When D.C. United drafted Cal midfielder Andrew Jacobson, it thought it landed one of the best central midfield prospects in the MLS Draft, a player who was seen as a long-term prospect and potential starter.
So much for those plans.
French club Lorient has formally announced the signing of Jacobson. Ouch.
Jacobson’s departure leaves D.C. with Clyde Simms and not much else at the defensive midfield role, though Ben Olsen could still be used there if needed. D.C. lost veteran Brian Carroll in the expansion draft.
The business of drafting players is getting tougher and tougher.
D.C. fans aren’t likely to shed too many tears. Not after introducing an army of new players this week, led by designated player and star playmaker Marcello Gallardo.
What do you think of Jacobson’s departure? Share your thoughts below.
socmin: the NFL was already pretty well established in 1940 in most areas and that was roughly 20 years after the first Bears v. Packers game launched the league. The NBA was also well established after about 20 years and Hockey was in the same boat before the strike killed it. 20 years is generally the make or break point for most leagues (see NASL) even baseball was solidified in about it’s 20th year. Basically MLS has 10 more years to ‘S’ or get off the pot. If it’s still ‘developing’ at that time, it will fold. It doesn’t have a 40-60 year time frame to get it’s act together. Not saying it’ll be La Liga in that time but it should be a well oiled, high level machine by then. If not, it will fold. You can take that to the bank.
Also, re: the biz advice…uhhh…isn’t that kinda the joy of following sports? (also, many people on these boards may come from business backgrounds 😉 ) That’s like when people complain about someone criticizing a coach since ‘he gets paid for it and you don’t’ It’s a rather silly argument and you basically reduce sports blogs/pages/forums to ‘here is the score’ ‘hooray we won!’ ‘boo we lost’ not quite so much fun.
Matt: I would never want my Fire to be InteMilan. Barca or Bayern is more like it. 🙂 Honestly, though Matt, more people would buy tickets if the players make more. Part of the attraction of sports is seeing ‘why that loser is worth a million bucks’ most people see MLS and think ‘I suck enough at soccer to be paid $17K’ I knew people in LA and Chicago who had no prior interest or knowledge in soccer who went out to see why Beckham and Blanco (both whom they’d never heard of) are worth multi-millions. Money is a big draw in the US.
Seriously, this is no shock. The kid is already in his 20’s and MLS simply doesn’t pay that much to newbies.
When they raise the cap this might change a bit but it’s not changing soon. The league needs to get more teams nearing the black.
If MLS was smart, they’d dump single entity ASAP. They’d make it much easier to sign youth players without exposing them to other teams and field teams of 18 year olds. People need to drop this notion that you MUST go to college to be a pro athlete. It honestly ruins the educational experience for true scholars to have most of those boneheads there filling up classes as it is.
Matt and Ed Ho, thank you for a little dose of comment reality. What was the NFL like in 1940? Baseball’s history was long and full of grassroots culture. The NBA floats in and out of America’s consciousness, and, for all its efforts, the NHL is still just a niche sport. Let’s be realistic, let’s enjoy being here at the beginning of something that will eventually become better and bigger than it is now. We know that most sportwriters are viciously hateful toward the sport, so we should not expect to get any assistance from that area. For us, however, some complaining does come from the fact that we care about something, but the constant carping from all of these “business executives” offering their financial and organizational advice does get a bit tiresome. Here’s to MLS 2008 being better than 2007!
DCU has taken a lot of young guys and played them – Perkins, Boswell, Caroll etc. So we lose one. Big deal. Olsen is better than Simms at DM and lots of depth on the wings. Not a problem.
First, I’ll agree that the average and especially the development player wage needs to increase in MLS or the quality of play will suffer. This is a necessary investment.
Second, I think this type of signing is more a reflection on the quality and quantity of players in the US continues to improve. This isn’t the excpetion, more international teams will scout the US for young talent. I think the high tide can float the MLS boat if they strategically sign young players.
Third, in case most people haven’t noticed, MLS has reacted to these changes by looking to Central and South American for its young talent. Much of the young MLS talent doesn’t come from the US. The US players don’t get playing time because they aren’t good enough.
Finally, I love the insightful business consulting I get to see on this board. MLS has plenty of problems, but the mere fact that thi smany people care about MLS lack of signing a no name player that people didn’t even know existed today, shows just how far its come and how vested everyone in wanting to see the league succeed. That is good stuff.
Everyone realizes that MLS is a feeder league of sorts. Its just that the number of players leaving this year is alarming. I feel bad for Taylor Twellman, but can the league really let him go at this point? Can MLS 2008 be better than 2007, arguably the best season of play in the league’s history? Let’s pray that it is.
The guys I really feel bad for are the $17K “development players”. There are 4-6 players on every roster that are working for less than minimum wage on their “interships” are doing so the top player on the roster can get another $100K.
I can just see some idiot GM Saying, “Why, we have to do that!! With that extra $100K we can get Ronaldinho!!!”
I understand where Haig and the rest of you are coming from. Yes, MLS is a feeder league to an extent and will be for quite some time. However you can’t just say “raise the salaries”.
The defining factor there is what US fans will pay for. Doubling the salary cap sounds good but effectively it will be the same players getting paid more money. Do you really believe more fans will buy tickets if they fine out that the players average $150K rather than $80K?
How much we think players should make is irrelvent. How much money the public will pay is more important.
Who do you really believe will show up in our league that will make a difference in attendance. I can just see some Chicago executive saying “this frenchman we just signed that was sitting the bench in the portuguese second division will bring in thousands of fans because he played in Europe!! And just think of the thousands of ethnic french that will show up because one of their countrymen is among the 22 men on the field!!!!”
In the end, the majority of americans don’t care about the sport regardless of quality on field. They are not saying “well I looked at MLS but they don’t pass well and the last bit of quality could be better so I won’t watch.”
This is a forty year project that will take 2 more generations to get the sport in the public’s mind as a spectator sport. Live with it. Take the league as is and enjoy it.
Though I hate to see good players leave, if they can make three times at much money in leagues where the teams actually make money, good for them. In reality, MLS has more good imported players in it than we have exported good players to other countries. On the balance, we are a buying league.
Too bad people continue to demand that New York and Chicago be Real Madrid or Inter Milan.
Jason, this is what I said:
“Some players DO sign prior to the draft, the “Generation Adidas” classification, who are identified as the top picks and get a better deal than everyone else.
“But MLS doesn’t sign every draftable player to a deal. There are a lot of rated players who go undrafted (Balc?), a lot of unrated players who ARE drafted (look at Jeff Parke), and some players who are rated and drafted but who aren’t interested in MLS (Lapira).
“The Gen Adidas players are the only sure bets.”
I await your retraction.
something that not a single commenter has mentioned is the huge disparity in wages between the mls and european leagues. surely that is a factor for jacobson in making his decision on where to play.
Once again, Haig is wrong. Some players do sign with the league before the draft. However, only underclassmen and non-college players under a certain age (18 or so) can sign a Generation Adidas contract.
For the short term, us DCU fans are ok. We are stacked with talent (except at D-Mid where Jacobson would’ve played). Long term, this sucks. They will need to find some other high quality players. Nothing against Clyde, but he only has one foot. The other is just for walking. He did an okay job last year, but by time he was starting, there was already chemistry with the other players that wasn’t there in the beginning of the season. This is why they played well as the season progressed, not b/c of Clyde as others say. We needed Jacobsen to come in and help us within the next couple of years, but I would’ve done the same thing if I were trying to get paid more. Just a bad draft decision for DCU.
“Does that mean that once he’s done and if for some reason were to want to come back to the US, DCU would still have the rights?”
Rights to unsigned drafted players extend to the end of the following year. For Jacobson, that’s through Dec 31 2009.
There’s a conflict between MLS’ desire to project itself to American sports fans as, like NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA, a “major league,” and the fact that MLS competes with every other professional sports league in the world for talented players in a way that the big four don’t have to. (Maybe the NHL is getting to be more like MLS, but even in countries with serious professional hockey, the infrastructure and interest in the sport is significantly less than that of soccer.)
Sale of players has always been an obvious revenue stream, but the MLS model has been based on suppressing player wages and trapping players in MLS, while at the same time calling itself “Major League.” That is working less and less with the weak dollar and the increasing talent level in the US, and as televised international soccer becomes more ubiquitous.
The league either needs to bite the bullet and pay players according to the prevailing wage to keep “major league” talent in Major League Soccer, or accept that it is a feeder league– a minor league– and look to maximize transfer fees as an important revenue source while at the same time being able to recruit players by respecting their wishes about transfers.
There ain’t another option.
From what I read on transfermarketweb.com, it’s only a 6-month stint.
IVES: Does that mean that once he’s done and if for some reason were to want to come back to the US, DCU would still have the rights?
In addition to the difference in pay, young American players considering where to ply their trade must also consider how reluctant/stingy MLS can be when it comes to letting recognized talent transfer overseas. If I am a young player with options, I would probably view MLS as a fall back. If, however, MLS had a proven track record of helping kids like me achieve our ambitions, I would be more willing to consider it as a starting point to my career thereby enabling MLS to make money off the export of American players. As it is, more American talent is leaving and MLS is making nothing off of it.
I wish MLS would be more of a feeder league. I think players (and the league) should insist on buyout clauses in more contacts. If a guy knows that if he goes to MLS and does well, he can leave for an amount a lot of teams, even in smaller Euro leagues, would pay (50k and up), the league would probably get more young players to give MLS a try, and generate some revenue to keep players and attact new ones.
From the beginning, the MLS has gotten bassackwards. From Day 1, the league should have demanded that each team invest HEAVILY in their youth systems. They should have mandated that within 10 years 6 players on the field has to be from a an MLS team’s youth system. Then, from the beginning the MLS would have grown with its own players and not leached off the USL, colleges and youth systems but worked with them. Fans would have maintained interest, even if the level was not so great at first, because they were watching their own ‘local’ kids compete and improve. Now, the MLS finds itself painted into the corner because they haven’t invested in their own future from the beginning and are having to compete for players who have no intrinsic allegiance to the MLS who had no part in their development. Just think if the MLS had started at the USL league 1 level with an emphasis on player development. Over the last 12 years they would have grown along with the players they developed.
I’m curious. Does anyone know anything about this kid? Pretty impressive he got signed for a Ligue One club.
Unlike the sweetheart deals MLS makes with the favored team of the moment now-days, eh?
MLS has to start paying players more or this is just the beginning of things to come.
MLS is a feeder league and nothing more. Soccer is still maybe the 5th most important sport in the USA.
I’m jealous of Houston/San Jose and the Galaxy, who in this milennium have won multiple MLS Cups.
DC have only won the league a single time in the eight seasons since MLS became a legitimate, credible competition. And until every team plays every other team the same number of times, home and away, the Supporters Shield is meaningless.
It’s hard to really care about the 1996 to 1999 era, when MLS featured shootouts and the league didn’t give teams the freedom to operate without Sunil Gulati handing out sweetheart deals to players he liked, then sticking teams with the contracts. Any trophy won in that era isn’t worth using as a doorstop.
So as far as I’m concerned, DC has won one trophy. You can pretend the other ones mean something, but everyone knows the truth. The league championship is the MLS Cup, and that’s the only trophy that matters.
moving to europe at an early age can be risky… the americans who do well in europe generally are the ones that have played in the MLS for a year or more and understand the life of a professional soccer player… going to europe from college means a lot of work with the reserves and an occasional (if lucky) first team play.
though the MLS is no EPL, it is a valuable training ground for becoming a soccer professional.
Seems like Haig sure has a lot of jealousy towards DCU.
Could it be because DCU wins trophies and the Red Pukes fire coaches??
“DCU seems to be low-balling many of their draft picks recently”
They need to keep expenses low because they’re building that amazing new stadium in the District.
D’OH.
Forcing a potential player to go where he doesn’t want to go, to play for barely above minimum wage, without freedom of movement, is a dying economic model. Especially when you don’t have a cartel. Eventually, MLS will get that clue.
Here is what we don’t know. What he was offered , and his impression of MLS. Maybe the money was similar but he felt playing in the French league would provide him more exposure to the better european leagues. If anything I think if MLS starts putting more players in the top end competition in Europe it will only help the league develop
Ives and Modibo,
There is no apostrophe in “(FC) Lorient”. L’Orient would translate to “The Orient”.
It’s just Lorient, a city in the Brittany region of France.
Allez Saint Etienne!
Looking at the photos of Mr Jacobson in the empty stadium holding his jersey it appears the L’Orient fan base is pretty fired up about their new American signing.
DCU seems to be low-balling many of their draft picks recently…Jay Needham was able to make more money in the USL than in MLS. There is something extremely wrong when essentially a minor league is able to pay players more.
In addition to Steve (and Steve), the financial situtation is directly related to the stadium issues. Teams like NY and DC, that play in huge stadiums they don’t own, are just leaking huge amounts of money all the time. Once we have all teams (or all but 2 or 3) in their own stadiums, the league will be turning a profit and be able to increase salaries. Until then, we’re just going to hemmorhage talented young players and play in half empty stadiums…
About time – more US players should be seeking their fortunes in the French leagues. He’s only signed with L’Orient till the end of the current season, though. Still, the money’s going to be better than MLS, and even if he gets loaned to a Ligue 2 team for a while he gets Euro exposure.
Let’s hope L’Orient don’t switch managers soon – that’ll sink his boat quick. But they’re 7th in the table, well out of relegation range.
DC already reported that he’s already training with DCU.
You have to invest something to get something back. Beckham isn’t the only way to attract fans to your games. Having a quality product helps as well.
It’s a catch 22, because you need fans to sustain a high quality product, but you need a good quality product to get the fans.
However, up until now i could only describe MLS’s “efforts” to raise pay as terrible. If you index the cap to inflation since 96, it has hardly moved.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer team!
My namesake with the previous post hit the nail on the head. We all want MLS to rival European leagues overnight and last year made us think we had arrived but unfortunately we’re still en route.
American fans who want the MLS to have higher payrolls and better players need to keep going to games and buying jerseys and spreading the word. The fan base is ultimately the foundation on which the whole thing is built.
Agreed, the league should work to raise salary cap and developmental contracts. However, MLS has to be very careful with its finances. Remember, some of these clubs have never turned a profit on their own. Beckham, and the TV deal certainly help, but if you raised the cap to 6 million, the league would go the way of the NASL.
Seaotter, you have it wrong.
Some players DO sign prior to the draft, the “Generation Adidas” classification, who are identified as the top picks and get a better deal than everyone else.
But MLS doesn’t sign every draftable player to a deal. There are a lot of rated players who go undrafted (Balc?), a lot of unrated players who ARE drafted (look at Jeff Parke), and some players who are rated and drafted but who aren’t interested in MLS (Lapira).
The Gen Adidas players are the only sure bets.
I don’t think the move has anything to do with playing time. I doubt the kid will make many first team games this year.
Sucks to loose a good prospect. But the you gotta respect him for giving it a try in a superior league. I think we’ll be okay though. Our recent signings will allow us to continue to dominate everybody (except Chicago).
I’ve read the Lorient web site and find it interesting that the old 3rd string Chicago Fire Frenchman, Pascal Bodrosian, tipped off the club to Jacobson.
How can DCU let a guy who played 23 minutes in the league out flank them?
Ives,
I thought that in order for a player to be in the draft they had to sign with MLS.
How can they leave on what is essentially a ‘free’ if they have signed with the league?
I’m sure I just have a poor understanding of the draft situation.
Anyway, MLS better learn quickly. $17K and the ability to stay in the US does NOT equal $100K plus and the chance at European football. They are way behind the curve in that regard and its only going to get worse as Europe is learning that there are great bargains here in The States.
S.O.
By the way, any news on Danny Cepero’s training stint with PSV?
MLS guys need to get paid — bottom line. But is the fan support there to pay their salaries? And Does the US have the talent to lose this many players to Europe and still keep MLS play at a high level? If so, I don’t think salaries will change.
Eh, DC’s pretty well stocked anyhow.
Amazing how few American players they have. Their fans used to be loudly, obnoxiously proud of the fact that in the late Sampson/early Arena era, playing for DC United basically automatically gave you a shot at playing for the USA. Now there’s only Ben Olsen, and he’s very borderline. DC fans don’t say much about the US now, except to try to claim that mediocrities like Marc Burch and Clyde Simms should be playing for the US, which gives everyone else a belly laugh.
Adam, I agree. I have never ever understood why MLS coaches play their younger guys so sparingly. Especially in cups comp and when league games meant so little. With Philly’s inclusion to 16 theyu will mean more.
Pay and play are the issues. Pay can only be resolved in time, but play is something I blame on the coaches here in MLS. If there ever was a league where a kid could get a run of games, and it wouldn’t hurt the team that much, it’s here.
Never understood it.
It seems that youngsters here are finally learning the lesson.
More opportunities and better pay in Europe.
We lost Gabe and I pray we don’t lose Kassel either.
These kids, if they have the mental strength, can go to Europe and earn more. More often they can play more if the club has a decent reserve/youth system, while our reserves ar elimited at the time.
I feel that we could lose a lot more youngters in the Metro area than we sign. Without any comp.
Something to keep an eye out for to say the least.
Maybe if MLS teams played thier players they would not lose them to Europe!
I mean gee whiz, that’s too darn bad.
MOOHOOOHOHAAAAAHAHAAAHAAHAHAHAAAHA!!!!!!!!!