By FRANCO PANIZO
Rosenborg has been home to Mix Diskerud for the last two-and-a-half years, but it won’t be any longer.
Rosenborg BK announced on Monday that Diskerud will not be returning to the club in 2015 despite the Norwegian club’s attempts to sign him to a new contract. The U.S. Men’s National Team midfielder is currently a free agent after seeing his latest deal with Rosenborg expire at the end of the Tippeligaen season, but had said he was open to heading back the club that he joined in August 2012.
Diskerud, 24, finishes his time at Rosenborg with fives goals in 59 league appearances. This season, he started 19 of the 22 matches he played in and netted twice.
The veteran will now be on the move to a new club, and should not have any shortage of options after seeing his role with the U.S. increase in recent months. He has previously been linked with a move to MLS and more recently to Liga MX’s Club Tijuana.
Where do you think Diskerud should go? Think he will stay in Europe or finally join an MLS side? Would you prefer to see him with the Xolos?
Share your thoughts below.
Oh boy, I hope he knows what he’s doing, and has a job secured by the end of winter.
I didn’t like his statement correcting the TJ issue, dismissing Liga MX as possible destination. It lacked humility, or at least tact, and I fear that he may value his game higher than is currently in his best interest.
If Mix wants to come to MLS, he’ll have to enter a Special Weighted Re-Allocation Discovery Draft in which teams will pick in a reverse order of their average point totals, excluding playoffs, but including interntional club competitions, over the last 3.5 seasons.
Unless, of course, he wants to go to Seattle or NYCFC at which point he will be subject to a best of 51 attempt coin toss between those two sides.
Everyone got it now?
“Secret Draw” it is enough to report the decisxxx Draw results. At any time, even before the draw is conducted, if it is more convenient.
personally i hope he stays in Europe. ideally a good club in the Netherlands, France, or Portugal.
I really wish he would stay in Europe, preferably in France or Holland. But I get a strong feeling that he is coming to MLS, and probably a large market team.
Wherever it is, I hope it is somewhere that I can actually watch him on a consistent basis. I was only able to catch 2 rosenborg matches in his whole tenure there.
Playing in MLS would solve that problem,…no? You could watch him every week.
Go 2 holland if u can!
I think a Perry Kitchen – Mixx Diskerud pairing would be lethal. Make it happened DC United.
Only if you can spell his name correctly.
Agreed. He would be a good fit at DC United.
in a 4-2-3-1 type of formation, him and Kitchen with Pontius and DeLeon out wide and Silva above them would be great. not sure how Espindola would do as a lone striker though and i’d like him to play over EJ as of now.
I think MLS would be perfect for Diskerud. Being put into a situation where he would have to lead a team to a championship in order for it to happen. Perfect.
He’s coming to MLS. Nobody else is going to grossly overpay for American talent like Garber.
1 million isn’t overpaid for a players like Diskerud. Michael Bradley is a different story.
He ain’t coming for one million. Money is the reason he became “an American” and he’s ready to cash in. If it comes down to fair money he’ll go somewhere else.
Uh oh, even though that’s true, you can’t say stuff like that on this website. Trust me.
Basically he’s looking at MLS or riding the bench in a low-level Euro league again like Belgium. Not like his World Cup campaign helped his cause!
Yes, his mother’s contribution to his DNA had nothing to do with him becoming American.
So.
In spite of a good number of fan’s delusion, they’re ALL professionals playing for money much more than blind devotion to club or patriotism. Fans are way more blindly loyal to crest than players. It’s what drives the Indu$try.
I don’t totally agree with that but if that’s your view, I can at least respect that.
For guys like Mix and AJ, playing for the USMNT is all about increasing name recognition and having an opportunity to showcase their talents that they wouldn’t get playing for their homelands. Having a chance to play in MLS for $1m/yr is an example of how that move has been successful. MLS teams wouldn’t be trying to sign Mix if he didn’t play for the USMNT.
Agreed, I don’t see Mix getting $1 million anywhere else, his value to MLS comes only from playing with the Nats, he really hasn’t proved he is a great talent. If he could get to Holland, he should go, but I would be excited to see him in NYC.
Perfect player for Kreis. Central mid who can float around and create.
Mr. arm,
Raising your profile and thereby increasing revenue generating opportunities is the basic rationale for any player wanting to get capped by their national team.
In Mix and AJ’s case that profile was going to be higher internationally playing for the US rather than Norway or Iceland.
I have zero problem with that for one simple reason.
Regardless of your reason for accepting a switch to the US you still have to produce on the field and fit into the team off it, otherwise your time with the national team will be cut short and your revenue generating opportunities will dwindle and then evaporate.
Everyone on the USMNT is motivated by the desire to increase their revenue but in terms of motivation, there is also the question of team unity, playing for the guy next to you, not wanting to disappoint the rest of the guys.
If you have good team unity and this team seems to, at some point all that money stuff disappears and you are left with not wanting to let everyone down and playing for each other.
I would think the USMNT will benefit from AJ and Mix being driven to make up for their anonymous World Cups, assuming they get the chance.
Somewhat cliche and old fashioned but I’ve seen, for example, numerous Dutch teams that had more than enough talent to win World Cups dissolve into backstabbing and finger pointing. It’s interesting that they have never won a World Cup and in fact have only one win, the 1988 European Championship to show for all that incredible talent over all those years.
And from what I have seen, the sporting news article notwithstanding, the USMNT players look like a pretty cohesive group.
Now all they need is more talent.
Right on.
He is currently on 300k at Rosenburg. What makes you think Tijuana or anyone else is offering way over a million?
I would think that a million would get it done easily. Honestly, he hasn’t done anything to merit even that much. He’s a good player in the Norwegian league who has had some good performances with the USMNT (but not good enough for JK to actually play him in the world cup).
There are some players who did it because it’s higher profile like AJ. However, I am fairly sure that AJ is drawn to the US. The guy’s mother is American, he was born and lived her until he was 10, he owns a home in San Diego. He was waged a perzonal campaign to get called into the US youth teams and national teams since his late teens. The guy was on fan newsboards promoting himself. Mixx has genuine ties to USA wants to be seen as American and loves the sense of Americaness. Boyd has genuine love for the US as well. However, AJ and Chandler just see it as an opportunity in my opinion, though.
LOL
You contradict yourself. How can you list all the ways AJ is connected to the US, but still stay he sees playing for USMNT as only an opportunity?
not sure if sarcasm but he is clearly describing Mixx and that was just a typo
LOL…My bad. I hate using a phone to write. I come across as semi-illiterate. I meant:
There are some players who do it because USMNT is a higher profile (like AJ). However, I am fairly sure that Mix is drawn to the US. The guy’s mother is American, he was born and lived here until he was 10, and he owns a home in San Diego.
Mix waged a personal campaign to get called into the US youth teams and national teams since his late teens. The guy was on fan news-boards promoting himself. Mix has genuine ties to USA wants to be seen as American and embraces “American-ess” (Boyd is another who comes across that was as well). However, AJ and Chandler just see it as an opportunity to further their careers in my opinion, though.
I don’t hate them because players across the world do it for different reasons and it used to be much worse in the 50’s-70’s, seriously.
* I wish there was an edit option on this page 😉
wait wait wait…Mix has a home in San Diego. i had not heard AJ did.
ignore. didn’t see the follow up post…
the deal he had with the Crew was rumored to be about $1m. about 3x what he made in Norway.
If this is a just world, he will end up in Portland–where he would have been if MLS had not trumped the deal he had with Merritt Paulson.
What about the deal he (maybe almost) had with Columbus?
I thought his dad killed the Columbus deal.
As for PDX, Mix didn’t want to go to sign he said so….
“I, for sure, want much more to belong to a team and a city than to be ‘owned’ by a league. Especially when the league puts so many restrictions on what kind of non-economic agreements the club and the player can make. The economic constraints I understand and accept, so it’s not that.”
great quote from an interesting article, published a year and half ago.
http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/66/united-states/2013/05/07/3959876/mikkel-diskerud-talks-about-us-future-and-failed-portland?ICID=OP
MLS’s CBA is up in 2 days.. hoping for big changes.
there won’t be big changes but changes for sure. mls makes sure the cba evolves in a very measured, calculated way. they still hold teh power.
Mix claims he dad did not.
but look at it this way…he was being offered 3x the money he was making, yet they still turned it down. that says everything you need to know. Mix does not like the way MLS handles contracts.
Read the article again. He did not say he did not want to go to Portland. He wanted to go to Portland and know he could stay there, or perhaps return to Europe in 3-5 years. He said he didn’t want to go to any MLS team on the terms he was offered.
He explicitly commended Portland as the kind of team he wanted to play on. It was MLS–not Diskerud nor Portland–who nixed that deal. Portland and Mix had a deal, when the MLS said “nay.”
They masked this in corporate-speak about standard terms, but then betrayed themselves when the very next year they changed those terms for other players headed to one of the golden teams.
Another way of putting it: The MLS rewards a great committed owner and a dedicated loyal fan base by ensuring that the prime players necessary to compete at the highest levels go elsewhere.
6 mos ago I would have said that the Crew absolutely needed him, but Tchani’s breakout season has changed that.
I’m not really sure where he would fit right now.
Back to your question, I think what it came down to was MLS didn’t want to pay what the Crew were willing to pay – so Mix’s dad nix’s the deal. This put Sascha K back at the top of the allocation order, but he wanted to come back to LA – so it also killed that deal. Kinda turned into a mess at the end.
“MLS didn’t want to pay what the Crew were willing to pay”
That pretty much sums up what’s wrong with MLS’s bizarro system. Establish a cap, make some, exceptions for DPs, and then get out of the way.
I surely wouldn’t mind seeing him at Red Bull Arena between Sam and whoever is on the left side. Isn’t he precisely the kind of “mid-market” DP that the club has been touting?
+1
Yes, assuming Cahill leaves and RBNY sticks with a 4-2-3-1, he’d be a good fit in the #10 role.
…but mix really isn’t a 10. He is more of a box to mix midfielder who can sometimes score.
I have got to stop using my phone to respond. Android is going auto-correct crazy.
is he really a 10? no way. a 10 dominates and dictates the game. you can’t take the ball off a 10. a 10 is the best player on your team. he’s not a 10. not by a long shot. but he could still help the nyrb.
I suppose if you consider your personal qualifiers for what qualifies as a “10” then maybe not but otherwise he’s what most people consider a #10 – a creative player who plays in an advanced central midfield role behind one or more forwards.
a #10 is a position, or role–it has nothing to do with how good a player is.
Not to mention that a “a 10 is” NOT “the best player on your team.” A 10 is just the best 10 on your team.
Mix Diskerud belongs in Portland if anywhere in MLS. We had a deal, but he had a problem with the way MLS handles player contracts. So if he works through that issue, the deal ought to be reopened for Portland. Portland traded for his rights, tried to make a deal, then had MLS intransigence get in the way.
Intransigence, I will point out, that evaporates whenever Seattle, LA or New York are involved.
Meanwhile, Valeri is out for at least the beginning of the season, perhaps as much as the first half. Fernandez is not a great substitute in that role. And Portland ought to have some allocation money arriving from the El Trencito deal.
If MLS pulls yet another round of extreme favoritism, if the Timbers suffer next season (like this season) because of Valeri’s delayed return to full fitness, and if this excellent team with so much promise is again dealt out of the personnel they need to field a competitive team, we will all know just how committed MLS is to parity.
Or rather, that parity in the MLS means “selling all available seats and/or maximizing the expected potential media market in the large markets first at whatever cost to the teams playing with the pieces the big markets or big stadia don’t want.” And to every future franchise, BUILD BIG.
Even though you may not ever fill your stadium, if you don’t have extra seats to sell you will never have a reason to “need” the players you will need to be competitive.
One quality of American sports fans should not be forgotten: We have a deep sense of fair play. Unearned dynasties mean nothing. When a team other than “the expected four” wins the league and this is an occasion for extra frenzied celebration because of the extra odds that team had to overcome, you are in trouble in the USA.
May it ever be so.
The report continued: Mix will become a full time Twitter poet, and assist his father in business negotiations that he starts but ultimately walks away from.
Genius……and sadly true.
Paging Robb Heineman.