A successful sports franchise does a lot of things right. Most fans would reference an ownership group that is willing to spend money as the most important element of sporting success. Others may point to a strong scouting system or good coaching staff as the keys to victory.
Me? I’ll point to something much simpler: effective communication between parties. In recent weeks, both the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Philadelphia Union have lacked this communication, and both may end up paying the price this coming MLS season.
Vancouver’s communication problems have been in the news ever since the New Year. The “Camilo Conundrum” did not cease even after Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi gave his now famous “This is our player” speech. More pictures emerged from Querétaro’s Twitter account showing Camilo training with the club, and these ones did not get removed like the previous ones. On Friday, Camilo was officially sold to Querétaro for an undisclosed “club record” fee.
Much of the blame, as I wrote previously, falls on Major League Soccer’s lack of transparency. But something also has to be said about Vancouver’s unawareness-borderline-ignorance treatment of the situation. The club stood firm on the fact they had picked up his contract option for 2014, but clearly neither Camilo nor his agent were made aware.
The Whitecaps’ mishaps did not stop there though. At Thursday’s SuperDraft the club used their seventh overall pick to acquire 19-year-old Jamaican midfielder Andre Lewis. Arguably the best player at the MLS Player Combine, Lewis was a projected first-round pick, making the pick seem like a good one from the onset.
It wasn’t. A report on Friday from Goal.com said that Lewis had already signed a contract with the NASL’s New York Cosmos before the Combine. Also, it was reported that Lewis had trained with the Cosmos back in November and had travelled with them on a tour to Spain. Both reports were confirmed to be true, and it was also confirmed by Whitecaps head coach Carl Robinson that the club knew about Lewis’ Cosmos contract before drafting him.
That afternoon, the Whitecaps said via Twitter that Lewis was contracted to them. MLS later said quite the opposite. As the league’s VP of player personnel stated, “In the event the Whitecaps want to retain the player…then he will be with them on a loan or after a transfer from the Cosmos”. Note the from the Cosmos part. That’s the important part, the part that could only be misunderstood if it was communicated by semaphore. The Whitecaps misunderstood it.
But, as we all know, good things in sports always come in threes. On draft day it was widely expected that Vancouver would take goalkeeper Andre Blake with the third overall selection. Blake’s skill, combined with Vancouver’s clear need in goal, were a match made in heaven. In order to confirm their date with destiny, Vancouver tried to make a deal with D.C. United to obtain the first overall pick in the draft.
They thought they had done it too. Rumour has it that the deal was all but finalized, with Vancouver sending allocation money and the third pick to D.C. in exchange for the first pick. But once again Vancouver got the short end of the stick. Philadelphia’s offer of one pick higher was accepted by D.C. at the last minute, leaving Vancouver on the sidelines to watch Blake get chosen by the Union with the first overall pick.
By picking Blake, Philadelphia have created their own goalkeeping controversy. But it is not just incumbent starter Zac MacMath that has been left out in the cold by the organization.
Philadelphia is currently the only team in MLS without a Designated Player on its roster. This past week, the club appeared to be on the verge of signing former Toronto FC midfielder Maurice Edu from Stoke City on a DP contract. But with everything in place, the club and the player got the wrong response from the league.
After watching their Toronto counterparts sign fellow American midfielder Michael Bradley to a lucrative DP contract earlier in the week, the Union assumed they could follow suit. Considering Edu’s deal would be for less money than Bradley’s, they decided not to even bother checking with the league. Bad idea.
The head honchos at Major League Soccer run the league like a dictatorship. They choose what to say and what to hide, they choose who to help and who to harm. Philadelphia used excellent logic in determining their course of action, but MLS took that logic and ripped it up in their faces.
One can only hope that the Whitecaps and the Union learn from their mistakes. Thinking big is fine and dandy, but only once every little detail is working to a T. Being able to communicate effectively is something we teach kids to do from the minute they are born. But why it eludes both of these organizations is something I can’t put into words.
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