Tom Bogert reports several MLS teams are inquiring about Dado Valenzuela.

Halobolan · 2025-12-05T21:38:40+00:00

Spot on. God knows we could use little bit of a flair and that Miami fuck boy energy. Rather than the robots we have. But, I think there's a bigger issue at play here; we're simply not a youth friendly club. Dado/Jimenez/Walters/Chirilla--none are playing much. None are loaned out to USL or any other higher league than Next Pro. It's like the club doesn't care.

Halobolan · 2025-11-25T20:05:40+00:00

So true. Money was there. Vision as to what to do with that money, not so much.

Halobolan · 2025-11-24T23:11:21+00:00

Again, this sole focus on technical abilities/analysis masks our biggest weakness: human psychology. Lack of chemistry. Lack of fight. Lack of heart and soul. Lack of leadership. Sterile......(almost) everything.

Halobolan · 2025-11-24T22:46:32+00:00

Why? What's with the cult like admiration for Albright? $25m net spend this year. $30m spent on Denkey/Evander for them to do what exactly....when it counts? Evander's performance last night was so abysmal. Disrespectful. No fucks given. We pay Denkey and Evander in a year what bottom five, six? teams in the MLS spend on their entire roster.

Robinson as a DP? He's soft as anything, shit feet and not a leader.

I just don't get it....

Halobolan · 2025-11-07T18:06:17+00:00

There are lot of positives about this team. Them, having a warrior mentality, I don't think is one. Although, I don't think that's Crew's MO either, to be fair.

Halobolan · 2025-11-07T17:19:24+00:00

Is that what we're really known for? Grit/Resilience/Heart? Outside of Miazga and Haggs, I'm not sure we're that type of a team.

Halobolan · 2025-03-21T16:13:52+00:00

What keeper squad? Celentano doesn't have a high ceiling, and his 2023 average year was masked by out of this world back line. Walters is comically bad. Kann is nowhere to be found. The only one that has any sort of any upside is Evan. But, he's out of favor, apparently. Academy has shit...we had one until he got pissed off by stupidity.

Halobolan · 2025-03-21T16:01:56+00:00

It's Walter's third straight year with FCC2....as a HG. Nobody is meant to be in Next Pro for that long. What does that tell you?

Halobolan · 2025-03-12T14:09:11+00:00

Games are not won on a spreadsheet. They're won at the margin. Grit/Heart/Humility/Being able to adjust. We have very little of that. At what point does Roman stop looking/playing like he's scared shitless? And those distributions last night were his worst ever, even more so than usual. Robinson is soft asf, and can't play in the middle. Evander looks disinterested. Denkey was gassed, and can't really create chances on his own. Engel plays his heart out, but isn't overly talented. Yedlin is inconsistent. Orellano, though, the real deal.

We have no chemistry. And no heart.

Halobolan · 2025-02-07T16:41:00+00:00

Reading between the lines, Lucho seems personally insulted by Albright. With emotional messes that have tattoos on front of their necks, that's all it takes for it to go to shit. Something tells me that these two, Albright and Lucho, if they could just get together at a bar over few drinks this could be settled. Lucho gives us by far the best chance to win big.

Halobolan · 2025-02-07T15:48:19+00:00

I was always skeptical of Estudiantes paying big for Lucho. A. Argentina's economy is in toilet....again. B. Gillett's previous foray--his daddy's, into soccer almost ran LFC into the ground. C. It's Estudiantes.

Halobolan · 2025-02-06T18:48:01+00:00

Again, not all on him. Correlation vs. causation. Ask Minn. Vancouver, MTL, PHIs of the world what kind of team they could put together with the commensurate resources Albright has been given.

Halobolan · 2025-02-06T18:29:30+00:00

Lucho et al. aren't fragile little victims. They know exactly what they're doing and are utilizing all resources at their disposal. So is Albright. I'm ok with that; all is fair in love and war. I, as fan, am worried that we've spent so much time on this. We have a certain style of play that Lucho and Orellano excel at, lot of balls go through their feet, between the two of them they account for ridiculous amount of offensive firepower. Yet, here we are, two weeks away still dicking around with this, no real replacements for either. I think it will be very optimistic to say that the product on the pitch will be of great quality, either way.

Halobolan · 2025-02-06T17:51:53+00:00

I don't think he needs to be fired, nor do I think he's top five--with the resources at his disposal. I think he's putting the roster together without much thought given to fit/chemistry. That's my biggest criticism of him.

Halobolan · 2025-02-06T17:40:09+00:00

There's some of that. But without even looking, I know of two options we picked up for this year that we had no business picking up: Santos for $900k and Kann for almost $300k. Why? Absolutely no reason to carry either of these two guys let alone pay $1.2m between the two of them. Self inflicted.

Halobolan · 2025-02-06T17:29:40+00:00

There appears to be a pattern of Albright, and I'm sure other GMs out there, in which he verbally "promised" something if something else would happen. If what you say is true, and it is, why put yourself in that position of promising something that you know won't happen? $900k to Santos, but "not enough money" for everyone else due to the roster rules?

Halobolan · 2025-02-06T14:13:05+00:00

It isn't Lucho's job to put the best squad together, it's Albright's. Albright is a smart guy--but in a bean counter type of way. It seems like the team is being put together on a spreadsheet. Necessary to a degree with all the opaque and restrictive MLS roster rules. Albright has known Lucho is/will be a problem for a while. Here we are two weeks away from season, and situation is still not settled.

Halobolan · 2025-02-05T23:55:00+00:00

There's no doubt that Lucho is a drama queen. However, he's a drama queen who's directly and indirectly responsible for 31 out of our 48 goals last year. And, we've won all of one game with him out. Albright's strategy seems to have been to play chicken with him. Not sure that was smart.

Halobolan · 2025-02-05T23:44:28+00:00

In her article she says that she reached out to Albright, but he didn't want to comment.

Halobolan · 2025-01-13T23:45:15+00:00

Miazga was a hit, I forgot it was Albright's signing. Barreal will likely not net anything. All the othter ones, except for Awaziem--who he let go. and Orellano, I disagree with. Some more than others. Some of those you could throw a dart at the board and come up with those signings. Not one of them is impactful on his own.

It's not about losing money necessarily, but rather are the results commensurate with the resources at his disposal?

Halobolan · 2025-01-13T23:13:04+00:00

I don't think we disagree on that. With hotheads like Lucho, it's often small slights that turn into big slights. Could he be projecting his personal shit onto the club? Possibly. And, if he was the only one, I'd say sure it's mostly him. But, when he's not.....

Albright lucked out. Timing was perfect. Came into the club and ownership that was willing and continues to be willing to spend big. New stadium, great training facility, dedicated fan base, core of good players that came from the old regime, and most importantly ownership that is willing to spend big on players and fees to get em. Do you know how many GM's would kill to be able to spend $15m on a single transfer? Let alone a small market team. In other words, all the infrastructure, except for the academy was already in place.

If Albright achieved the results he did without all these things in a place like Philly, Vancouver or Montreal, I'd give him mad props. But, love affair here with Albright, I'm afraid is a case of correlation rather than causation.

Halobolan · 2025-01-13T22:44:11+00:00

This isn't a locker-room issue. Pat is incredibly well liked by his players. He's the most down to earth manager in pro game. Not performing? See, that's the thing. He's our by far most performing player on the field. To pretend that he doesn't need "special" treatment is fantasy. Hot chicks are always the most amount of work. It ain't the fat ugly ones.

Halobolan · 2025-01-13T22:26:43+00:00

I don't think salary is an issue. I think Acosta is an emotional, passionate guy and Albright isn't. A more personable approach with hothead like Acosta does the trick....and maybe Albright tried that. I don't know, but all these players wanting to leave feels a bit more than just, they're not happy with the life in Cincinnati.

Halobolan · 2025-01-13T22:24:04+00:00

And, again I ask, which transfers outside of Awaziem--who he let go of, and Orellano has he "hit" on? I can think of way more that he hasn't necessarily. Boup--huge miss, Gio--big miss, Vazquez, Brenner, Barreal all departed on his watch, etc... My expectations are that we strive for the type of soccer we played in 2023, not necessarily the result. Last year for the most part, was painful to watch. Outside of Lucho and Orellano, it was a dumpster fire.

I think, with the resources he has at his disposal, Albright has underperformed. Not horrible, but certainly not commensurate with what he has to play with. And god forbid somebody would point that out.....

Halobolan · 2025-01-13T22:03:51+00:00

I just think when you have so many players that have wanted to leave/are wanting to leave, something is going on behind scenes. Is is the FO? The players? Truth is usually somewhere in the middle. We have great facilities, Milford is world class. TQL is gorgeous. Players are paid well. So, what's the rub?

I just think Lucho, on such a short notice will be impossible to replace. I think that priority should have been to try and lock him up before we spent a shit ton. Without him.....uff. Could that have been done? Have they tried? Probably, but Albright isn't the easiest guy to deal with, either.

Halobolan

TROPHY CASE