Photo by Andrew Katsampes/ISIphotos.com
The New England Revolution's need for another offensive presence has seemingly been filled.
Steve Ralston is returning to his former Major League Soccer side after a brief stint with his hometown USSF Division 2 side AC St. Louis.
As first reported by Inside Minnesota Soccer, AC St. Louis has unloaded Ralston's contract to try to prolong the organization's financial survival.
Ralston, MLS' all-time leader in assists, will be welcomed with open arms in the New England locker room. The team has scored 13 goals in 12 games and has been shut out seven times.
What do you think of the move?
Share your thoughts below.
Aaron:
Agreed! Cooper is a moron, and along with a few other morons (like Saputo), almost ruined second-division soccer in N. America!
I live in Metro-Detroit roysterer, and my family and I don’t hate the Revs. How could you hate a team that had Dempsey, Ralston, Twellman, Reis and Joseph!
I’m glad that Ralston is back with N.E., but saddened that he got caught-up in the garbage that went on with the “latest version” of the NASL. The St. Louis portion of that quote-unquote organization (NASL – makes me cringe to even call it that) was particularly poorly run, and their owner (or owner groups) were about as clueless a group of trouble makers as they could have been.
Hopefully Steve will be back in his old form at N.E., the USSF will place the USL back in charge of second division football, and we’ll here no more stupid crap from the NASL wannabe owners!
Des-per-a-tion *clap* *clap* *clap*clap*clap*
Guess Kia of Boston wasn’t hiring after all.
I’m guessing this kind of sucks for Ralston, because he must have taken the money he initially turned down from the Revs. But, it’s awesome for me. Now we just need to wait for Reis to get fully fit and we’ll have a semi-decent team (that everyone else still hates).
Also, Avi – did IMS really have this news before Kyle McCarthy? Kyle was awfully chatty about it on twitter. Not sure when he got an article posted.
would not be surprised to see ralston up top due to NE’s lack of forward options. Nicol likes to have two d-mids, but instead of 3-5-2 like he ran w/Parkhurst it might be a 4-4-1-1.
—Schilawski or Dube—
-Ralston————–
Perovic————-Nyassi
——Joseph-Phelan/Niouky
Sinovic-Barnes-Gibbs-Alston (when backline healthy)
btw to whoever asked Twellman not expected back anytime soon.
Mike Burns was looking at standings and realized he has a pretty good defensive group that Coach Nicole fielded. They will not get 1st pick or second pick in MLS super draft. They may wind up with 6th or 7th so why not go they can not tank the season and play the young players. Rollo is good and this team could compete for the Cup if Twellman comes back to form…….
Ste-vie Ral-ston. clap clap clapclapclap.
No. The Revs offered him a new contract during the offseason after the old one had run out, meaning they retained his rights.
How did he return to the Revs? Shouldn’t he have gone through some re-entry draft??
Bad news for St. Louis is good news for every other town that wants a team.
I’m with you, John. The league is a joke, because of its current instability.
I think that it says that they aspire to be first division clubs. They is no promotion/relegation. They found ways to access the capital to do so.
Of course Seattle overhauled. I think about 6 Seattle USL players went up with them and then they genius in getting a USL guy like Alonso.
Say what you want about the Sounders and their annoying fans. What Seattle did last year was nothing less than impressive.
Out of curiosity, are you aware the amount of MLS draft picks that have been came up through and were developed in these ” bush-leagues “?
Their role in developing talent, while not wildly recognized, has been a good step in our country’s talent pool and MLS depth.
I’d say be patient, as their system could pay great dividends for the development of our sport in this country, not to mention a vital role for MLS in the future.
I think them moving to MLS pretty much says it all. These teams are overhauled anyway. How many Seattle USL players are left on the team?
Not so uncommon
Chabala and at least one other guy played for Aztex last year. But it was different -get playing time versus getting a big salary off of the roster
inside = instead. fail.
I seriously doubg it. Which is too bad for St. Louis fans like Aaron.
Maybe Nike and MLS weren’t so “stupid” after all. Kinda makes NASL look silly, since he was the interim commish.
Not that USL should be laughing. They got their own debacles to be embarrassed about…
Yeah, I’m comfortable blaming Jeff Cooper for this one. How did he secure financing and not realize just how shady his biggest investors were? If he was that desperate for funding, I would rather have had him be more patient and not force the issue of having a franchise here to begin with (at any level). Maybe we wouldn’t’ve have gotten a team, but at least MLS would see a genuine effort inside of some circus.
Yes, I know a bunch of St. Louisans who feel MLS has screwed us over (maybe in the past, when St. Louis was much more of a soccer hot spot), but MLS will now heavily doubt any bid that comes out of St. Louis thanks to Cooper. And rightfully so.
No offense to you, John, but the same could be said about MLS.
I wonder if AC St. Louis will finish out the year
At this point, I’m not sure that Cooper could be named director for a U-12 girls’ club.
Talk about “burning bridges” and being exposed as a “prentender” and not as a “contender”…
Point on about Twellman- what happened? Will he ever play?
Wow, from the majors, to the scrubs and now back to the majors. Go on SR!
They can’t drop to PDL. There’s already a St. Louis team in the PDL. And if the NASL fails to make next year, they probably won’t be allowed in the (revived) USL1 because the PDL team has already been working toward moving up.
But at this rate, they’ll be lucky to survive the season and unlikely to be around next year.
While I’m really sad about this, I’m also curious what this says about the NASL, being as Cooper was the one that had the highest bid for the USL when it was on the block, and led the group breaking away to form the NASL.
So what do Portland, Vancouver and Seattle say about the league?
Shows how much of a bush league D2/USL2 is. No offense to Ives, but I skip the USL/D2 articles and also notice that very few people comment on them.
After watching yet another punchless performance over the weeekend, and knowing about St Louis’s problems, I was wondering if they might try to bring him back. Question is, what do they do with him? Go back to the 3-5-2 with him behind the forwards? (after picking up Gibbs, I’d think they were planning on staying with 4 in the back, unless he or Barnes could play next to Joseph) Put him at forward? Put him back on the wing? (wing seems least likely to me – after injury and aging, does he have the speed/stamina to get up and back still?)
Will Twellman ever be able to play again?
I would guess a significant impact.
Man, they haven’t lasted very long, have they?
Wonder if they do a Charleston (move to USL2) or drop to PDL or just go away?
HECK YEAH!!! So happy!
I think it would be more of an indictment on the current ownership (Jeff Cooper) than the city.
If Jeff Cooper remains the lead guy on getting MLS: definitely not happening. If somebody else that actually has cash were to try it’s a toss up at least. Cooper probably has wrecked much if any chance of drawing major players with his ineptitude.
He’s a good man… good for the club and has a great winning attitude. Well done NE.
Considering our inability to secure a good ownership group and solid financing, I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon. And as a St. Louisan, that kills me.
I believe there’s enough interest here, especially with our large Bosnian and latino populations. Getting a decent player of each nationality on the team would go a long way toward ticket sales.
Still, without an ownership group capable of securing finances for a even a second-division squad, I have to think that MLS won’t be considering St. Louis until they decide to expand again after awarding the next franchise (the 20th, I believe). IF they expand further.
What impacts do the AC St. Louis issues have on the city’s ability to get an MLS team?
YEEEEEEES! This just made my day, welcome back Rally
As a Revs fan – LOVE it. Our offense ran well when he was healthy last year. Or at least, not anemic. Put Perovic out on the left, Ralston in the middle, good to go.
YES! Ralston is a good addition to NE