General Soccer Thread

[thrill]

Holy crap! Fulham just bought Bryan Ruiz for $16mil. Aka, Clint's asking price. Is he actually going?

[lukethedrifter]

brief explanation of how the transfer system works please?

[robbotis]

brief explanation of how the transfer system works please?

Basically instead of trading players you buy them.
That's really about it.
You still need the player to agree to the transfer and wage at the new club though.

[thrill]

brief explanation of how the transfer system works please?

Two transfer seasons, one in the summer, one in the winter (the month of January and part of February iirc). Unlike American sports, soccer has multiple top-level leagues that are willing to pay top dollar. Because of that, movement between teams and leagues is very common. Unlike the NFL where it's apparently a betrayal of all that is good and holy in the world, demanding a raise or a transfer is business as usual in soccer due to the economic disparity between leagues and the power teams in those leagues vs the rest.

There are three types of transfers.
Most common - a purchase. This is essentially a team coming to the team that owns a player and says, I want that dude. How much for you to tear up his contract and give us his rights. In the speculated case of Clint Dempsey for example, Arsenal or whatever interested team would call Fulham and say how much do you want? Fulham has apparently said $16,000,000. If Arsenal or team X pays that fee, Clint becomes their property and they agree to personal terms. This negotiation is usually pretty simple because if a team is willing to pay that much money to get your rights, they're going to give you the personal contract you want. Also, the player has a say in whether or not they will accept the transfer. So if Arsenal and Fulham agreed to terms, Clint then spoke to Arsenal and didn't like the money they were offering, he would tell Arsenal, I want X amount of dollars for my new contract. If Arsenal won't pay it, the transfer is off and Clint remains a Fulham FC player. It is in the player and the player's agent's interest to agree to most transfers as they get 10% and the agent gets 10% of that or whatever the going rate is for agents. So Clint would pocket $1,600,000 as a bonus and his agent would pocket $160,000.

Second most common - The Bosman. This is basically a free agent signing. You are no doubt aware of the case of MLB vs Curt Flood that essentially opened up free agency for MLB players. Before that there was the akin to slavery system blah blah blah. Well Jean-Marc Bosman back in the day was soccer's Curt Flood. So they named the court ruling that allowed players to move freely to new teams when their contracts are up after him.

Trade/$$ combo - Right now for example, Chelsea is rumored to be offering 8 mil pounds + a player named Yossi Benayoun to Liverpool for a player named Raul Meireles. This doesn't happen often, but it's often enough. A couple years ago Inter Milan famously got Samuel Eto + like $50,000,000 to give Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Barcelona. Inter and Eto thrived and won a Champions League. Ibrahimovic was an [expletive], Barcelona lost to Inter in the final 4 of the Champions League and later sold him to AC Milan for like $45,000,000. Inter just sold Eto to a Russian team for an ungodly sum, Eto is now the second highest paid athlete salary in the world (behind A Rod and maybe Pujols in a few months) and basically they robbed Barcelona blind in that scenario.

[JackofDiamonds]

brief explanation of how the transfer system works please?

Two transfer seasons, one in the summer, one in the winter (the month of January and part of February iirc). Unlike American sports, soccer has multiple top-level leagues that are willing to pay top dollar. Because of that, movement between teams and leagues is very common. Unlike the NFL where it's apparently a betrayal of all that is good and holy in the world, demanding a raise or a transfer is business as usual in soccer due to the economic disparity between leagues and the power teams in those leagues vs the rest.

There are three types of transfers.
Most common - a purchase. This is essentially a team coming to the team that owns a player and says, I want that dude. How much for you to tear up his contract and give us his rights. In the speculated case of Clint Dempsey for example, Arsenal or whatever interested team would call Fulham and say how much do you want? Fulham has apparently said $16,000,000. If Arsenal or team X pays that fee, Clint becomes their property and they agree to personal terms. This negotiation is usually pretty simple because if a team is willing to pay that much money to get your rights, they're going to give you the personal contract you want. Also, the player also has a say in whether or not they will accept the transfer. So if Arsenal and Fulham agreed to terms, Clint then spoke to Arsenal and didn't like the money they were offering, he would tell Arsenal, I want X amount of dollars for my new contract. If Arsenal won't pay it, the transfer is off and Clint remains a Fulham FC player. It is in the player and the player's agent's interest to agree to most transfers as they get 10% and the agent gets 10% of that or whatever the going rate is for agents. So Clint would pocket $1,600,000 as a bonus and his agent would pocket $160,000.

Second most common - The Bosman. This is basically a free agent signing. You are no doubt aware of the case of MLB vs Curt Flood that essentially opened up free agency for MLB players. Before that there was the akin to slavery system blah blah blah. Well Jean-Marc Bosman back in the day was soccer's Curt Flood. So they named the court ruling that players to move freely to new teams when their contracts are up.

Trade/$$ combo - Right now for example, Chelsea is rumored to be offering 8 mil pounds + a player named Yossi Benayoun to Liverpool for a player named Raul Meireles. This doesn't happen often, but it's often enough. A couple years ago Inter Milan famously got Samuel Eto + like $50,000,000 to give Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Barcelona. Inter and Eto thrived and won a Champions League. Ibrahimovic was an [expletive], Barcelona lost to Inter in the final 4 of the Champions League and later sold him to AC Milan for like $45,000,000. Inter just sold Eto to a Russian team for an ungodly sum, Eto is now the second highest paid athlete salary in the world (behind A Rod and maybe Pujols in a few months) and basically they robbed Barcelona blind in that scenario.

Ahem.

[thrill]

Screw you, cake eater.

[robbotis]

Screw you, cake eater.

Yeah, Inter had an awesome period.
they kept Snejder, sold Eto, and then got Forlan, and pocketed plenty of cash.
Still, they'll probably finish 3rd, behind Juventus and AC Milan.
The Bianconeri is back.

[maddash]

I've been trying to learn more about soccer (see my EPL thread) and I've been getting some valuable info from this thread. Question though, I just learned from this thread that the UEFA Champions League apparently runs in parallel to the English Premiere League. Is that correct? So how many games a week will a team play on average? Two? It's just the Champions League and their home league (EPL, La Liga, etc) for the top tier teams, right? For example, Real Madrid would play one Champions League game and one La Liga game per week (roughly). Correct?

[thrill]

I've been trying to learn more about soccer (see my EPL thread) and I've been getting some valuable info from this thread. Question though, I just learned from this thread that the UEFA Champions League apparently runs in parallel to the English Premiere League. Is that correct? So how many games a week will a team play on average? Two? It's just the Champions League and their home league (EPL, La Liga, etc) for the top tier teams, right? For example, Real Madrid would play one Champions League game and one La Liga game per week (roughly). Correct?

Yeah but the champions league schedule is really spread out. Like 2 games a month.

[thrill]

0-0 at half.

Jozy looks like a new man. Such confidence and his runs against the offside trap have been better than I've seen from him.

Still suffering with our end product. Final pass not there. Love roaming Donovan.

Donovan as the trequartista in the 4-3-3 really works, keeps him involved.

Color me skeptical that we can play this expansively against real competition ftr.

I also don't rate Castillo & Orozco.