Monday, June 14, 2010

Cruzeiro and Salaries

Although the Revolution lost 3-0 last night it was still a fun game to watch. The Revs played well at times and deserved to score a goal. Mansally's effort didn't appear to go in from where I was standing and after watching the replays at the stadium it still didn't appear to enter. I enjoyed watching Roger. He no longer has the pace he once had but he can still pass the ball with accuracy and find the open man. What could've been a very good players never was. I was very impressed with Cruzeiro. They played very well as a team. Good passing. I know this will sound stereotypical but often times Brazilian teams are full of players with no desire to pass the ball. All they want to do is dribble. I know that's not the case normally but often times in these international friendlies that's what we see. It was a fun game to go to.

Ralston enters and gets hurt. I guess it's just been that type of season.

The Benfica game had around 12,000 fans, almost all of which where Portuguese. I haven't found a number for last night but I'd say last night was also around 12,000, most of whom were Brazilians. That's 24,000 people who normally don't go see the Revs. How do the Revs convince these people to come see them? I think a lot of it comes down to the style of play. Lets face it, the Revs often resort to kick and run soccer. At times they put together good passing but they're unable to do it for an entire game. A designated player would help. As I've said before, it doesn't take 3 years to find one. The Revs need to market to soccer fans and not families. They have shifted their marketing approach the past two seasons but it's going to take a lot of time to erase the memories of "Rev it up!! The New England Revolution!!!!!" Yeah, I was in 5th grade and thought that was pretty stupid. I tried finding the commercial on youtube but couldn't. Seriously, if you were 20 something and saw that commercial you would pretty much be convinced that you should avoid a Revs game at all costs.

These international friendlies are a bit tricky for the Revs. As a fan, I don't really care if the Revs win or not. I just want an entertaining game and if the Revs win it's a bonus. The game doesn't count for anything, hence me not caring about a win. I just want to see a well played game. These friendlies are a good opportunity for Nicol to shake up the team a bit. Maybe try a new formation or shift some players to a different position. Or even have a trialist or two like they did during the Benfica game. However, you also have a lot of soccer fans coming to the game who normally don't watch the Revs. You want to have a good game in hopes of convincing some of these fans that MLS and the Revs are legit and that they should come back for some MLS matches. To do that you can't shake up the team and play trialists. So it's difficult for Nicol to balance that. You don't want an embarrassment like they had with Benfica but you also want to use the game to try something new in hopes of improving the team for the MLS season. It's a tough position to be in.

You can head over to MLS Daily to check out the salary numbers for the 2010 season that were just released. MLS Daily does a great job of tracking attendance figures for each team and the league as a whole throughout the season. I'm a bit surprised by Perovic's salary, it's $190,000. He was signed about a week before the season started. So the Revs had quite a bit of cap room at the start of the season (I can't believe $190,000 is considered quite a bit of cap room). I like how the lowest salaried players now make $40,000 a year. It's a livable wage especially when compared to prior seasons. Take a look, it's always interesting to see how much players in MLS make. Speaking of which, I hate how the league does not disclose transfer fees such as the recent Kljestan transfer.

-Andrew

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