League is no longer budgeting huge outlays for expensive buys

How far has the value of an MLS player allocation plummeted since the heady, glorious days of Peter Nowak and Marco Etcheverry? Far enough that the Rapids traded a second-round draft pick – more or less – to the MetroStars to acquire an extra discovery slot, which it filled with Jamaican international Christopher Dawes.

The Rapids are still due an allocation, but in the modern world of MLS finances, the gap between allocations and discovery players has narrowed so much as to be nearly imperceptible.

The Rapids are still due an allocation, but in the modern world of MLS finances, the gap between allocations and discovery players has narrowed so much as to be nearly imperceptible.

Pedro Alvarez (MetroStars) and Ian Bishop (Miami) will probably play similar roles, that of a skilled central midfielder who can hold the ball under pressure while he links attack and defense.

Alvarez is an allocation, Bishop is a discovery.

“You’re just not going to get those kinds of incredible players, like [Carlos] Valderrama and Nowak and Etcheverry,” said Hudson, who did use his allocation on an attacker.

Honduran Alex Pineda Chacon scored twice in the Fusion’s 2-1 win on opening night.

“You can still find good players, the right players,” said Hudson. “But you’ve got to work a lot harder and be a lot more creative.”

An allocation may be more valuable in name than it is in the market. Like a dot-com stock whose price has skidded, holding onto an allocation is prudent in the faint hope the value will eventually climb back up.

“We still have our allocation,” said Rapids coach Tim Hankinson. “We can keep it to fill a need later, or if we get through the season without having used it we have something to build our team next year.

“[Allocations] don’t expire.”

No, but they can fluctuate wildly in value. Last year, the league also began classifying allocations as “major” and “minor,” a process that further muddied the waters.

Still due allocations are the Rapids, Quakes, Wizards and Fire. Landon Donovan went to San Jose on the basis of the Quakes’ league-worst record last year.

DISCOVERY VS. ALLOCATION. There are no more major and minor allocations, per se, yet coaches and general managers were told months ago that allocations in 2001 had to be acquired for approximately $100,000 apiece. One agent went so far as to call allocations “glorified discoveries.”

Each team has $75,000 in acquisition costs to use each season on its two discoveries. There is no limit to the salary that can be paid to a discovery player, but the acquisition costs plus the salary are counted against the salary cap.

For allocated players, like most players, only the salary counts against the cap.

The exception is the allocation still due San Jose for the loss of Eddie Lewis. Unofficially, the league has earmarked approximately $300,000. (Danish veteran Ronnie Ekelund comes to the Earthquakes as a discovery.)

By the time Julio Cesar De Leon blasted that amazing goal in a 2-1 loss to the United States in late March, DeLeon had been locked up by Honduran club Olimpia.

“I think his price, whatever it was, doubled when he scored that goal,” Revs coach Fernando Clavijo said perhaps in jest, perhaps not.

Instead, Brazilian Cate was signed at a cost much closer to $100,000 than will be paid for the San Jose allocation. MLS netted about $1.5 million when it sold Lewis to Fulham of the English First Division and a portion of that money will be spent to replace him.

VALUE FOR MONEY. Nowak cost the league approximately $500,000 when he joined MLS from the German Bundesliga club 1860 Munich in 1997.

For that money, the Fire has received two U.S. Open Cups, an MLS championship, and one of the league’s most dynamic players.

Etcheverry and Valderrama reportedly cost the league about $1 million each. El Diablo has brought D.C. United to a slew of domestic and international trophies and El Pibe is still one of the most popular – and productive – players in the league.

Jaime Moreno left England in 1996 to join MLS for a transfer fee of less than $200,000. That’s great value. So is Preki, who cost less.

Ariel Graziani cost a reported $2 million when he came to MLS in 1999. He scored 15 goals last year and is regarded as one of the league’s most dangerous strikers.

Some of the league’s best allocations are among its cheapest. When Raul Diaz Arce and Mauricio Cienfuegos joined the league, they cost less in annual salary than the current discovery threshold.

Speaking of discoveries, Columbus may have extracted the best value from its choices.

Robert Warzycha, the club’s all-time leader in assists, is a discovery player. So was Stern John, who scored 44 goals in two seasons before being sold to English club Nottingham Forest for a base fee of $2.5 million that could top $5 million depending on appearances and performance.

BAD DEALS. On the other side of the coin are expensive purchases that turned out to be virtually worthless. Marcelo Vega, Marcelo Herrera, Joao Luiz and Wellington Sanchez all cost in the high six figures.

The purchase of Lothar Matthaeus is widely ridiculed as the worst in league history, and for what he produced on the field, he might be.

Yet the league could eventually make money on his deal when the proceeds of Bayern Munich’s match against the MetroStars next month is added to the rights fee MLS collected from German television to show his games live.

Luis Hernandez may yet prove to be the highest-priced bust in league history at a staggering cost believed to be $4 million. Much of that cost was defrayed by loaning him to Club America of the Mexican League, yet he hasn’t produced the attendance surge expected and scored just four goals in 2000.

Rather than buy up new talent each season to make up for mistakes in previous years, the league has signed dozens of younger Americans to long-term deals. Clint Mathis, Steve Ralston, Greg Vanney and Mike Petke are just a few examples.

MLS broke its own rules to sign Donovan and committed more than $1 million to retain Cobi Jones.

“For me the most important part of our business is developing our own players and they’re the best bargains we have,” said MLS deputy commissioner Ivan Gazidis. “But they are bargains on a stand-alone basis. In order to develop one really good player, you’ve got to invest a lot of money in a lot of players. You hope some percentage of them come through.”

by Soccer America senior editor Ridge Mahoney