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Taylor Twellman had a chance to make a lot more money in England. (CHRIS ADUAMA/aduama.com) |
Despite making the "maximum" salary under the salary cap, everyone knows MLS's salary and cap rules are more suggestions than Draconian laws. Someone is going to need to find a way to pay Taylor some more money. You just can't block an employee from tripling his income and then expect peak performance.
Not unless you're an idiot.
For the second time in two weeks I find myself writing about a Revolution player associated with a small-time British team. Last time it was Andy Dorman going to St. Mirren.
And what strikes me about both situations is the disconnect between MLS thinking of itself as a second tier soccer league and then finding out that even the crappy teams in Europe's second tier can pay a lot more money to and for players.
Preston North End isn't contending for a playoff spot this season. They're trying to haul their asses out of the fire. Twellman would have been going to a club that may well find itself playing third division (League One!?!?!) opposition next season.
I could have argued that Dorman was not a top MLS player, and that his move to a less than great Scottish club for more money said little about MLS (I didn't actually make that argument). BUT...Taylor Twellman is as good a striker as MLS has ever produced. And Preston North End not only bid $2-2.5M for him, but offered to pay him more than $1M a year.
This isn't Clint Dempsey's move to Fulham or Freddy Adu's Benfica transfer. Why is that?
Clearly, both Dempsey and Adu are more skillful players than Twellman, if by skillful you mean able to do nice tricks with the ball at their feet, but if you're talking about the ability to put the ball in the net, let's call that effectiveness, neither one holds a candle to Twellman.
My Argentine friend Francisco hates when I do this, but I would liken Twellman to Martin Palermo of Boca Juniors. He's not much to watch. He doesn't take players on very often. He can look clumsy with the ball at his feet, and his first touch leaves more than a little wanting. Really, the only thing that makes him worth keeping on the field is this uncanny knack he has for kicking the ball into the goal, which, as it turns out, is how you win soccer games.
Of course, none of that is really being fair to Twellman. He's good in the air. He's a better passer than he appears to be, and he does the thing that all great strikers do, which is he finds clever ways to make space for himself.
So why do Adu and Dempsey earn moves to top division clubs, and Twellman gets an invite to play in Preston, a place that was only made a city in 2002? It sits next to the River Ribble. So that must be nice, but it's hardly the glamor of West London or the prestige of Lisbon's biggest club.
I don't get it.
What I do get is that the more of these deals (whether they go through or not) that make the papers, the less and less talented young Americans are going to want to sign long term deals with MLS. Do you think any of this is going to have Michael Parkhurst thinking about the best way to realize his dreams? Yeah. I think so too.
And just because I'm cynical and a little cruel, what does any of this say about David Beckham moving from Real Madrid to MLS's worst club? It's as though he went back to England to play for Colchester or Scunthorpe. Do you think either of those clubs could pay him $5M a season to hobble around and sell tickets for them?
Yeah. They probably could.
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