Jump to content

Will Johnson to Heerenveen


SamIAm

Recommended Posts

If this is true, it could be a decent move. I don't know what SC Heerenveen's situation is at striker, although I do know that their big man from last season, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, is now at Ajax, so there might still be a hole to fill. Heerenveen has been an upper-table team in the last few seasons, but hasn't cracked the top 5.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

quote:Originally posted by jonovision

If this is true, it could be a decent move. I don't know what SC Heerenveen's situation is at striker, although I do know that their big man from last season, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, is now at Ajax, so there might still be a hole to fill. Heerenveen has been an upper-table team in the last few seasons, but hasn't cracked the top 5.

There are some very pissed off people in Chicago right now.

db

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good move in my opinion (assuming he signs) although it will probably take some time to crack the first team. Dutch are of course great at developing talent and it will be a much more professional environment with a longer season. MLS loses another young player and potential big transfer by not offering a decent contract. Hopefully the Toronto team will have a different philosophy.

Posted by Brian James on BigSoccer and from a SoccerAmerica e-mail:

"WILL MOVES ON. Canadian youth international Will Johnson is on trial at Dutch club Herenveen, following the termination of his contract by the Fire last week.

Johnson, 19, was born in Toronto but grew up near Chicago and played for Sockers FC before signing with MLS in February of last year. He played 162 minutes in six games and scored one goal.

The Fire picked up his option for the 2006 season, yet this winter he was asked to sign a developmental contract to replace the contract under which he played last year, at a salary of $28,000, and refused. Canadian coach Frank Yallop called him up for Canada's friendly with Austria last Wednesday, and he came on as a sub in the 84th minute of a 2-0 victory."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

quote:Originally posted by Grizzly

Good move in my opinion (assuming he signs) although it will probably take some time to crack the first team. Dutch are of course great at developing talent and it will be a much more professional environment with a longer season. MLS loses another young player and potential big transfer by not offering a decent contract. Hopefully the Toronto team will have a different philosophy.

Yeah, the $28,000 offer is weak considering that he'll likely make more overseas. I would hope however that MLSE would do more to retain their Canadian players in the MLS.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

quote:Originally posted by Gian-Luca

Yeah, the $28,000 offer is weak considering that he'll likely make more overseas. I would hope however that MLSE would do more to retain their Canadian players in the MLS.

That salary would've given him double what he got last year. He certainly would've reach the average level for most MLS players the next season.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Former Edmonton Driller(NASL)and Edmonton Eagle(CPSL Champions), Dwight Lodeweges was a coach at Heerenveen(Don't know if he still is though. Dwight used to play for Go Ahead Eagles(late70's) and has pretty long ties with dutch football. He was born in Alberta. It would be pretty cool if he's still there. I went to the Heerenveen website but I couldn't see his name anymore.

Great move for Will though. That was a pretty thin offer from Chicago. Reminds me of the cash OO was offered before he went to Scandinavia.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

quote:Originally posted by jonovision

If this is true, it could be a decent move. I don't know what SC Heerenveen's situation is at striker, although I do know that their big man from last season, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, is now at Ajax, so there might still be a hole to fill. Heerenveen has been an upper-table team in the last few seasons, but hasn't cracked the top 5.

Heerenveen lost BOTH their big men. As you mention, Huntelaar went to Ajax, and Giorgios Samaras left for Manchester City. So this move makes a whole lot of sense for Heerenveen and it's also a step up for Johnson.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Jeffery S.

So does the team have an open roster spot for the remainder of the year, or is Will going to play on the reserve side until next season? Just curious about him going there now, when the transfer window is closed. Not that it affects him if he's out of contract, but it could affect the club being able to play him.

I think, if I am not mistaken, that Occean was offered this much or perhaps a lower category of salary, in any case it was over 20,000. That kind of money can be made in a third or even fourth tier in many European countries.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This club currently sits sixth in their championship. A championship described by many as a perrneial 2 to 2.5 horse race. So I do not see why is this a good move for Will Johnson or Canadian soccer as a whole. I thought that the whole point of MLS or having a pro-circuit on our continent was to allow players to develop at home in a professional environment and therefore be better prepared for international play. The whole idea of MLS, I thought, was to discourage these kind of moves. Seems to me that Ajax, PSV or Feyenord is one thing, but Heerenveen is another.

I hope something is done about the salary levels in MLS.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Relax, Heerenveen is a decent club, sitting in 6th. It's a relatively young team, they're known for player development and for signing a lot of young Scandinavian players (Jon Dahl Tomasson, Daniel Jensen, Marcus Allbäck, Erik Edman, Petter Hansson) which they make pretty good money on. It's good for Johnson to move out from under the Frank Yallop wing and see what he's capable of. The offensive style will suit him and he'll have a good chance to move to a big club if he does well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:D

Pissing myself here. Hope it all proves true because it's just too damned funny. (Not to mention a great move by young William. Wild and wooly Dutch football will be great for his style of football, even if it is only on the training ground and sub's bench).

Don't care if the contract doubled his salary, it's still crap. Kid's got a bit of talent, time on his side and best of all ambition and MLS is letting him get away. The list of young men quiting MLS for EURO football continues to grow.

P.S. After the Serioux news and Jazic nibbling at the bait I was thinking MLS was trying to get some of our lads under contract for the 2007 Toronto kickoff but this is a bit of a kick in the gut to that theroy.

P.S.S. Doesn't sound like there was a lot of back and forth on this. Sort of leaves one to think maybe Johnson already have had some cards up his sleave before the MLS offer came down the pipe. Somebody in MLS underestimated this situation big time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

quote:Originally posted by mjoni

It's good for Johnson to move out from under the Frank Yallop wing and see what he's capable of. The offensive style will suit him and he'll have a good chance to move to a big club if he does well.

But that is what we say about about every player who moves to a Euro club. But with very few exceptions ( eg.: Stalteri, JDG, Klukowski) these moves have translated into a sequence of lateral moves.

Since you live in Sweden, you might understand what I am getting at by looking at pro hockey in sweden. I think that they have for pro hockey players is a model of what I would like to see for soccer in Canada. How many swedish young NHL-drafted hockey players come over to North america to play in the AHL ( despite the insistance of NHL clubs) or Junior hockey? The answer none or close to it. Swedish players will only cross the pond if there is a one way NHL contract to sign. Otherwise there is a perfectly good league at home to play in. I would like to see that happen here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

quote:Originally posted by Free kick

I would like to see that happen here.

Until the MLS average salary goes up, Europe will always present a 'grass is greener' scenario to many young players.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Freekick, the Toronto MLS (and hopefully other Canadian MLS) teams will give our players another option to develop. It will not and should not stop young Canadians from going overseas when a superior opportunity arises which this is in my opinion. I would expect the MLS team to result in more Canadians playing in Europe rather than fewer. However, the MLS team will hopefully better prepare and expose those who can potentially play in a better league and hopefully catch some of those who are having problems finding a club due to work permit problems, etc. The MLS team is not going to be our national team, just like the current US team a large number of our A selection starters will be playing overseas. The MLS team will however give us a core group of players at national team level and allow us to have more depth and field much stronger B teams.

The Swedish hockey example is not really relevant. Swedish players don't play in the AHL unless they are young and trying to work themselves up to the big club because it is largely a development/reserve league and pays very poorly. If the AHL were a real 2nd division with a regular pay scale I am sure we would see a far greater number of foreign players. Many Swedish players do play in other European leagues that pay better than their own such as Russia, Germany and Switzerland.

Nor do I agree that most of our European based players are moving laterally. Surely Hirschfeld and Hutchinson have moved up this year as much as Klukowski. Imhof and McKenna could find themselves in the 1st Bundesliga next year. Many of our players in Scandanavia have not played there very long. It took many years for Stalteri and JDG to get to where they are now. This year in particular many European based players took one step up in club or league level. One step up is often to a better more prominent team in the same or a slightly better league not an immediate transfer from Scanadanavia to the Premiership. If they do well at this level they will move up again in a couple of years. The only place I see our players stagnating somewhat is in England. If we look at the ones who haven't progressed much on the Continent it is often due to other issues such as major injuries which hindered Reda in Denmark and Jazic in Russia who up to then had been progressing well through the ranks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Jeffery S.

The whole way the MLS is set up in terms of contracts and transfers is a mark against the league. Maybe it makes sense for purely internal accounting, but it is unrelated to the world football economy, which is a purely open market. If Chicago owned the guy, and wanted to keep him, and thought that maybe they could eventually sell him, they would never let him go out of contract for a long period, they'd sign him before the other ran out. Or offer him something better. But since all they can do is offer a contract type, like a classification you'd find with civil servants, there is no counter-offer they can make without having to beg to the league again to let them upgrade. That is not only clumsy, but it means that no club can ever hope to make a ton of money off a transfer.

I am thinking that just this week DC United played Getafe in a friendly and many Spain clubs scouted Adu. Barça, for what I understand, has not given up on the idea. He'd play for the 2nd team, they could match his MLS salary, and they'd have 2-3 years to try to develop and mature him, which will not happen in the MLS. He'll end up an average to good professional if he stays there.

But the point I am getting at is if Adu were owned and under contacct with DC United they'd be looking at a decent transfer for him, maybe a few million Euros (worth between 2 and 3 I'd say right now, or maybe up to 4). Where is the motivation for the club in question to sell if the money would just go to the league. Add to that the fact that sometimes you give a player a good contract offer as you are speculating that later on you will be able to sell him and your investment will have paid off. But you have to make that first investment in order to have a chance at the transfer payment coming in. All this, in MLS, is basicallly irrelevant, they are living in an entirely different football world.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I definately agree with you that Canada should have its own "perfectly good league at home" - which is technically not MLS - but until that happens you can't blame these kids for wanting to advance their careers, make decent money and play at a higher calibre. It's not Will Johnson's responsibility to better the quality of the MLS, it's the MLS's responsibility to make him want to stay in Chicago. Lots of Swedes get drafted into the NHL, but never make first team. The difference is that they'll be getting paid great money at home in Sweden and playing in the number 2 league in the world. Interestingly, recent hockey gold-medalist Jörgen Jönsson is sometimes criticized for leaving the Islanders and returning to Sweden. His wife didn't like New York. Even though it's great for the Swedish Elitserien to have such a good player in the league (and he's arguably the best player), it annoys some people, because he didn't develop as well as he could have in the NHL. Anyway, this isn't a lateral move for Will, it's a step up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I definately agree with you that Canada should have its own "perfectly good league at home" - which is technically not MLS - but until that happens you can't blame these kids for wanting to advance their careers, make decent money and play at a higher calibre. It's not Will Johnson's responsibility to better the quality of the MLS, it's the MLS's responsibility to make him want to stay in Chicago. Lots of Swedes get drafted into the NHL, but never make first team. The difference is that they'll be getting paid great money at home in Sweden and playing in the number 2 league in the world. Interestingly, recent hockey gold-medalist Jörgen Jönsson is sometimes criticized for leaving the Islanders and returning to Sweden. His wife didn't like New York. Even though it's great for the Swedish Elitserien to have such a good player in the league (and he's arguably the best player), it annoys some people, because he didn't develop as well as he could have in the NHL. Anyway, this isn't a lateral move for Will, it's a step up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

quote:Originally posted by Jeffrey S.

Where is the motivation for the club in question to sell if the money would just go to the league. Add to that the fact that sometimes you give a player a good contract offer as you are speculating that later on you will be able to sell him and your investment will have paid off. But you have to make that first investment in order to have a chance at the transfer payment coming in. All this, in MLS, is basicallly irrelevant, they are living in an entirely different football world.

But that is actually a good thing about the MLS. Otherwise, you would have owners ( the good capitalists that they are) who are far more eager to sell emerging talent now rather than later. Much like the Hartrell's have done with several players whereby they have sold them for peanuts. Transfer fees serve the short term needs of the owners and the players but they do squat for long term player development and national programs. They also kill fan interest because people become dissillusioned in seeing good talent leave.

How many small clubs in Europe have achieved long term success and stability through developing and selling? Seems to me that the good ones are the buyers rather than the sellers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...