120 Fahrenheit: Why Trading Ruiz Was A Good Idea
February 17th, 2008 . 10:33 pm . By: Buzz Carrick
There has been quite a bit of anxiety and commotion from the fan sector following the trade of Carlos Ruiz to Los Angeles for an Allocation. While reservations are understandable, I fully endorse Morrow’s choice to move his primary striker. Certainly Ruiz was the most experienced and clutch striker FC Dallas has had since Graziani, and he will be hard to replace. But I feel there are some reasons to move on from the Guatemalan hitman, as there are some factors in my mind that will make the team better without him. In short, I felt like it was time to move ahead, and here’s why. 1. Cost EffectivenessThis is the reason cited by Morrow to move on from Ruiz, and it’s one I agree with. Ruiz costs $400,000 on the cap and only scored seven goals. That’s one more than $100,000 midfielder Juan Toja. That’s just not enough scoring for $400k. Kenny Cooper, at $80,000, scored four goals in twelve games before losing his season to Tyrone Marshall’s horror tackle, that’s one goal per three games- the same numbers as Ruiz for remarkably less money. $400k is the Designated Player mark. $400,000 needs to be a big time game breaking player. Compare Ruiz’s numbers to the quintessential DP striker, Juan Pablo Angel. Angel: 19 goals 5 assists, Ruiz: 7 with 2 assists. Johnson, another DP priced player, 15 goals and 6 assists. Some non-DP strikers blew Ruiz away, Luciano Emilio with 20 goals and an assist; Taylor Twellman with 16 and 3. But here are the most telling stats for me. $30,000 Abe Thompson with 500 fewer minutes of game action and 40 less shots than Ruiz managed five goals and four assists. That’s two fewer goals but two more assists. Ruiz: $58,000 per goal; Thompson: $6000 per goal. So on pure money and goals alone, it makes more sense to go with Abe Thompson than Ruiz. Ruiz took over eight shots per goal he scored, Thompson just under four. Thompson is also a more accurate shooter taking just 1.7 shots to get one on goal compared to Ruiz’s 2.3 shots needed to hit the frame. The stats say Thompson was a better player than Ruiz in 2007. The comparison only gets worse when we get into the next 4 factors on my list. 2. Fit with MorrowMorrow hasn’t really mentioned this one much, but my gut says it’s almost as important to Morrow as the cost. Ruiz is not Morrow’s guy, Ruiz doesn’t fit his system. Like a new General Manager wants his own choice at coach, a coach will want his own choice at the key positions. Specifically, Ruiz fit better in former coach Colin Clarke’s system as the center channel attention grabbing striker. Morrow, on the other hand, likes movement in his players, “range” as I like to call it. Morrow wants active, energetic, and mobile players with work rate and stamina. A player like Ruiz that stands in the middle channel and bodies up a defender or two isn’t what Morrow is looking for. Even in a high target forward Morrow is going to want a player that resembles Taylor Twellman and his energy and movement rather than a static stationary target. Again the cheaper Thompson is a better fit for Morrow. Almost every forward on FCD privately lists Thompson as their favorite partner. His work rate, off ball movement, and energy make it easier for his partner. 3. LeadershipLet me clear that Ruiz is a guy everyone likes; he’s by no means a cancer. He’s everyone’s friend and is a great teammate on a personal level. No one dislikes having Ruiz as a teammate; he’s fun and likable. I’m just a firm believer that in the cap tight MLS, you want expensive big name players to be leaders. Morrow would never say it, but I think he made Ruiz captain last year in an attempt to motivate him to be a leader by example. Any player that gets paid what Ruiz gets paid is a leader by default. When a young player or team roster filler looks at Ruiz and his terrible work habits, there is little to be imitated. Ruiz has never been a leader off the field; he’s just not a guy who talks to other players to keep them on track. Frequently late to training and often late returning from national team games is only part of the problem. Poor work rate in training, lack of effort in fitness, poor rehab habits, and little interest in team discipline make Ruiz a problematic symbol for professionalism. All of these factors make it more difficult for Morrow and his other team leaders, none of whom outshine the Ruiz name, to set a tone in training and in the team. Other team leaders did set the FCD tone, notably Dario Sala and Bobby Rhine. It was a positive happy locker room this year. FCD didn’t suffer for lack of leadership in general, it just didn’t get any from it’s captain. But a team should get leadership out of a player of this price and stature. In a team like LA with massive names and egos like Donovan and Beckham, Ruiz even at his high price becomes almost a role player. People might still care he doesn’t work hard, but he’s not going to be setting the tone for the team. That’s the system Ruiz needs to be in, one where he can be a follower and individual player rather than the player everyone looks to. By itself, this wouldn’t be an issue to move Ruiz. It just contributes to the overall context. 4. Body and LifestyleLast but certainly not least, in fact it might be the biggest factor, is Ruiz’s body. Quite frankly I think he’s on the downhill slope physically, and a steep slope it is. Despite being only 28 years of age, I firmly believe Ruiz’s lifestyle and habits have made his body equivalent to a 32 or 33 year old. First is his lack of interest in fitness and his poor work habits. To my knowledge, and I’ve been asking the team and players, Ruiz has never really participated in the winter training regimens that FCD set for him, outside of an occasional national team camp. Fish always came into camp, relatively speaking, overweight and out of shape. Either coincidently (or by purpose, depending on how cynical you are) Ruiz was also frequently injured early in the spring training process and as a consequence never got as fit as he needed to be for Texas. It’s blistering hot here in the summer and that requires fitter players than most places. Carrying extra weight makes it very difficult to get through the season healthy and it puts a heavy load on a player’s physical well being, joints, and musculature. Ruiz also lives a lifestyle I would call George Best’ian in style, although perhaps not in magnitude. Rather than living in north Dallas suburbs near the stadium and training ground, Ruiz prefered to live downtown near the “action.” Weekday or weekend both frequently saw Ruiz out on the town. Word around the team has it that road trips, particularly to Los Angeles, could be problem spots as Ruiz would check out favorite haunts and hot spots. A decade of late nights, poor sleep habits, poor eating habits, poor choices in lifestyle, poor fitness, and poor training habits have in my opinion aged Ruiz before his time. He has less stamina, recovery time is longer, injury rehab is tougher, healing is slower, pace has fallen off, strength has ebbed, and work rate has dropped as his body losses its youth and vigor. Now What?Bottom line for me is that Ruiz wasn’t getting it done, costs too much, and wasn’t going to improve enough to justify his cost. I’m quite pleased FCD got the value they did, when they did. I really think the return was above market value. Ruiz may score 20 in LA and it won’t change my opinion, because I firmly believe he wouldn’t have scored 20 here for the reasons listed above. Yes, in order to win some silverware this year FCD needs to add a top flight striker in the vein of Emilio, Angel, Johnson, or Twellman. All signs, including some statements from Morrow, indicate FCD is seeking such a forward. Will they land one? We don’t know. Morrow won’t kill his team on a risk- he’s quite happy to go into the year with what he has. It won’t be worse than last year cause Thompson has identical production as Ruiz and Cooper should return to top form. Ideally though we’ll see a marquee striker come in. FCD could add someone on a free now, or there is a midseason window where FCD could acquire someone. FCD will be fine without a key man up top, but fine doesn’t win titles. In order to be the best in MLS they need to improve on Ruiz. 54 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment |
that about sums it up.
the mighty one has spoken. let us carve out his name from all things FCD, so no memory of him shall linger. if all else fails, we will fall back on doudou.
Service.
Wasn’t expecting a whole post on this… I think just about everyone accepts this as truth.
Great post. I think you hit the nail on the head on all points.
Thank you — this is greatly appreciated. Everything you say makes tons of sense, so I can better ignore the “doom and gloom posters” on other forums . . .
Personally, I’m excited to see this team in action, now that Davino and Rocha have been added. I don’t see that we are any worse than last year, and maybe KC can continue the way he started before the June 9th game.
Go, Hoops!
Reports out of LA are that Ruiz is still recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery in November, and had a recent setback:
http://web.mlsnet.com/news/mls...mp;vkey=news_mls&fext=.jsp
Thanks Buzz. Well said. Can’t wait to see how Theo responds on the BS forum. LOL just thinking about it.
Respectfully disagree. Not to be a jerk or anti-FCD or a Ruiz romantic but let’s look at these points.
1) For the same cost as Ruiz, how many goals should we expect out of our new defender? The goals per dollar equation doesn’t work. Plus, these Coop and Abe comparisons are not apt as both are woefully underpaid.
2) Strange that for a person who’s not “Morrow’s guy”, Ruiz was named Captain. Coach has no problem standing up to players (benched Denilson) and could have taken the captain title away, but didn’t.
3) Leaders lead. Ruiz scored in all the big games, and sometimes was the only one who did.
4) Body and lifestyle – can’t wait to see Ruiz after a couple months under Ruud. We’ll see how fat he really is.
My bottom line – trade offers came in during the season last year (Chivas/LA/Crew) and nothing was done. Value dropped around the league after the year ended (knee surgery?) and FCD did what they could. FCD is all about South America now, which is fine. But I can’t agree on several of the points mentioned above.
Hey Uptown, that is completely your right. It just seems to be in the minority.
I never liked Ruiz. EVER. His style of play was not what this game is all about for me. I DID see him trying to change his game (early last year) and I think it really effected him. You could tell he wasn’t “up for it”.
I did not realize we got an allocation for him though. Are you sure about that Buzz?
“2) Strange that for a person who’s not “Morrow’s guy”, Ruiz was named Captain. Coach has no problem standing up to players (benched Denilson) and could have taken the captain title away, but didn’t.”
It makes perfect sense to me. It was obvious that Morrow gave Ruiz every chance possible to be the leader. He gave him every chance to step it up, and I think he did, to an extent, but not enough. I mean, even my 11-yr-old could see that (on the field) that Ruiz was not a good leader/captain and a new player (Ricchetti) usually stepped in to “lead” on the field (at least during disagreements with officials).
I hope Ruiz does well in LA (just not when they play FCD). But I just don’t have the feeling that we are doomed without him. Davino (we hope/expect) will fix some of the holes in the leaky defense (and will hopefully not “ball watch” as much, which did happen last season). Rocha sounds like a great addition in several aspects. And I think that if Cooper plays like he did in April thru June 9th, then this team can be successful, even with just it’s current talent.
But, I guess we won’t know until the season starts!
This is a good trade only because Morrow never knew how to get the best out of Ruiz. When Steve is fired (sorry, not renewed) after this season and Ruiz is MVP because he finally plays with players that get him the ball, LA will have the last laugh.
Bigger question is are we a playoff team right now? I’m not certain we are and that’s alarming.
Great as always Buzz, totally agree.
You mentioned Twellman several times; since he’s not happy in NE, unload some midfield talent for him (Richetti +others)…FCD win’s the Open Cup and MLS Cup, then let him make a move overseas!
Be interesting how much “better” Thompson and the strikers will be this year without Ruiz taking all of the other team’s defensive attention.
Soccer and stats…a combo that’s borderline useless.
I agree that Ruiz was not a good fit. My problem is what we got in the trade for him. It looks like a big bag of nothing for the fans. I guess I have just been burned too many times by the Texas Rangers, but in my opinion “we have more financial flexibility” translates to “we are paying less for the pitiful product on the field, but come on out anyway”.
I totally agree that Ruiz needed to go. Just the frustration of seeing him roll around in immense pain after a nudge will be not soon be missed.
But seriously…do we really think Thompson is the answer? I cant understand why this guy is still in the league little alone starting! He does work his “Ruiz” off but he has NO touch or skill.
Last year goals conceded was the issue. Think its going to be the other way around this year.
Either way….i’ll be there and go Hoops!
Ruiz is gone!!!
yeaaahhhhhh
Ruiz wasn’t the best, but he might be the best FCD could do.
While I don’t disagree with your article Buzz, I’m more worried than ever about the wrath of The Little Fish. If he was going to be nice to us (not score twenty goals in one game) all bets are out the door. It’s gonna be ugly when L.A. comes to town.
I also thought it was common knowledge that FCD didn’t get more for Ruiz because of Hitchcock. All because of a missing signature we don’t have Bobby Boswell in our backline.
Most people do know that the Boswell move was lost because of a missing Hitch signature… although one might put it on DC for double dealing I suppose.
Boswell would have been a good add, but I’m not sold he’s better than Yi frankly. He did lose his job last year.
Yes FCD got allocation money in return from Ruiz. “FC Dallas today traded forward Carlos Ruiz to the Los Angeles Galaxy in exchange for an undisclosed amount of Allocation money and the Galaxy’s natural second round pick in the 2009 MLS SuperDraft.”
Feh.
To be honest you guys dont have a creative midfield, never play the ball to the flanks, no services. how the heck do you expect productions from your strikers. Ruiz will probably go over the 20 goal mark in LA. and we have to see how it goes for your strikers with out ruiz taking the mark of at least 2 defenders.
Last year the issue was we couldn’t score any goals and that’s why Carlos Ruiz is gone. Period. He was here to put the ball in the back of the net and he couldn’t get the job done no matter who we had in the midfield. Here’s to a healthy Cooper to lead us to victory.
Considering that FCD was one of the worst goalscoring teams in 2007 with 37 goals, FCD was middle of the pack of goals conceded (which was exaggerated by goals conceded late as they were pushing for equalizers), it’s pretty clear to me that goalscoring was their biggest need and that they were going to need to come up with an additional 10-15 goals to make a real go at conceding for the title.
So to trade the seven goals that Ruiz got with horrible service from midfield means that we’ve got that many more goals to find somewhere. Considering that we still haven’t replaced the 2006 midfield service that we traded away in the persons of Ronnie O’Brien, Richard Mulrooney, and Ramon Nunez, that seems pretty optimistic to me. A lot of people assume that a healthy Cooper will make up for a bit, but we have no idea how he’ll do without his little buddy Fish taking defensive heat off of him.
I’m not that optimistic. And I think that “fit with Morrow” is a bit of a cop-out. Good coaches fit their systems to their players and if Morrow was unable or unwilling to use one of the league’s most lethal scorers, then that certainly makes me question his competence.
For me, Ruiz was made a scapegoat for the fact that this team’s management and coaching staff never replaced the 24 assists that Ronnie O’Brien and Richard Mulrooney provided in 2006. (Our top assist man in 2007 was Juan Toja with four.) Of course, he didn’t score. No one did, which is the reason why seven goals still led the team.
So we trade him to Los Angeles, where he’ll have Landon Donovan (13 assists in 2007) and David Beckham (2 assists in 375 minutes in 2007, which works out to around 12 in a full season) providing service to him. We just made a conference rival demonstrably better, and if they make the playoffs at our expense, with Ruiz pumping in the goals, all you ladies “who didn’t like the way he played” can have a nice tall glass of STFU.
Whoops. Becks actually produced two assists in 252 minutes last season. So up that projected output to 16-18 assists in 2000-2250 minutes of a full season.
And he and Landycakes got those assists serving balls to mediocrities like Gavin Glinton and Edson Buddle and Carlos Pavon.
“For me, Ruiz was made a scapegoat for the fact that this team’s management and coaching staff never replaced the 24 assists that Ronnie O’Brien and Richard Mulrooney provided in 2006. (Our top assist man in 2007 was Juan Toja with four.) Of course, he didn’t score. No one did, which is the reason why seven goals still led the team.”
??????
Dax was the top assists person, wasn’t he? And he scored one goal. He was 1-7 on goals/assists.
I may be totally wrong, but I don’t yet buy the “horrible service from the midfield” theory. Take the 6/23 game against Colorado. Ruiz had multiple chances to score, yet didn’t (I’ve re-watched this game on tape, during the long winter months). Had he scored, that game would have ended 6-0, instead of 1-0 (on a Toja goal — not Ruiz).
So, is the low amount of assists due to poor service . . . or to Ruiz (and others) MISSING? I don’t think you can simply add up the assists and say that = horrible midfield service.
The team had, btw, 154 shots-on-goal last year, but only 37 goals . . . Now compare that to: Houston had only 145 SOG, yet scored 43 goals. Yet they were the champs.
Oh, btw DCU had 190 SOG and 52 goals (yet finished no better than FCD in the playoffs).
Just my $.02.
I know I don’t have a long history, yet, with this team, but I DO value Buzz’s evaluations quite highly.
You are correct. Dax was indeed our top assist man in 2007.
However, the problem with using the shots on goal as your metric for evaluating service is that not all shots on goal are created equal. Dwayne DeRosario and others in the Houston midfield put the balls in places where the shots on goal were more likely to be put in goal.
And the problem with explaining away the low assist totals with “our guys missed” (actually, if it’s a SOG, it means that it’s either going in or will be saved by the keeper or cleared off the line by a defender) is that you have to believe that the service is OK, but that ALL our guys are more likely to shoot at the keeper. If it were just Ruiz, then presumably someone else would’ve been putting in the goals.
But since Ruiz’s seven goals was the top turd on the dungheap, you have to conclude that either all our forwards were fluffing their chances or that they weren’t getting the chances to begin with.
El Jefe for President! Well said. It’s easy to always blame the defense but they weren’t necessarily the problem. The problem starts in the midfield and goes on up. With that being said I’d much rather have a proven Carlos Ruiz with $400,000 against the cap than an over-the-hill Mexican defender with $400,000 against the cap.
All I can say in regards to the goal scoring was that I witnessed a bunch of missed shots that were very clearly good goal scoring oppurtunities. Confidence & Mental sharpness are what I say contribute to the missed oppurtunities. Is that on Morrow? Did the players not respect him and thus did not want to put forth 100% 100% of the time? This is where I throw Ruiz. He did not like the way Morrow did things. So, he did not put forth complete effort. Now, there were games I think he did “fight for the shirt”. But, overall, he did not.
El jefe,
You were rolling until you mentioned Nunez. Where were you going with that?
I agree that Ruiz and the Galaxy will both be better this season. But, I also agree with Buzz, that Ruiz and FC Dallas were not destined to be better for each other this season. But I can’t call an “addition by subtraction” deal a good move, especially when we could have gotten something tangible to help our team on the pitch.
Sure, the allocation and “financial flexibility” may translate into some Superstar this season, but I think it is just as likely that all we get is a long list of excuses about how various deals just couldn’t get done. (See Edgar Davids)
Fair enough explanation. Although, 7 goals out of 25 SOG still doesn’t impress me.
Plus, things like broken legs, sprained ankles, and adding Denilson to the midfield messed up things, too, especially in the last 3 months.
But at any rate, I guess we’ll see in a couple of months what this team can do! I, for one, can’t wait to see what Rocha adds to the mix, given Buzz’s reviews of him.
Well, Nunez might’ve been a general pain-in-the-ass, but he did serve up some assists occasionally. His 2006 total of 4 would’ve put him tied for second on the team in 2007. As it was, the 2 assists that he got in his short time here in 2007 put him in a tie for fourth on the team.
That being said, I wouldn’t put him as near as big of loss as O’Brien or Mulrooney. But his trade contributed to the decline of the service to the forwards.
“I’d much rather have a proven Carlos Ruiz with $400,000 against the cap than an over-the-hill Mexican defender with $400,000 against the cap.”
I’d rather see neither of them count 400k against an MLS cap. This is a false argument anyway. They signed Davino with cap money freed up by getting rid of Hislop, Goodson, Gbandi and Denilson, with extra to spare for another defender. I think they overpaid him, but he facilitates the 3 CB approach, which allows more midfielders (easily the club’s strongest players) on the pitch.
That has nothing to do with Ruiz, or the ability of FCD to get a replacement for him. I fully believe FCD can find a striker to fill that void.
Look at the players other MLS teams have signed in the last couple years:
Blanco
Angel
Luciano Emilio
Galindo
Altidore
Robbie Findley (yes, he outscored Ruiz last year)
Just like everyone else in the league they cost equal to or less than 400k against the cap. With all the cap room they have, FCD can get 2 strikers that are cheaper and better than Ruiz.
Who have the front office brought in to replace those goals? Nobody yet. Very very difficult to argue that today, at this point, that the “trade” (sale?) of Ruiz is a net positive. Maybe in a couple months we can get a better idea – when someone new comes in. El Jefe makes valid points.
Some good comments, but still agree with Buzz on the major points.
a) Not worth 400k. Yes, he had some good goals where, but he was not consistent enough to warrant 400k.
b) Lack of pace, due to lack of fitness, that was becoming increasingly visible.
c) Was given ample opportunity to be a leader and while he did show some fight – like when he showed up right after the Guatemala game to play against Toronto. He also missed practices and didn’t even bother to call and explain his absence. If you want to be a 400k leader, you have to be exemplary. He wasn’t.
I can’t really backup the fact that he was a bit of a party animal. I suppose that if People magazine covered the MLS that we might have something more juicy.
I’m on record as lamenting the service to ruiz as the main culprit for the low scoring. It seems Morrow is making some real midfield moves to get some service = Rocha.
This team won’t win until the midfield gels, and that may not be this year. It simply isn’t worth it to keep Ruiz around while we wait for that to happen – nobody would be happy.
As for Buzz’ post, I could not agree more with the party til you’re dead attitude being a problem.I hate to say it, ’cause I have absolutely no proof, but in many of JG’s match photos last year, Ruiz’ face just looked Maradonesque.
BTW Buzz, what’s the holdup in getting a striker in right now? Don’t we need “Morrow’s guy” (the South American Taylor Twellman) in practice from the beginning, leading the team, in shape from the start, “gel-ing with his teamates”…?
FCU, I certainly would have liked to have seen someone by now. There is lots of spring left, and of course the second window.
But I would certainly prefer to see someone now, waiting would be a mistake IMO.
long ago they knew they were going to “trade” Ruiz…extremely poor manangement if other leagues/teams are signing players and we are excited about Rocha in midfield or Davino playing defense. Unless Thompson is what FC Dallas fans deserve…
Buzz…please dont do another cost per goal comparison…takes away from the high level of approval we all have for your articles…but just like Ruiz misses some clear SOG almost in front of the net last year…we’ll overlook that part of your article..lol
i just dont want to start billing all those forwards that made a living playing in the MLS that on a cost per goal scorecard would end up oweing their team…
I am a coach and i know there are three things i am accountable for:
1. Discipline
2. Motivation
3. Implementing a system of play conducible to winning games.
Report card on those three areas for Morrow….? “F”…
you simply cannot wash your hands saying that you gave him opportunities to be a leader if you did not earn or demand the above from every single one of your players..whether they make $50k or $400k…no excuses.
I think the bottom line is that Ruiz will score more in LA (he better anyway), but FCD will be better off without him for all of the reasons listed above. There is no such thing as a “positive distraction.” That is basically what I interpret all of the pro-Ruiz posts as….he is not worth the distractions regardless of the number of goals he scores. That being said, until FCD replaces him with a striker of similar or greater quality (sans flopping), it will be difficult to say the team is better.
buzz…what’s the record for most comments posted for one of your articles…we have 40 so far and counting…
Ruiz wasn’t worth the money period. Rocha and Davino aren’t taking up his 400k either. We lost 4 other players along with the allocation money that we got so we still have tons of money to spend. Assists will go up this year with 5 midfielders because we will now have wide play and we can spread of the other teams defense which will open holes for the strikers like Cooper, Thompson, and Oduro. We will have to see what happens but this is a good trade IMO.
Also Ruiz is like Denilson in a sense. No leadership, no effort, didn’t meet potential, and got paid way to much for it. I haven’t met anyone that is sad that Denilson is gone,
Thanks Buzz!
Alex, I think this is the record. And if this isn’t a record, it’s damn near close to it.
And please be clear I am not advocating Thompson is the answer. I just compared him to Ruiz to make the point about cost effectiveness.
For those of you who cringe at the thought of “Fish” flopping around on the ground, be prepared to do a lot of cringing this year. With Beckham standing behind him ready to bend shots around walls and goalkeepers, you will see the MLS referees show Carlos the love this year. If these penalty shot flops were counted as assists, he would likely have the most assists in the league this year. Unfortunately, that didn’t work here at FCD and actually disrupted our our play rather than and pissed off the fans. Ruiz will be great in LA. Based on the value that everyone seems to agree that he will provide to the Galaxy, Dallas should have extracted more for him. It appears to me that Dallas is gaining the reputation as being the MLS club that will trade a crinkled up / dirty $20 bill for a pristine $10.
hate to se ruiz go……
“I think the bottom line is that Ruiz will score more in LA (he better anyway), but FCD will be better off without him for all of the reasons listed above.”
The problem with that line of thinking is that his scoring more for LA will lead to LA’s getting more points. Now, if they were already a playoff team, that wouldn’t really make that big of an impact and would just be shuffling the teams around in the playoffs.
But that’s not the case. LA was a non-playoff team last year, but was not far off from being one. Not that picking them to be in the top 8 out of 14 is a bold bet, but if they’re in, someone has to be out.
If he’s the difference between their being in and our being out, are we really better off?
I’m actually quite glad that the little poison pill is in LA. We get to root against him more often, he’ll tie up their salary cap immensely, and Ruud Gullitt will expect him to play the Total Football system in which every player is expected to fill all three roles: forward, midfield, and defender. Can you imagine a player worse suited to that system than Pescadito coming off knee surgery?
the difference Steve is Gullitt. He will demand and earn the respect….and simply stated…Fish will do what he’s asked to do…
if you ever coach sports you will know that some players need motivation and others need discipline but one way or another you have to get the job done…
so i keep going back to the difference between a coach that can motivate or demand from his players..
so the bad news for you Fish haters is that he will actually be in shape this year…if not read the Camp Gullitt article to read about their eating and training regime…
http://sports.yahoo.com/mls/ne...08&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
one question…do u think Pescadito in shape is worth $400k? have u ever seen on replay his bycicle kicks and the way he can score despite being covered by one or two guys…
the guy is not superman…but you give me a player that can score with his feet, in the air and bycicle kicks and demands double teaming from the opposing team’s defense…then to me that’s a $400k plus type of guy. yes. i would demand 12-15 goals per year depending on his other contributions on the field. but if Beckham can get 5, Donovan gets 10 more and Fish can get 15…i say…extend your poison pill guy for 2 more years…
Maybe Carlos in shape would be worth 400k, but I kinda doubt it. He might have reached the point where you can’t undo bad fitness, like Buzz said.
HIS DEPARTURE STILL HURTS!! RIGHT.
NOTHING MORE TO TALK ABOUT.
PUT SOME OIL ON IT. WAIT FOR LA TO COME HOMETOWN.
despite the fact that Carlos Ruiz has bad habits, he scored when the team needed it. He is not the Super Player, but it takes two and sometimes more players to keep him away from the goal. Landon Donovan once said that is frustrating to play with the team where Fish is playing because they have to be on the alert the 90 minutes of the game. Hopefully all will work out for FCD as the coach has said.