Yup. As I have said before, MLS is primarily a retirement home for former soccer stars and a training ground for players destined for greater things.
Paredas (18 years old) of DC United moving to Wolfsburg.
Wolfsburg is teetering on relegation.
Atlanta sells George Bello to Cercle Brugge. Fee reported as $3.75M plus a sell on clause.
Well same guy who said deal had been reached now saying Bello hasn’t agreed yet. Guy is usually credible but that is quite the head fake
Reportedly Bello had a strong preference for the Bundesliga and didn’t want to go to the Belgian league. ATL accommodated his request, and reportedly sold him to Arminia Bielefeld for $2M plus 25% sell on clause.
With Bello being out of contract this year, he was able to force the club’s hand. If they didn’t reach a mutually agreeable landing spot, Bello could have left after his contract was up on a free transfer.
Official:
Another team dangerously close to relegation. I hope he is what the team needs to stave that off for another year, as it will send his stock up.
I thought ATL might have sold Bello before last season, as they made a rare trade of Garber bucks to get the #1 spot in the reentry draft and took Andrew Gutman. Since Gutman and Bello both play left back, it seemed like they found a Bello replacement. However they then loaned Gutman to RBNY last season.
Gutman will likely slot right in and seems solid enough.
Brugge have a pretty talented US/Canada pairing with Bello and Buchanan. They are 20 and 22 years old respectively so I expect Brugge will end up being just a stepping stone for both of them to a richer team in a more prestigious league. Their respective MLS teams may have done better financially to have waited a bit longer and then grab a bigger transfer fee from a richer club?
Bello rejected the Brugge deal and went with Arminia instead.
Thanks. I started working on my response to your earlier email and was pulled away and then didn’t see your subsequent posts before finishing my reply. It will be fun to watch how the careers of these young stars evolve.
Yedlin to Miami official
In other MLS news, MN United had an agreement with a Honduran midfielder (Kervin Arriaga). He was set to play for Honduras tonight vs the USMNT in St Paul, then stick around in MN and officially sign tomorrow (he played both games so far this window, both in Honduras). When they got to the airport in San Pedro Sula to fly to MSP he was not allowed onto the plane due to a “migration alert”.
So presumably US Immigration officials issued the migration alert to the airline and they had to comply?
Or did Minneapolis team officials secretly stymie his entry temporarily in case he decided not to sign with them after experiencing February weather there? 
Shaqiri to the Chi Fire.
MLS is the best/worst.
Caden Clark (18 yo MF for RBNY) was “sold” to RB Leipzig for $3M last summer and loaned back to RBNY for the remainder of the MLS season. Instead of joining Leipzig for the 2nd half of their season, they deemed him not ready and want to loan him back to RBNY.
But because MLS is MLS, in order for RBNY to get him for this season they had to get to the top of the Allocation Order. RBNY had to make 2 trades to get to the top of the Allocation Order.
RBNY (#14 spot) sends $575k GAM Toronto to move up to #2 spot (+RBNY gets international slot)
RBNY (#2 spot) sends $100k GAM to Cincy to move up to #1 spot
So RBNY paid $675k GAM to get Clark back + an international slot.
Concacaf Champions League is the height of entertainment. It kicked off last night with three, er two games.
A team from Haiti couldn’t get clearance to get into the US to play the Revs and had to forfeit.
NYCFC win at a Costa Rican side 2-0 and get a player sent off with a questionable red.
Montreal lost at Santos Laguna 1-0 on an 88’ goal. This game also featured a linesman that didn’t understand how offside works.
Explain, please.
Ah. Saw it. Yes, that was wrong.
HOWEVER, the offside flag is, technically, an assisting device for the referee to use. I can see how the assistant might not have known that it was played from the white team on the way far side. And, if the referee didn’t see it either, then both are negligent.
As we say in the biz, “the Assistant Referee assists, but doesn’t insist.” Soccer is different from most of the popular American sports where every official has a whistle and/or can stop the game whenever one feels like it. Only the referee can stop a soccer game.
This is the first (assume you saw it)
And here is a second on (in favor or Montreal)
I did see the first.
Well, Twellman has brain damage…typical American railing on referees, cuz he gets views.
Second one is also not offside, but, again, unlike American Sports, the outcome of the game was not affected by it, so offside or not, we get either a goal kick or an indirect kick, which from that far back, pretty much the same thing.
In CCL action last night…
Montreal and NYCFC (who was playing a home game in LAFC’s stadium) won impressively last night and move on the the quarters.
Rapids played a Guatemalan team in the snow and negative wind chill in Denver and lost the aggregate in the 7th round of PKs. Rapids thought they had a 89’ winner, but it was VAR’d and called offsides (questionably).
Seattle plays tonight at home and needs a win vs a Honduran side.