It’s a sad day to see Seba gone, but I never would’ve assumed it was quite this bad.
http://www.timesherald.com/article/20120131/SPORTS03/120139878
“It had gotten to the point where I said to them, to Nick, to Peter, to everyone, ‘Just give me a contract and I will sign it,’” said Le Toux, who spoke exclusively with the Daily Times. “I wanted to stay in Philly. I didn’t care about the money.”
“The only thing they wanted is the money,” Le Toux said. “Being with this team and being a guy, not to build around, but to help this team, was what I wanted. … They must have wanted to sell me for money because they needed money. We don’t have a nice practice facility and that is something they promised since I am here. It’s terrible.”
“That’s why they pushed me to Bolton — money.”
“I told them I would consider (Bolton), but I knew it wasn’t good for me,” Le Toux said. “I was out of shape. I hadn’t kicked a ball in five weeks. I didn’t want to go over there and injure myself in cold weather. What good is that for me or (the Union)?”
“I asked Peter (Monday at YSC) what was going on and he didn’t let me talk,” Le Toux said. “He started to get mad at me, telling me that I was very not respectful to leave Bolton early. I told him, ‘First, I respect myself.’ But I always did everything they asked me to do. I came from vacation in the Dominican Republic for the Bimbo (sponsorship) announcement. I always was respectful. … It was like he was saying, ‘I don’t know if I can trust you on this team.’
“I’m sad because of the way I was treated by the staff. I’m disgusted,” Le Toux said. “I’m sorry for the guy who already bought my jersey. Maybe he can get the refund.”
and to end the whole thing on a great note…
While taking calls and texts from Whitecaps officials, with details of his flight this morning to Phoenix for training, Le Toux reflected on March 31, when Vancouver visits the Union at PPL Park. “I expect to win and I expect nothing more,” he said. Le Toux said he had no regrets leaving the Union in this manner. He was an all-star in 2010, a legitimate MVP candidate in 2011 and a fan favorite. Still, he said, he would not consider a return to the Union. “I would be happy to just retire than play for Peter again,” Le Toux said.
After lsoing Faryd Mondragon and Sebastien Le Toux, two of the teams most recognizable and beloved members, a lot of people are wondering what the team has planned for the future, both short term and long. Of course Seba and Faryd were two of the oldest players on the roster and both took up valuable starting spots. It seems to me that the Union might be considering entering a team into the Olympics. Roster rules require that a team enter 23 players, which we might not quite make, and allow only 3 players over the age of 23. Taking a look at the Union’s roster, it becomes a serious consideration.
A quick look at our players under 23.They already have 17 available
M/F Adu 22
M Michael Farfan 23
M/D Gabe Farfan 23
D Gaddis 22
F Hoffmann 21
M Jordan 21
M Khalfan 23
GK MacMath 20
F Martinez 21
F McInerney 19
M McLaughlin 18
F Mwanga 20
M Nakazawa 23
M Okugo 20
M Pfeffer 17
M Torres 20
D Williams 21
So ten mids, two and a half (Garfan) defenders, and five and a half forwards(Adu) and a single goalie. If we bring down Callif, Valdes and Poriforo Lopez to fill in the backline we’ll have an entire starting lineup. Fill two spots for the keepers behind MacMath with underage players and we’re only one spot from being Olympic eligible. Maybe sign Christian Hernandez? And then sucede from the Union! Sucede and Suceed. The new Union slogan!
“Le Toux is fighting to stay with the Union, despite the interest from Bolton and other teams, the Le Toux is fighting to stay with the Union, despite the interest from Bolton and other teams, the source said.” from The Brotherly Game
That’s about all we’ve got. Apparently they want to get the money that a transfer of a star player would allow them to collect, and as a team centered around the future I can’t honestly say its a bad idea. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. I love watching Seba play as much as anyone else, but apparently he’s gone. It sounds like the money raised from his transfer would allow for the team to buy Roger Torres permanently which would be great, but worth it?
We’ll see what happens. I thought we had made all our moves early on this offseason. We didn’t need many changes and we filled all of the holes. Seems like now is time to create some new holes. Youth is good and going into the season as a team of young 20 somethings is great in a growing league like MLS, but its hard to see the only best player your club has ever had get traded. We could mostly accept a transfer to Bolton, nobody expected Seba to stay when there was an EPL offer on the table, but to send him to another MLS team hurts some. Hopefully it isn’t done yet, but it might be. I really don’t think we’ll totally know what this team looks like until the first open practice.
In honor of our latest MVP returning to his hometown club. I was never a huge fan of Faryd, mostly because I saw him leaving in under two years and wanted to see MacMath get his time before he needed it, but Mondy was good while he was here.
In other news, rumors are floating that we might be sending another player back to their own Cali. Roger Torres may be getting recalled, although I admitedly have very little to confirm that with. After seeing how the Union handled MOF’s loan last year I trust that anything is possible.
There’s been talk of Colombian striker Lionard Pajoy being signed by the team, especially in the face of Seba and Danny potentially leaving the club. Fox Sports Power Rankings is saying that we have signed Pajoy. I haven’t seen anything else on this recently but I assume a bigsite like this is well-edited. Then again considering the lead was buried so deep they can’t be breaking the story and it hasn’t been anywhere else. Also Pajoy isn’t listed on the Union’s roster page on their website. Very curious.
We mentioned before that there’s been a lot of additions this offseason, and the team looks like it could really be revamped for the coming season. But of course as the transfer window comes to a close on the other side of the pond we may have to take a serious look at some of our favorites leaving. Being sucha young team we haven’t really had to deal with loss yet. Ale Moreno was pretty well liked, but he’d only been here a year and wasn’t the best player on the team. Carlos Ruiz was arguably one of the best on the team, but was widely disliked and didn’t even complete a full year before heading to Mexico. Maybe somebody was upset about Jordan Harvey?
Now we have to contend with a few more serious chances of loss. Danny Mwanga and Seba Le Toux aren’t definites to come back. Michael Farfan was training with Sunderland although it was confirmed that that was not a trial and was just training. Amobi, Zac, Jack and Zach all went on training stints too although they were never really expected to go anywhere. Keon Daniel may never return depending on how his Dengue Fever and passport issues are going. Freddy wants to go back to Europe already and Roger Torres’ team is going bankrupt and we have no idea what they want to do with that loan. Paunovic has also officially retired.
In theory all of these players could leave(although the players who are just training are all but definitely coming back), but some would be bigger set backs then othersThe real threats to leave are Keon, Seba, Danny and Roger along with Veljko. Other than that we’re probably pretty set.
Keon Daniel
No one knows what is going on with this guy. He was a real favorite of mine for all of last season. I had many conversations about whether or not he deserved to be considered a star on this team. Although Nowak couldn’t even decide if he should be a starter, the “loss” of Justin Mapp makes Keon a bit more needed. Then again, Gabe Farfan could move up from LB to play LW, and play like his brother did. I’d still really like to have Keon back, or at least know whats going on with him. All we really know is that Keon was protected in the expansion draft and there hasn’t really been any obvious efforts to replace him.
Veljko Paunovic
I liked Veljko as much as anyone on the team. He had one of the scrappiest attitudes I’ve ever seen and seeing that off the ball was one of my favorite things about watching games at PPL versus on TV. He really caught on with the fanbase and the fanbase really caught on with him as we could all see in his Twitter letter to the fans. He was great while he was here, but seeing as he got here at well past 30, we knew his second retirement would come soon enough. We’re more or less prepared for the loss, considering the wealth of strikers we’ve added this offseason and hope(fingers crossed) of improvement from Freddy Adu.
Roger Torres
Literally no one knows. Colombian former giant America de Cali, the team that actually(presumably still) holds Roger Torres contract, was relegated for the first time in their club history. With the Colombian leagues struggling for cash, sending loads of players to MLS, it is unclear what exactly Cali might want to do with Roger now. It’s been speculated that being caash strapped might urge them to take the Unions money and let them have him. Others have said that Cali might want to keep a relatively cheap young player who could help them rise back to the top division as quickly as possible. f course knowing how the Michael Orozco Fiscal loan deal went down last year, we have no idea what might be happening on either side of this conversation. Roger was also protected, so presumably the Union have some interest in him. They also protected Fiscal before his loan expired without anyone outside the club knowing.
Sebastien Le Toux
Everyone thought Seba’s trip to England would be a permanent one, and there’s still belief it could be, but with a recent report from Sporting Life saying that Le Toux didn’t impress enough to make the deal happen no one would be surprised to see him of of Bolton’s bench and back into our starting lineup. It’s amazing that with only two years under our belt we already have an MVP caliber player and face of the franchise who we can’t imagine the team without. It was no big shakes when we thought it might be Danny leaving, the first player we ever drafted, but for Seba to go would be heart-breaking. Of course if he can make it in Europe we have no right to expect him to do any less. At least the transfer window closes and we’ll have a definitive answer on him soon.
Danny Mwanga
Danny was a source of speculation as soon as the Union drafted Chandler Hoffman. Everybody knew he was gone, but then we realized maybe Seba was gone instead. Nobody has any idea yet what is going on, but it’s interesting that reports came out today saying that Danny is currently training with Aston Villa. This is the preseason and a key part of a totally recreated strike-force is training with another team in another country. It’s strange timing to say the very least.
…but it looks almost definite that we’re getting the MLS All-Star Game at this point. The FO and Mayor Nutter are scheduled to make an announcement together and Sporting KC’s FO was “pissed off” about something last week. No annoucnement yet on a date or who they’lll play (although they may come at the official announcement.)
Also since so many people asked when we first reported on the All Star Game, I believe NY Red Bull season ticket holders did have some sort of advantage over the public when it came to buying tickets. Not sure whether it was an early shot, but season ticket holders will presumably be taken care of here as well.
Amidst Keon Daniel’s Passport issues, Michael Farfan’s potential transfer to Sunderland (they’ve been passing this around), the Union shopping Danny Mwanga, Roger Torres loan deal coming to a close, Freddy Adu’s yearning for Rayo (I’ve also heard that he’s a potential trade bait for the Revs 3rd Overall Pick),and the Olympics this summer it’ll be very interesting to see where we end up at the end of the offseason and even where we think we have holes for the draft.
Combine that information with this quote “The Brotherly Game was informed by a source with knowledge of team plans that the Union will be “selling some young players for profit this year.”"
It’s already been an interesting offseason, with the additions of Martinez, Gomez and Khalfan, Lopez and even McLaughlin but it looks like we should prepare for some subtractions before we realize our net gains. The Union hav e a few more to add today with choices in the MLS Draft expected by most pundits to cover depth along the defensive line.
Apparently with their new-found depth at the forward position the Union are now shopping Danny Mwanga.
From Ive’s Galarcep’s Mock Draft
“13. Philadelphia Union
Dom Dwyer, F, South Florida
5’9″, 180 pounds, Senior
21 games, 16 goals, 2 assists
The Union are believed to be shopping forward Danny Mwanga, and even with the recent addition of young Costa Rican forward Josue Martinez, Philadelphia can use some depth up top. Enter Dwyer, a player who’s stock took a dip but who is much better than he showed at the MLS Combine. Strong like a bull and boasting deceptive speed, the English-born Dwyer could wind up being the steal of the draft.”
French Club Sochaux had already made an offere, and been refused by Rangers, for Maurice Edu but they apparently decided to try again. Rangers has said they’d rather resign him than send him somewhere else, but it seems we’ll find out how much he’s worth to Rangers.
“We think he is a quality player. We need him and we need him quickly.” said Sochaux assistant coach Stephane Gilli. Sometimes it feels real good to be wanted.
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