The Expansion Draft and the beginning of silly season came and went, and I was unable to find an enticing overarching issue to discuss. But then Orlando City SC went out and got Brek Shea, and then the details of how the deal happened came out too.
Ahh, Major League Soccer, you never let us down.
But before I get into that, here’s a quick recap of what has happened in MLS since my last Wins Column two weeks ago:
The Expansion Draft came and went with a lot of unexpected choices (for the record, we had some pretty good predictions, at least compared to the pros over on MLSsoccer.com). Garth Lagerway, who along with Jason Kreis created the average Joe of a juggernaut that is Real Salt Lake, may have found a new job in 2015 with the Seattle Sounders front office. D.C. City Council voted unanimously in favour of D.C. United’s Buzzard Point stadium proposal, which puts the new building on course (at least for now) to open in 2017. Negotiations for a new CBA have gone…wait, no news there?
Damn it.
To end on a positive note, Orlando City SC acquired former FC Dallas star and 2011 MLS MVP finalist Brek Shea from Stoke City. The best part for fans across the league is that they don’t have to watch as yet another promising young star sees their European dreams crumble. The even better part for Orlando City SC and their fans is that he fits perfectly into their expected 4-2-3-1 formation and that he isn’t a DP.
That’s better. Back to this week’s column.
Apparently Don Garber didn’t deem Shea to be “of a certain caliber” to either become a DP or avoid the allocation ranking. And apparently in the world of business transactions, pen and paper have been benched in favour of the more traditional spoken-word promise.
This past semester, one of my marketing professors told our class to “never take a deal without a contract”. There are just too many risks of a communication breakdown, a disagreement, or a downright duping. Search up “Lewis Archer Coronation Street” if you’re unclear what duping really means. He’ll give you plenty of examples.
Thanks to the Lewis’ of the world, heck, thanks to Adam and Eve, the pinky swear is no longer found outside of school zones.
But New York City FC had the top spot in the allocation ranking and weren’t going to pass on Shea. But with Kreis at the coaching helm, they weren’t going to pass up Real Salt Lake players available for free in the expansion draft.
Orlando, wanting to keep the peace and make life easier for everyone, quietly told NYCFC they wouldn’t take any RSL players in the expansion draft so long as NYCFC passed up the chance to get Shea. I would say that the deal went through, but that’s like saying the deal to trade my slice of pizza for your meatball sub during our lunch break “went through”.
There was no third-party approval, or at least any that we know of. There was no protection in place if Orlando took RSL players with their first two picks or if my pizza gave you food poisoning. There’s no record of the exact details of the deal that can be looked up for future reference. For all we know, Claudio Reyna might have gotten free tickets to Walt Disney World to sweeten the pot.
Call it interesting. Call it a stroke of genius by OCSC brass to make a deal out of thin air. I’m calling it shady.
It isn’t as shady as Camilo’s contract craziness from a year ago, and it pales in comparison to the Jermaine Jones saga this past summer. But the fact of the matter remains that the Lions got themselves a top-drawer talent by doing something along the lines of batting their eyelashes. There are times when life isn’t fair, but in cases like these life is just plain cruel.
Try all you want, but it’s impossible to prevent two parties from communicating as long as both parties are in the mood to talk. I don’t doubt that these things happen all the time. But this kind of schoolyard promise is in a caliber of its own.
OCSC played a mind game with NYCFC. The two clubs were like Sharks and Jets readying for a fistfight, but then OCSC decided to pull out a gun. The gun could take an RSL player in the Expansion Draft just as quickly as it could end the fistfight before it began.
“Is it loaded?” NYCFC asked, with a stare looking many worlds away, their body paralyzed in shock.
“Want me to pull the trigger and find out?” OCSC replied.
NYCFC shook their head, pulled out their wallet and their car keys and with a quivering hand placed them on the ground at their feet. Or at least where their feet were, before running in the opposite direction.
The problem with this “East Side Story” is that nobody will ever know if OCSC’s gun was loaded. It could have been a legitimate offer from Orlando, sacrificing on adding to their roster one way in order to add another way. Or it could have been a bluff, capitalizing on NYCFC’s fears while not having to sacrifice anything to get what they wanted.
Had Orlando waited a few days, they could have picked up a Chris Wingert or a Sebastian Velasquez in the Expansion Draft and shipped them off to NYCFC in exchange for the top spot in the allocation ranking and first dibs on Shea. Would it not have been as great a deal for Orlando? Yes, but it would have been an official transaction and wouldn’t have left NYCFC fans wondering if they had been taken for a ride.
Shea left MLS ahead of the 2013 season on top of the world. He returns to MLS appearing giddy as ever. But in the two years between Shea experienced an Adu-like fall from grace that saw him ride the bench in the Premier League, get loaned out twice to teams in the (gasp!) Championship, ride the bench there, fight the odd fan or two, and, ahem, stink.
If he unstinks in 2015, he could be the steal of the season on the MLS transfer market. If he plays really well, NYCFC fans will be thinking “what if” for years to come.
But sink or swim in 2015, Brek Shea has definitely etched his name into my MLS history book.
Thank you for reading. Please take a moment to follow me on Twitter –@MichaelNorton95. Support LWOS by following us on Twitter – @LastWordOnSport – and “liking” our Facebook page.
Have you tuned into Last Word On Sports Radio? LWOS is pleased to bring you 24/7 sports radio to your PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone. What are you waiting for?
Feel free to discuss this and other footy related articles with thousands of fans at r/football.
