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Feilhaber coming to MLS

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Photo by Howard C. Smith/ISIphotos.com

Major League Soccer's transfer deadline day has its long-awaited major splash.

According to his agent, Benny Feilhaber has signed with MLS and will be leaving AGF Aarhus in Denmark, where he has played since 2008. The representative for the U.S. men's national team midfielder, Lyle Yorks, said via Twitter, "Congrats to Benny Feilhaber–officially coming back to MLS!!"

Yorks did not name which team has secured Feilhaber's rights, although Chivas USA currently stands at the top of the league's allocation order. Feilhaber is a California native and played collegiately at UCLA. The next three teams in line after Chivas are the Philadelphia Union, New England Revolution and Houston Dynamo.

Feilhaber, who was with the United States for its friendlies against Argentina and Paraguay but did not play because of an injury, has appeared in Aarhus' last two matches. He came on as a 65th-minute substitute on Sunday and started and played 90 minutes on Wednesday.

Happy to see Feilhaber come to MLS? Would you be surprised if Chivas passed on his rights? Think he'd be a good fit for Robin Fraser & Co.?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. why should a team hold his rights? Why can’t the player sign with any MLS team he wants to if they want him?

    another reason why MLS is a joke of a league.

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  2. i would like to like Chivas. they have had interesting teams and i always root for the underdog, but not in this case. the ownership underestimated mls severly and came with the wrong attitude and didnt let chivas usa have their own identity.

    I will like them when the ownership changes, but not till then.

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  3. Neither. He’s in the USNT pool so there’s an order for those players to be signed. Vancouver and Portland were at the top of the list and they used their spots to sign Cooper and DeMerit. DCU was next and used their slot to get Davies. Chivas is next. They can pass on Feilhaber (in which case Philly–who’s next–would like sign him). Or they can arrange a trade.

    But no lottery. And while technically it’s an international transfer, it’s not one negotiated by Chivas but by the league and then the order of preference allows teams to pick (or pass) on the player.

    I don’t have a dog in this fight. But frankly, I think he’d be superb with NE (with that human vaccum clean Shalrie Joseph behind him). Chivas–not so much (and not b/c of the talent on the team but the scheme that they play). As for Philly, I haven’t seen them play this year so I don’t know how much freedom central mids have right now with Nowak (though he’s certainly been willing to change systems before to accomodate Adu and Gomez. Note: I managed to sneak in a reference to Adu in a non-Adu thread!).

    If Feilhaber plays in the right system and gets minutes right away, he should be a lock to play and probably start in the Gold Cup (which should give pause to any team acquiring him–it means he’s likely gone for most of a month).

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  4. This is disappointing news. He couldn’t find another taker in Europe? What happened to all that talk of a team in Spain?

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  5. The only MLS players that start automatically for the US are young inexperienced forwards that play for NY and haven’t proven anything in the league yet.

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  6. I guess I would understand this more if the team in Guadalajara had “Chivas” in their name anywhere.

    I personally have never had a problem with it. And when you have a team with Bornstein, Guzan and Klejstan on it, well, I think the criticism of the team being “too Mexican” should have gone away a while ago.

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  7. Also don’t forget Nagamura:

    ———–Braun———-
    Mondaini-Feilhaber-Zemanski
    —-Nagamura–LaBrocca—–
    Jazic-Conrad-Valentin-Pearce
    ———-Kennedy——–

    Not great. But perhaps getting better. I wonder if Braun will ever turn into something.

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  8. You can’t call something and cross you fingers at the same time. That’s like saying “I’m certain that sorta maybe something might happen… for sure”

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  9. If he gets regular playing time and gets in form, he’s one of our most gifted attacking players. He might not score a lot of goals, but his distribution is good and, what’s more, he moves the ball toward the opponents’ goal.

    I’m not saying he’ll be a godsend for the league, and I’m not saying he’ll turn into Messi, but he can help raise the level of play and restore his confidence if he’s playing regularly. I think it’s definitely *good* for the league if he comes back.

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  10. As much as I would love to see him suit up for the Revs, he has already had his share of injuries. It seems the Revs have a policy that all newly acquired players spend at least the first half of the season on the injury list.

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  11. Overrated I’m not sure about. If you mean compared to world talent, I don’t think he his mentioned in the same breath with Messi. If you mean compared to the U.S. talent pool, then I still disagree. People may put too much pressure on him to do a lot but he certainly ranks up there in terms of creativity for U.S. players.

    He hasn’t locked down a starting spot for U.S. Please tell me in what way he is overrated?

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  12. Oh poor guy, has to go live in LA and play on the beach. I think Chivas USA being on top of the list is exactly why he is choosing to come now. He went to UCLA and most likely wants to be in LA. Who knows when another LA team will be on top of the list again. Who knows maybe they have some handshake agreement that Chivas USA has already agreed to take him. I don’t think he is worried about how much Chivas USA sucks. They aren’t that bad.

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  13. I’m not sure it’s the name thing, it has to do more with the fact that they TRIED to replicate the practice of Guadalajara of only fielding “Mexican” citizens by trying to field a lot of if not all Latin or US Born Hispanic players. But people need to get over it, they pretty much did, I mean at 1 point their 2 best players were good ol’ American boys. Brad Guzan & Sacha Kljestan.

    The name is a bit weird but is better than just trying to copy a name like Barcelona, Independiente, Arsenal, Nacional etc etc which teams have done in South America and some in the Caribbean.

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  14. Yay Benny!!! Anybody but Chivas, please. Here’s to a great next couple of seasons. Cheers Benny!

    Remember his goal to win gold cup, Mexico???? Oh yea!

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  15. I think Zemanski sits, Lahoud at RB made me scratch my head, come on Fraser! Trujillo should have that spot next to Valentin so he can help Zarek by having someone to watch play the RB spot. Lahoud at RM with Feilhaber and LaBrocca/Zemanski in the middle and Mondaini on the left is not so bad. I hope Bowen starts next to Braun in the future, seems much better option

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  16. Making quite a leap from coming to MLS to starting in the Gold Cup…in my opinion, I just don’t see that happening, the starting in the Gold Cup part (barring injury of course). I sincerely hopes it works out for him. I just think staying in Denmark for a run in the Superliga next season, impressing there is a better way to market ones self to foreign teams. But like I said, I hope it works out for him.

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  17. I”m sorry but this is just silly.

    If he stays with Denmark he’s not so likely to get a callup for the Gold Cup. He goes to MLS, gets regular minutes, earns a starting role with the GC squad, hopefully impresses and it’s a marketing run for foreign teams. Coming to MLS is shrewd and a wise decision–especially if he hopes to plan more overseas.

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  18. He’d be a terrible fit for RSL. His natural position in MLS is CAM and that’s Morales’ position as well. So if RSL got him, they’d need to move Morales as the most sensible thing. Plus, RSL would have to trade for the position to get him (though the rumor is that Chivas is considering either passing or trading his rights).

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  19. Maybe his skillset could be gotten cheaper with a South or Central American player, but if we’re talking about bringing talented American players into MLS, I don’t think paying someone like Benny 400k is absurd.

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  20. You are correct…Overrated indeed. He is more of a Holding Mid with a style similar to Nagamura. CUSA is pretty set there.

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  21. None of this would be an issue if John O’Brien would have panned out for my goats.

    Feilhaber would be great for us, but he’s a little overrated. Poquito.

    Haters can suck it. Especially you closet xenophobes!

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