Grizzly

Maybe I am undervaluing the worth of TAM and GAM in a salary cap league but it seems like a low return for a good starting CB.Possibly his relatively high salary of 600k made him harder to move and with the TAM and GAM gives the Caps an extra 1 350 000 to work with next season. https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018/12/11/fc-cincinnati-acquire-kendall-waston-vancouver-whitecaps

Seems like he is having the year we were all expecting him to have last year although his stats at least were not that bad last year, he just did not get the playing time he is getting this year.

Yes and he should tell the Scots to split from England because everyone know the EPL is crap and if you want to watch quality football, SPL is where it is at!

https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018/12/09/orlando-city-acquire-forward-tesho-akindele-trade-fc-dallas

Hainault kept his spot in the starting 11 under new Kaiserslautern coach Hildmann and played 90 in a 0-0 tie with Wurzburger Kickers. Elva was not dressed for Wurzburg.

https://www.tvasports.ca/2018/12/07/maxime-crepeau-echange-aux-whitecaps?fbclid=IwAR0UAXoe0Leb8_n8dxf5kjOqhGOew-cC2HzoPomkdQHIC65k8dQakCmeKiY

Martineau is a solid journalist. Any journalist will get some information wrong sometimes because of the nature of working with sources but Martineau is probably the most reliable journalist in Montreal for being the first guy to report things that will subsequently happen.

Sad to see him leave Montreal but this is a good move for his career.

Finished in 7th last year in the top flight. Nice move up for Boakai, hopefully he can get his career back on track.

Yes and you have stated precisely the problem. Only 4 games, 3 of which were against minnows and the other against a still not very good team which was missing some of it better players. I don't see any evidence on the pitch that he is team building. I do not put a lot of stock in either Herdman's claims nor players praise of a new coach who control whether they get selected and play, the former is self promotion, the later what you say when you want playing time. What I think would contribute greatly to team building is playing games and having training camps.

Find me a situation where a federation fires a coach who seemed to be doing well without explanation and hires immediately an insider federation guy with no proper hiring process and then the team hardly plays any games for a full year other than against some minnow teams and I think you will find similar reactions from that country's fans. Even New Zealand was without its best players but even removing them from the picture, we should beat the other three teams if you or I was coach so don't tell me to celebrate these victories.

Even if this is true I find this unacceptable. I see little in Herdman's CV to suggest he was a top candidate for the men's team and that we should cater to him and hire him without a proper competition for the post especially at a time where we had no major tournament right away. If Zambrano did indeed do something that merited firing then open a search process and allow Herdman to apply like anyone else and hire the best candidate. That is how professionally run federations do things.

Patrick Leduc named director of soccer operations. I like him and he seems knowledgeable but the continual hiring of former players/club insiders is always worrying with the Impact and makes one wonder how much independence these people have in their jobs. https://www.impactmontreal.com/en/post/2018/12/06/patrick-leduc-named-administrative-director-soccer-operations-impact

This response does not make sense even if you qualify it by using likely. If The Ref can not say his hiring was poor without knowing why he was fired then how can you claim that his hiring was a bad decision? Your statement is just as speculative as The Ref's. I think a major problem is that we do not know why he was fired other than a some rumours that were planted in the press which may be true or may just be planted to try and justify the decision which was made for other reasons. The later is what I suspect as it is almost a year since the coaching change and no details or confirmation of the rumours about Zambrano have leaked out. I suspect Herdman was super well connected within the CSA and mesmerized some of the people there with his spiel and they needed to find a reason to get rid of Zambrano and hire Herdman without opening the job to competition. A classic CSA backroom old boys network hire. But yes this is also speculation because the CSA has acted totally unprofessional in this regard and hasn't released any information or explained the decision in a press conference. Even today I am struck by the difference between the Impact announcement of hiring a new director of soccer operations with Joey having to go before the press and answer a lot of questions even though it is a private business while the CSA which receives public funding has not answered the many questions about the firing of Zambrano and hiring Herdman without competition. This should be a problem for anyone regardless of what their opinion is on Zambrano/Herdman. After a ray of light of the CSA being run properly under Mont Pete, I am getting the impression that we are back to the dark days of the CSA of old.

Not sure if he is still getting paid but I would suspect he isn't since he is now coaching Independiente since June. The CSA should be off the hook since he signed with them since otherwise they could stop him from signing with them. Too much of the whole saga of the firing of Zambrano, the hiring of Herdman, the lack of friendlies is reminding me of the dark Kevin Pipe days of the CSA.