August 25th, 2008

With 9 games remaining, DC United sit at 31 points, and tied for forth in the Eastern Conference. In the next 2 months, they have 7 additional matches to play, including the US Open Cup final, and CONCACAF Champions League Group play. DC will obviously want to win the Open Cup, as it serves as automatic qualification into the Champions League next year, and DC has made it clear thru words and actions that it very seriously wants to compete well in International competition. Superliga didn’t work out so well, so we can only hope that they were tanking it, and Champions League will be a different story.

This brings me to the point of my post.

The constraints of the MLS Single Entity system has been discussed ad nauseum on tv, blogs, and message boards. I won’t get into it here. All the teams know the rules, and are forced to play by them *unless you are LA Galaxy.

Knowing the salary issues associated with it, DC United decided to bring in a designated player. Marcello Gallardo, with a storied international and club career, was brought into be the natural successor to Christian Gomez. Gomez, who wanted more money and more years, left town to Colorado, where he has shown flashes of skill, but now resides on the bench of a bad team. In June, Gallardo has shown flashes of why he was brought in, with the ability to link up with Emilio and help in the offense. At the time his arrival, it was stressed that he wouldn’t be the goal scorer that Gomez was, and he hasn’t been (4 goals in 12 matches). And it has also been discussed that judging a players contributions, particularly a player like #10, is difficult and open to interpretation (see here). His serious injury has made this point all the more obvious, and has possibly exaggerated its seriousness.

But why did DC United, knowing the salary cap constraints, choose to use the DP slot, and decide to use it on Marcello Gallardo.

Gallardo is not 25. He’s 32. In soccer years, that’s like 40 for baseball players. His salary cap hit is $300,000, or 4.5 Santino Quarantas. He has three assists, and has now been injured 2 months, and has played in two less games than Rod Dyachenko.

With one player taking up 13% of the salary cap, and 7% more being used by an inactive Ben Olsen, DC United severely tied their hands in regard to player acquisition this year. Add to this constraint the erroneous Niell move which also cost 150k and Jose Carvallo, who was not cheap and played in one (ONE!!) game, and DC was forced to sign cheap, cheap, cheap bench players. DC was so tight that it lost Andrew Jacobson to Lorient, a lower table Ligue 1 team, a league not known for its high salaries. The year before, DC lost Jay Needham to a USL team for the same reason. A draft pick who they could afford to pay the meager developmental salary, Dan Stratford, was waived after showing general ineffectiveness.

With the decision to utilize the DP slot, and the unwise moves stated above, DC needed to draft well. Well, it didn’t, and it never has. Jeremy Barlow, drafted, waived. Justin Moose, drafted, waived. Jerson Montiero, traded for draft picks, waived. Brandon Owens, drafted, unsigned. Tony Schmitz, drafted, never offered contract.

To be successful in this or any league, you need depth, talent, and a little luck. In MLS, you are hamstrung unlike in any other league in the world. Because of that, you need a lot more luck and a more evenly spread out team talent wise. Look at New England and Houston. Common thread…no designated player, strong bench, take the Draft seriously and sign the players they draft. Also, notice their success in MLS Cup and in regular season results.

My main point. The designated player rule is a flop. Is it a success commercially? Yes. As far as on field results, the jury is out. LA has been bad, most likely because of the DP rule. Chicago has done well, but they have an otherwise strong side, with multiple international players. KC is in the basement. Columbus is an anomaly, but I will mostly ignore that as its counterfactual to my argument, and bloggers can do that. If DC wants to continue to use the DP slot, much more attention needs to be paid to college teams, and future foreign acquisitions need to be economical and successful. At the end of the season, I’ll revisit this argument to see where the taems using the DP slot finished.

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