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Sir Landon Of Donovan

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Huey said:
Well Hurtado was a bit of an anomaly since he ended up coming to the Sounders on a recommendation by his buddy Montero. The Sounders signed up Hurtado at the minimum wage to see if he could cut and he proved to be fantastic.

The average wage for MLS players is $134k / year (89k pounds per year). If you don't count the development players and designated players (including Donovan) to get rid of the extremes the average salary in the MLS is $104k / year (69k pounds).
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I think that the confusion is surrounding the difference between "average" and "median", here. (edit: i see mabindurham already pointed this out. :pint: )

on the Sounders, for example, only a handful of guys were making $100k or more last year. One guy was making $1.3M (Ljungberg). Those skew the numbers; we had 14 guys making under $55k last year. :pint:

I guess the point we can all agree on is the wages in the MLS suck, for a professional sport.

Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian said:
And some of you are saying it's a good league to play in ?
A bloke has to earn a living, so where does he get his corn from then ?
as i say, I could go over there on a work visa and not be far off those earnings, how can him going back even be considered, the buyout is surely a pittance in european terms.
The ones on sports scholarships to play in the college leagues can't be far behind the mls then, once the accomodation/ food are thrown in, with the added bonus of chicks with some greek letters above their doors ?
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It's a great league to play in.... for certain people. If you're a top world talent, you're not going to come here. if you're looking to "break in" to the soccer world, but live in america, it's great. Don't forget there are a lot of fringe players in Africa, South America, Asia, who won't cut it in the EPL, La Liga, Bundesliga, etc.... They have the opportunity to leave their country, play here, and make a decent wage doing what they love. For guys like Montero & Hurtado (again from my team's reference), even though they're getting paid so little, it's more than they made in their country, and they do have a fair amount of exposure & star power here. Guys like Montero get stopped on the street and asked for autographs, etc... and let's face it, even with all of our country's problems, it still presents more opportunity than many people's home countries. I think that plays into a lot - a least that's what a lot of my team's players say about coming to the USA. "more opportunity/better lifestyle" seems to be a recurring theme.

It's also great if you're a top-tier player who is on their twilight tour of their career. Guys like Thierry Henry, Ljungberg, Raul, N'Kufo, hell whomever can come here when they're upwards of 35 and play for a decent (not great) wage in a major US market where they'd probably enjoy living anyway. Thierry has been rumored to head to New York after he finishes at Barca. As an aging superstar, you can come to the states and get paid upwards of $1M/year (or more), and live in a major metropolitan market where you'll be just as equally embraced by the local team's fans as you were as a 25 year-old striker in Europe. It lets aging stars play & earn a decent wage for a bit longer, while still getting playing time. the MLS has it's place. :)

So yeah, if you're Rodwell, coming to the States makes little sense. If you're from a borderline 3rd world country or just trying to "break in" to the sport on a professional level, we're a great league for that.

We still have the salary cap though, so wages will never get too high. Plusses - we won't ever have a team like Pompey. Negatives - we won't ever get the biggest star-power names in the business because we can't compete financially.

TX Bill said:
Lots of good reading on this thread.

And Huey, Hurtado quite possibly could have been the signing of the year in MLS if comparing salary to output.
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Understood & agreed, actually, but the point is some very good players are seriously underpaid. FWIW Hurtado did just sign a new contract with the Sounders paying him fairly. We stole him last year though, complete theft. seriously.

NHRevs said:
The thing is: what if he hasn't really adapted yet? It seems to take MLS players (US and otherwise) about a year and a half (given that most come in the January window) to fully adapt to play in the Premiership, and raise their game and conditioning accordingly.

What if Landon still has an upside as he adjusts to Premiership play? Admittedly, he's done better than most, so the upside is probably less than others, but it wouldn't surprise me that there is still some upside.
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GREAT point. You guys remember how long it took Dempsey to really kick it into gear? And he's outperforming Landon on the EPL side (injury aside). I believe Donovan will only get better with more time at Everton. I wouldn't be surprised to see him score upwards of 10-12 goals for you guys in a full season of duty.

sorry for the long post everyone. go away for 24 hours and it seems you miss 10 pages of conversation :lol:
 
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sad to see that the MLS is taking a hard-line on donovan... he could EASILY stay another month but Arena is being stubborn.

I used to have some respect for the guy... despite a very "boring" style he did well for the USA... but sheesh, he's depriving Donovan when he's in his prime!
 
jhf14 said:
sad to see that the MLS is taking a hard-line on donovan... he could EASILY stay another month but Arena is being stubborn.

I used to have some respect for the guy... despite a very "boring" style he did well for the USA... but sheesh, he's depriving Donovan when he's in his prime!
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From bigsoccer:

Donovan has been a great soldier for MLS and they've always been careful to treat him very well. I'm sure all the possibilities were talked through before he ever signed that new deal. I'm confident they would take less money to help make sure Landon went to a good place -- somewhere he's happy and likely to perform well -- that just makes MLS look good. I think they could give Everton a discount - they just can't give away the store. And they can't begin negotiation with their discount.

MLS and the Galaxy don't want an unhappy figurehead right now. And they don't want to create the impression that they're keeping talented US players from greener pastures
 
thebes20 said:
From bigsoccer:

And they don't want to create the impression that they're keeping talented US players from greener pastures
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That's why the players will/might strike though. MLS hasn't given a damn about letting players go when a bigger club calls and has sometimes just kept players almost out of spite. It happened to Twellman and to a lesser extent Dempsey et.al.

MLS might let Donovan stay for the end of the season because the regular season is really sparsely attended in the months of April-May but if he goes back he'll be at the Galaxy at least until the end of the season.

I also think Donovan doesn't really want to permentantly leave LA, and would be happy playing for us from Jan-May and the Galaxy from June-November. It would be a good thing for Donovan, us and the MLS however MLS isn't really known for doing the right things all the time.
 

Soccer Made in Germany.

Ahh the good old days. I remember seeing an old English match on PBS because I didn't have the first clue who Leeds were. We're talking late 70's here.

Way too many 43 year old posters on here. Myself included.
 
I remember when there was NO soccer in the US. 59 year old here who thinks that this is the best sport ever invented. Started with my 4 year old in a rec league, and had no clue as to the rules. Fast forward some 20 years later, I own the largest youth club soccer web site in Fl and Mass, in the US. Soccer here is growing, but still has miles to go...miles.
 
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That's the best part, the upside here in the USA of the sport.

Great strides have been made yet there are more to make.
 
thebes20 said:
I remember when there was NO soccer in the US. 59 year old here who thinks that this is the best sport ever invented. Started with my 4 year old in a rec league, and had no clue as to the rules. Fast forward some 20 years later, I own the largest soccer web site in Fl and Mass, in the US. Soccer here is growing, but still has miles to go...miles.
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ahhh, you're 59. That makes more sense. I was thinking "there is no WAY this guy is my age.... His posts are well thought-out and make sense!"

:lol:
 
Rook said:
That's why the players will/might strike though. MLS hasn't given a damn about letting players go when a bigger club calls and has sometimes just kept players almost out of spite. It happened to Twellman and to a lesser extent Dempsey et.al.
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It's not a coincidence they're both Revs, the same organization that turned down a rumored $2 million from Celtic for Shalrie Joseph and screwed Pat Noonan to the wall.

Excuse me while I go gargle razor blades now.
 

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