WE NEED A BIG NAME PLAYER. It's shouted on #Dyano Twitter on a persistent basis. It's about the only thing out there that you read more often than #BrenerOut. You see it on Big Soccer, it's blasted all over Reddit. But....what does that mean exactly? Does that mean that the Forever Orange faithful will only be satisfied if Lionel Messi finds his way to Houston? Does someone like Mo Salah or Luis Suarez have to come to play their final years at BBVA? We undoubtedly need and deserve higher levels of talent than what have graced the pitch just south of Hwy 59, but do we have to land a guy with a large name and reputation to make us happy?
Three years ago, Mauro Manotas was one of the leading scorers in MLS. In fact, our front three where outstanding. The trio of Manotas, Romell Quioto and Alberth Elis where electric, and one of the better goal scoring trios in the league. Elis was arguably as talented a wing player and as dynamic a player in MLS as there was. Quioto was a total headache, but was an explosive compliment on the other side of the field who was extremely dangerous and capable. We had DaMarcus Beasley, one of the most respected players in the history of American Soccer, and a guy that was highly accomplished (and yes.....I know he was on the downside of his career). Why were they never considered big name players? Why weren't they all over town? Why wasn't the battle cry in 2017 "WE NEED DEFENDERS! WE NEED GRUNTS!"? That's what we needed. We all know by now that ownership here will never open up the wallet enough to bring a Zlatan, or a David Beckham to the comfy confines of Houston, but do they need to?
I'm a huge fan of the Bundesliga. And while I am well aware that money wins in that league, I also see highly competitive teams that have done it in different ways. There are teams that are competitive in Champions League, Europa League, and the Bundesliga without huge payrolls or big name stars. Teams that compete every single week with Europe's best reside in Leverkusen, Leipzig, Sinsheim (Hoffenheim), Monchengladbach, Wolfsburg, and (my personal favorite) Frankfurt. While money most definitely wins league championships in all of Europe's leagues, it doesn't necessarily define competitiveness. Bundesliga teams have found creative ways to find young talent, combine them with solid veterans, and develop everyone to a higher level. If you aren't developing talent in the Bundesliga, you will find yourself in a spot like Hamburg and Hannover. Relegated, no chance of coming up, stuck in purgatory. If you get it just right, you become Union Berlin, a team that won promotion for the first time last year and now sits square in the middle of the table. While some of you may scoff at the idea of being a mid-table team, may I remind you where we've been for the last half decade. Teams in Germany, France, Austria, and the Netherlands have found crafty ways to upgrade talent on limited budgets. They don't all do it the same way, and they don't all do it with productive academies. There's more than one way to build a roster, and there's more than one way to have a big name player.
The shortest route for this team would to simply go get two players to fill the voids at Designated Player. Will they even attempt to do that this year? The short answer is....."probably not". The long answer still ends with no. Despite the flirtations with Carlos Salcedo (which I believe was more about P.R. than actual interest), there aren't two more DP's coming this offseason. But, let's look at a few cheap ways the Dynamo could upgrade talent and fill those roster spots in the future.
Short Term Loan Deal with an option to buy.
As seen with Orlando City's Jonathan Suarez, Seattle's Joao Paulo, and the Galaxy's Cristian Pavon (just to name a few), you can bring in a designated player without paying a sizeable transfer fee. You can fill a DP slot without waiting for a guy to come on a free transfer. A short term loan could be one way that we see Carlos Salcedo brandishing that new emblem this spring while paying only a fraction of the transfer fee it would take for him to make the permanent move. Without knowing his salary (Liga MX doesn't publish those), it would be hard to see how this deal would really work. While I think Salcedo would make Houston an immediate playoff team and the pairing of Salcedo and Tim Parker would be without question the best CB duo in the league, it would still take another acquisition up top to make them a legitimate contender for a trophy. I'm a die-hard Eintracht Frankfurt fan. I spend every Saturday morning eating breakfast tacos and watching Eintracht Play. And from 2017-2019 I got a real good look at what Salcedo can do. El Titan would be the big name we are looking for, even though he's on the back side of the formation. He alone would make us a threat for the MLS Cup. He's big, he's tuff, he's a really good athlete, and he isn't afraid of anybody (including Robert Lewandowski).We've seen him perform on the international stage, and the work he put in for El-Tri helped them shut down Germany, South Korea, and get out of the group in the 2018 World Cup. He's playing really well for Tigres UNAM right now, and helped them trade punches with Bayern Munich in the Club World Cup. But, it's a pipe dream and I'm blabbing on about one of my favorite players ever........I digress.
As an Eintracht fan, I've been spoiled by creative ways to get really good players on the cheap. The front office in Frankfurt has worked amazingly cheap deals for quality players over the last 10 years, guys that they then went on to sign to long term deals on a very friendly transfer fee. Some of the guys they've worked these deals for (Omar Mascarell) performed so well the other teams wouldn't let Eintracht make the purchase option. I can give tons of examples of this happening elsewhere in the world as well, but more importantly MLS teams are beginning utilize this tool better and better. Somewhere there is a club in Liga Mx, Europe, or South America that has underutilized and undervalued talent ready for the poaching. Targeting that talent and getting it on deals friendly to the club is something that few MLS teams have the ability to do. These players can be young players just coming up, or sometimes vets sitting the bench at bigger clubs that have lost their starting position. Sometimes, it's a vet brought in for depth on a team that failed to qualify for League Competitions (Champions League, Europa League, CONCACAF Champions League, etc). These are admittedly more difficult to find in North and South America as roster sizes are not as big and overall talent is not as deep, but surely you can find quality vets riding the pine on a team that loaded up and then didn't qualify somewhere in Liga MX or further south. While in MLS, the talent pool and roster turnover don't really make this a possibility, outside of MLS there are huge possibilities. Really to make this work, you have to have a tremendous scouting department. It seems like we had our niche (I'm a Biology teacher, I love this word) in Honduras, but there are loads more leagues and lots more talent to be had.
Loan deals can come in a variety of ways for a variety of reasons. (1) Teams looking to unload a vet, because they just transferred in an upgrade at that position. You get that player off the books, you can usually get them pretty cheap, and their backup could be your starter. (2) A young player who is outperforming their U-21 team, but can't break through on the first team. If you have a reputation for getting talent to the next level, teams will loan you these guys to get them playing time. If you negotiate the loan right, you find a starter who is young and cheap. If you work the deal right and think outside the box, you can snatch them up for a great deal. MLS transfer rules somewhat prohibit you from working these deals as ideally as you can in other leagues but there are smart enough businessmen to get really creative with these deals and get them done. In 2016, Fredi Bobic from Eintracht Frankfurt wanted 20 year old Ante Rebic badly. He convinced Fiorentina to loan Rebic for a sum of $2mil. He added a buy on clause for another $2mil, and promised that if Eintracht ever sold Rebic on he'd split the profit with Fiorentina 50/50. It was a genius move by a cash strapped club. That same year, he went after a young striker who had become a problem child at Benefica by the name of Luka Jovic. Bobic convinced Benefica to loan Luka for two years for a sum of $200,000. Luka exploded at the end of that loan deal and led Eintracht to back to back Europa League competitions (a competition which they hadn't qualified for in 2 decades) and helped them win the DFB Pokal. Eintracht had an option to make the deal permanent for $5mil, which the exercised right before they sold him for $65 mil to Real Madrid. Frankfurt isn't the only team out there doing this. Dortmund (Jadon Sancho), Leverkusen (Leon Bailey) and others have gotten dynamic young talent on loan and helped it explode. And while those guys are never coming to MLS, there are equivalent MLS level players out there and available. We just have to find them. Once we find them, we need to know what to do with them. Currently, the Dynamo have one such loan player on their roster: Ariel Lassiter. While Lassiter performed well in his debut, he was mostly a disappointment. The Dynamo can better take advantage of this tool, and with the right moves desperately improve their club at a manageable price.
One other option.....
The Dynamo need to form a partnership with a European side. While they have done a tremendous job scouting Honduras, they need to have a two way street with a bigger club. While FC Dallas has already benefited from this type of partnership, these partnerships need to become two way streets. With Tab Ramos at the helm accompanied by both his acumen and reputation for developing young players, the Dynamo aggressively need to explore options for bringing young players in on loan who are struggling to break through with their clubs. The major portion of these agreements is that the lending club has to trust that you'll be able to take their player to the next level. If they don't, forget it. If they see you can, you've got a chance. If you can build that trust and reputation, you can find real bargains in this area and find some young, budding stars. Loan deals are especially valuable if a team has a logjam of veterans at a position where they are trying to develop their next star. Sometimes, you can even pick up one of the veterans on the cheap. There are plenty of big time clubs on the planet that could use this type of partnership, especially when teams are hurting for the funds to finance developmental squads and academies. Frankfurt dropped their U-23's several years back, and has made a habit of loaning these players out to clubs in order to get them valuable playing time. If the Dynamo could set up a partnership with a mid-table club or above from any of the top 5 leagues in Europe, they could come away with a steal.
To date, these partnerships in MLS have all been one-way streets. FC Dallas has sent Bayern Munich some of it's best young talent (Chris Richards, Tim Booth), and Bayern have promised to send talent in return. Although, with Bayern Munich II winning the 3. Liga last year, and showing strong again this season, it's doubtful we'd see anyone like Jann-Fiete Arp and Malik Tillman in MLS. However, just because it hasn't been done yet, doesn't mean it can't. Usually, MLS teams have their sites set too high. FC Dallas' agreement with Bayern is great for MLS players wanting to get their shot in Europe, however with the developmental setups these teams already have, and the willingness for 2nd and 3rd division teams in Germany to take loan players on, it's highly unlikely any of their players will ever make it down this way. But, that doesn't mean there isn't a team in France, or Spain, or Portugal that would be willing to send guys over. An agreement with a big name is only going to help the Dynamo financially (potentially), but an agreement with a team like FC Utrecht in the Netherlands could be a great one.
The Academy will take time....
The real way to build a lasting winner here in Houston is to get the academy producing. That's not going to happen overnight. This isn't a guarantee that the Academy will win trophies, but it's another layer that needs to be added to this roster. No talent in professional sports is cheaper than young, home grown talent. It's true in hockey, it's true in baseball, it's somewhat true in the NFL and NBA, and it's definitely true in MLS. The trick is utilizing it properly. It's not just about producing stars and goal scorers, it's about producing a vision. Do your midfielders hold down the midfield, attack the ball, and spray it to open guys? Do your defenders defend, and play the ball deep? Do you get usable parts from it? FC Dallas has had the most profitable Academy, which I could care less about. They can have the transfer fees and no trophies. I'd rather build a club which is useful for the Dynamo on the pitch.
There are lots of teams, both in the US and abroad, that can't produce academy talent. It's a nature of the beast. If every team could do it, they would. They'd all love to have cheap young talent at the ready, players who grew up dreaming of playing for their hometown team and will stay loyal and cheap until their playing career is over. But it's just not realistic. There are surely many of you who will vehemently argue with me about the talent pool here in Houston,
but.......we aren't exactly a hot bed. (Kind of) Stu Holden, maybe you count Brek Shea too, Ima Baba, and Christian Cappis. That's the extent of the big time talent that's come to MLS from Houston since 1996. Cappis would have been nice here, and without knowing all the detail of his backstory, it appears he just didn't want to play for the Dynamo. The Katy native chose to try his hand in Europe, trialing with Bayern Munich before ending up in Denmark. He's been a mainstay at Brondby IF and could have been great here, but.......anyway.
Houston (for some reason) can't get these guys here. That doesn't mean that it won't or can't happened. It just hasn't happened. How do we get it there? Scouting. Player development. That's the long and short of it. Go find the best players in our MLS territory, sign them and develop them. The cost of that can also be hefty, but at some point you have to invest in this team. If you can't produce young talent from your Academy, find another way to bring it in.
Final Thoughts:
There are many ways this front office has failed this team. Finding a big name is one of them, but failing to put a quality team together is really the issue. There weren't any big name players on our back to back MLS cup teams. They were a great squad. Seattle doesn't have any big-time players, they are what we should be trying to be. There are creative ways to get there, Matt Jordan and company just need to get creative......because Salata just isn't enough.
Thanks again for reading.
Brian
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