Soccer Today! on SPN Radio-March 10th 2017- Marta to Orlando?, Zlatan to LA? and the Games of the Week

Next year will be interesting with the Leagues Cup at the same time as the Club World Cup and Gold Cup. I was thinking the scheduling means the Leagues Cup would have to do without Seattle, Inter Miami, Monterrey, Leon, and Pachuca, but then I read a bit and it sounds like it might even be further reduced. Not confirmed yet of course. The article I read was talking about having 18 MLS teams and all 18 Mexican teams, but I don't know how they could include Monterrey, Leon, and Pachuca, unless they trotted out a fully reserve squad.

We hate being bi-polar! It's awesome!

Same- that’s what I think a tiered up Choiniere would be though- MC is the best player on a poor/average MLS team, could definitely be a starter on a top MLS team- in Europe at a step above, I think it translates to a guy who can hang for a decent team in a very good league, maybe a few years at a top top team. A Barclaysman, as twitter might call him.   Sigur is also so young and so praised though, who knows. Maybe we wake up on a Tuesday morning next June and hear that Bayern Munich has finally signed him after months of work and he just never looks back. 

We also don’t need to make everything a flight just for the sake of it. I don’t think having divisions long term is the worst idea. Maybe you get to 20 teams, split east and west. Home and way against teams in your division, and 1 match against the other division. Gets you 28 matches plus playoffs (if we stick with playoffs). Would certainly be several Ontario teams, so they’d (Windsor particularly) be often taking a bus and saving on travel for those matches. But that wouldn’t make it less national, they’d still be flying to Halifax or any other east coast teams, as well as inter conference matches.

That seems like a good forecast for Smith, but I think Sigur is primed for much bigger things. I really rate his game. I like his movements and his physicality. I don't see him at Real Madrid or Barcelona ever, but I don't see him at Españyol or some other yo-yo club either. Somewhere in between, like a Fiorentina or a Villarreal or a West Ham, a team that's not going down and not pushing for a title, but maybe pushing for European place on a good year. I think it will be key for Smith to stay up with Españyol and not get relegated. Going down a tier may not lead to more game time, as we've seen with Corbeanu.

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Sigur has played 520 minutes in 13 games- after today, Smith is at like 180 in 4. Not even half, but just like Sigur is finally getting back into the lineup as a starter, Smith has started 3 of his last 4. He’s getting there. It is true that Smith can only afford so many bad games, but for a bad team, a young player at a position he’s never really played before, I hope the coach keeps him in his plans.  Also, Kone was widely panned as overrated and useless until like half way through his second season- he had a lot of detractors at Watford and then one day kinda just… became really good.    Speaking of Sigur and Smith, I do think those two are basically next gen Piette and Choiniere. Limited skill stay at home DM who does a lot of little things right and a Swiss Army knife multi position threat who doesn’t have a most notable skill but can beat you one game with a beautiful goal, can beat you the next on crosses, can hang back and play deep if he has to, etc.    We’re lucky that most of our top league guys are top guys- one might be the best striker in France, one could become their best CB, Kone could be the best young CM in Europe in a few years, Davies the best LB in the world, so on, but sometimes guys are just… guys. Play the next decade in Spain and France, maybe go down to 2nd div once or twice when your team is poor, rack up 200 pro apps, a few million bucks in salary, then you retire at 34 and go open up a training academy in the middle of nowhere and no one hears from you ever again. Smith might be that guy. 

100% agree let him be a stay home holding mid like Piette and give him minutes. As for those who didn't watch, fact is he was not worse than any of the other mids or attackers, everyone was pretty piss poor.

I think the Leagus Cup will go down. I don't see the Champions Cup suddenly going demonstrably up all of a sudden, without something changing.

My own POV on having watched him recently is that he’s solid but doesn’t have any particular skill that sticks out. I don’t think we have the next Pedri on our hands here, but perhaps he’s just European Sam Piette. Never a star and not a player who people talk about much, but anyone who watches him knows he makes a certain type of team better and those services will keep him at a good level throughout his prime. Heck, Larin kinda fits that profile right now- not a star, but someone will pay his salary, no question.