez, and Cahill). They overpaid for all three of these players just so they can have marquee names. Meanwhile they are a very poor side because the majority of their players are on very low wages and aren’t even League 1 quality. The Cosmos will be able to spread their wages around and have a more complete balanced roster. This is something MLS clubs cannot do.

    2) MLS prevents clubs from keeping their academy players. MLS only allows teams to offer two Generation Addidas contracts to academy players per team. All other academy players can only be offered the league minimum ($35,125). Look at what happened to LA Galaxy. They already gave Villareal and Zardes GA contracts and they are starting to lose their academy players now to clubs in Mexico and even Germany. Paul Arriola is the latest example when he signed with Tijuana instead of accepting LA’s 35k offer. The Cosmos won’t be burdened by this regulation and thus will be able to benefit more from their academies than MLS clubs do.

    3) Scouting – MLS teams do not benefit from scouting like other clubs can because of the discovery claim and allocation rules. For example, lets say Sporting KC scouts a player they want to sign that MLS clubs are not aware of. They are not allowed to just simply sign the player. The player becomes available to whomever is first in the allocation order. Some players have to enter a lottery. It’s a complicated mess and makes putting resources into scouting pretty much not worth it. The Cosmos won’t be burdened by this; if they scout a player and want to sign the player they can.

    Just a few reasons why a club like the Cosmos, that has the finances and resources, won’t have any problem competing with, and outperforming MLS clubs.

    Reply
    • here is the thing… you are under the impression that quality players are going to leave MLS to play for Cosmos or other NASL teams.

      Why would any player who has the shot to go to Europe or play in the US nats hurt there earnings potential and career to earn only a few extra thousand dollars and play in an inferior league. Plus, the cosmos model is not suistanable in the longterm. they will not be able to break even by over paying has been MLS players and aging euro stars.

      i find it funny how people can get so excited to sign a brazilian player and think he is amazing without seeing him play.

      Reply
      • the goal of the Cosmos is a strong academy. If you look at LA Galaxy they have access to a lot of great youth players coming through their academy. Same as NYRB. The problem is, because of MLS rules, they cannot sign them. They are only allowed to offer 35k and can only have two GA contracts on their rosters.

        The Cosmos aren’t restricted by this. They are run more like a business. If the Cosmos want to offer an academy player more wages they can. They may feel like they can sign the player to a contract and then sell the player on.

        NYRB academy is not going to be able to compete with the Cosmos for the simple fact that once NYRB sign their two GA contracts, they will be losing their homegrown players and potential homegrown players to the Cosmos. And eventually the Cosmos will have a roster of homegrown talent.

        so it is a sustainable business model.

    • DP’s only count $350,000 towards the salary cap and the remaining wages are paid for by the owner of the team. So your first point is wrong.

      Reply
      • You’re being too literal — He’s obviously making the point that the teams with DPs spend a lot of money on a handful of players, but the roster of the roster makes little, making it hard to sign or retain good players. Which is well understood and obvious to one and all, but not wrong.

    • Look at RSL’s philosophy, “The team is the star”, they don’t have overpaid DPs on their team and they spread the salary cap around the team. They are one of the best teams in the league. It is possible to operate well under the salary cap. I for one am glad that the cap exists so the league doesn’t go bust like it has before. I think they are doing it right this time with a slow build up. Soccer has never been more popular in the U.S. I think rules of caps will change with time as the league grows and develops.

      Reply
      • There are 50 soccer leagues on the planet that don’t have salary caps and not one of them has gone under because of it.

    • Um… apparently you don’t realize that your idea has been tried before…. With the Cosmos…. And the NASL…. and it flamed out spectacularly…. That is WHY MLS has the cap structure they have… So they can actually make money. The Cosmos business model is not sustainable.

      Reply
      • The difference between the rest of the world and the US is that football is the biggest sport everywhere else and gets tons of revenue in jersey and tv deals. In the US it is probably the 4th most popular at the highest level and the TV deals are awful and they have to beg for jersey sponsors sometimes. Stop comparing the US to the rest of the world.

      • no its not the biggest sport everywhere else. It’s not the biggest sport in Asia.

        So you’re just wrong.

      • football is the biggest sport in Asia, why do you think that every year the biggest teams in the world do preseason tours there? it isnt cause of the convenient location, its cause the huge population base and the large amount of fans. what would you say is if football isnt?

      • it is not the biggest sport in Japan, China, Korea, Thailand.

        In Japan it is basseball and sumo with football 3rd (before the j-league football was 5th)

  6. They are putting together a nice team and it looks like they’re not going crazy on players salaries. When are they ever gone to announce on the stadium plan? I thought it was based on a 90 day time period, come NY say something.

    Reply
      • Yes they are. Or are you diluted enough to think that whole leagues can actively continue with massive amounts of debt they are acquiring at the moment?

      • It was a free market during the NASL days. Not every team went out and over spent and not every team that did spend big found themselves in debt. The problem with the league is it had it’s “big banks” that today, would not be allowed to fail because it brought the whole system down. See the allegory I’m going for? So the salary cap argument is as old and debatable as the open market approach. But pointing out a league that folded 20 years ago is no argument against an open market.

        Joke time: what are you, a commie? End joke time.

      • Yes, it sure seems like the Cosmos are coming out way too fast. I don’t see how this could possibly be a sustainable business model unless there are revenue streams I’m not aware of.

      • well, you don’t even know how much they are paying in wages for their signings, so how can you say that?

      • once again…there are 50 soccer leagues on the frickin planet and none of them have salary caps and none of these leagues has folded.

        salary caps are not needed. We have the proof of this.

      • numerous teams have folded though or are currently in administration. also pretty sure that the old NASL folded in large part because of the wages they paid, do some research then talk.

      • get the corncobs out of your ears son. Leagues are not folding because they don’t have a salary cap.

        WHy don’t all the leagues in Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, Central America fold? None of them have salary caps. They should be folding!!

      • According to Alberto, the downward spiral for the NASL, and with it, soccer in the United States, wasn’t due to overspending and budgets-gone-wild. It was FIFA’s decision award the ’86 World Cup to Mexico instead of the front-running United States.

        That in itself isn’t news. After all, many know the story behind the failed 1983 bid, but few know just how much the Cosmos were willing to invest in the growing American game if they had won the rights.

        Carlos Alberto does, and had history been different, the landscape for U.S. Soccer may have been as well.

        “In 1982, FIFA chose Colombia to host the 1986 World Cup,” Alberto recalled. “At that time, it was one World Cup in Europe followed by one in America; South America mostly. The government of Colombia said no – we don’t have the conditions to host the World Cup. Then they offered it to Brazil and they said they don’t have the conditions. Then the United States said ‘I want this World Cup.’

        “(Time Warner CEO and Cosmos owner) Mr. Steve Ross was the leader to bring the World Cup. (The Football World) in 1982 said there was no chance for the others; the World Cup would be here in the United States.”’

        With momentum stemming from a still-successful NASL and international backing seemingly on their side, Ross and company began to forge a plan that would tie the NASL in with the ’86 World Cup.

        It would be a last ditch effort to establish the game in the United States for the long haul.

        “If we had the 1986 World Cup in United States, not in 1994 … the World Cup the Americans wanted to have was 1986. If it was here, I would be here until today. I wouldn’t go back to Brazil,” Alberto said.

        -Death of NASL by Carlos Alberto

  7. I have to agree with jspech. Cosmos doing everything from ground up. Definitely community oriented. Wish them the best.

    Reply
    • I actually think within 10 years NY will have 3 MLS teams.

      Or, the cosmos will fold before NYCFC takes the field for the first time.

      Reply
      • And the taxes is Canada make an offer from a NYC team look even better.
        Another big bonus for this fledgling franchise is the attention they will get for the inevitable friendlies against top competition.

    • Its been shown repeatedly in world football that players care more about money then the level of competition they will be in. Cosmos were probably able to offer more money than anyone else.

      Reply
  8. The Cosmos has quietly but surely assembled a solid roster. With the exception of Senna they haven’t broken the bank and have focused acquiring a range of vets, but not over-the-hill guys that can come in and play. yes, I realize Senna’s age but he still plays at a high level. I’m liking what I see thus far. It seems like their management is going about things in a smart way. I’ve followed the Cosmos news pretty closely the last 6-9 months and they don’t seem as brash, in your face, as they did when they first arrived in the scene a few years ago. Much has changed — some of the ownership group — and I think they are in a good position to succeed. The pressure will be on, though.

    Reply
    • They haven’t broken the bank? Do you have the salaries for all these players versus projected revenues? I don’t think they have a TV deal and Long Island has never been known to support their teams as demonstrated by the Nets and Islanders both leaving. They are clearly spending much more money than any other NASL team without any additional revenue streams that I’m aware of. They also built a new stadium which is far larger than their needs. Based on those facts, they will be losing a LOT of money.

      Reply
      • Obviously, you don’t know anything about Long Island sports. The Nets got moved to NJ because of a new arena, same with the Islanders.

        The islanders had sell outs all the time this years, but the owner of the Islanders was pissed he couldn’t get the the county to fund his pipedream renovation and mall plan. So he moved to Barclay’s, which is not meant for hockey.

        And the Cosmos do have a tv deal. It may not be ESPN, but they have something.

        There’s plenty that the Cosmos are doing that’s iffy, but you’re just spouting misinformation right now.

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