March 14, 2007
The Rhinos are starting to roll into town ahead of next week's pre-season "tournament" in Puerto Rico where they will face the LA Galaxy and FC Dallas.
While Scott Vallow, Matthew Delicate, Josh Bolton, T-Bone Bonseu, and Jason Perry have been around for most, if not all, of the offseason, Hector Zapata, Kenney Bertz, Scott Palguta, Danny Kramer, Mike Ambersley, Aaran Lines, Hamed Diallo, and Chad Severs have arrived in town over the past couple days. Nate Craft (Detroit), John Ball (California), and Rey Martinez (Baltimore) are all still with their MISL teams. And I have yet to hear back on the status of Johnny Menyongar.
The players are training daily so that they have some of the rust knocked off before taking on their more game fit MLS opponents starting a week from tomorrow.
Red Bulls set a dubious franchise record in 2006
Ives Galarcep talks about how Red Bull NY lost more money in 2006 than in any previous season in the club's history. Ives also gives some insight on areas where the new management group has taken major steps backward, corporate sponsorship being the main one, and how they are struggling to even get back to where things were when the club was run by AEG.
It's going to be interesting to see how long Red Bull pumps money into this operation before they decide that some major changes need to be made on the business side of the club. I think that with Arena, Agoos, Harkes, Williams, and company, they have the right people running the soccer side of the club. Now they need to find their equals on the business side.
I just hope that they don't look to DC United for help in that area!
The battle over Fred
Steven Goff has an interesting update on DC United's attempt to add Brazilian midfielder/forward Fred from the Melbourne Victory of the Australian league.
I wonder if DC United and MLS will just wait things out if Melbourne and the league try and extort a transfer fee?
The first legs of the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions Cup are upon us
Luis Bueno has as a solid preview as DC United and the Houston Dynamo take on Chivas de Guadalajara and Pachuca for a spot in the CONCACAF Champions Cup final.
Here's hoping that MLS is 3-6 in CCC match ups with Mexican clubs after this year's competition is complete!
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the Rochester Rhinos or SoccerSam.com. Feel free to send any comments or complaints to news@soccersam.com. James promises to read (but not to respond) to all of them.
