Atiba Hutchinson

[Complete Homer]

OK, no need for CPL arguing to bleed over to this thread. Pro-CPLers know what the cap is rumoured to be and can speculate if a Atiba at end-stage career would fit, anti-CPLers will automatically scoff and call it impossible/a doomed league. Hopefully everyone can learn to get along once the league actually launches

Until then, nobody is changing their mind, so let's just keep this thread focused on the player himself

Edited May 28, 2017 by Complete Homer

[Macksam]

10 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Never mind a league that has no promise of being able to pay anyone, ever, over a hundred thousand devalued Canadian dollars. 

Oh come on now, the long term potential of this league is more than capable of providing $100000 plus salaries in the future. 

When it comes to Hutch, he could be in a CPL jersey in 5 years time, when he's forty and further European opportunities have dried up for him.

[canucklefan]

In one hour, Besiktas visit Gaziantepspor (second last in the standings). If Besiktas win today, Hutchinson is going to win the league for a second year in a row.

[Obinna]

Hope to see him add another trophy to his resume today. He's one a few Danish Super Lig titles. He's won the Dutch cup. A win today will make it two Turkish Super Lig titles. Is there another Canadian who has won more at club level?

[Shway]

13 minutes ago, Obinna said:

Is there another Canadian who has won more at club level?

...Owen Hargreaves? But yes, he's the only Canadian international.

Edited May 28, 2017 by Jahinho Guerro

[badname22]

49 minutes ago, Jahinho Guerro said:

...Owen Hargreaves? But yes, he's the only Canadian international.

The closest to atiba's eight club trophies is Brennan with 6

[Blackdude]

29 minutes ago, badname22 said:

The closest to atiba's eight club trophies is Brennan with 6

I only have him at 5. 4 V's Cup plus a First Division/Championship trophy and even there, he wasn't a starter.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Jahinho Guerro said:

...Owen Hargreaves? But yes, he's the only Canadian international.

Not to mention all of the trophies he won on the international level

[badname22]

14 minutes ago, Blackdude said:

I only have him at 5. 4 V's Cup plus a First Division/Championship trophy and even there, he wasn't a starter.

you're right my bad 

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

1) Congratulations to Atiba for winning the Turkish League 2 years in a row!

2) I spoke briefly with Julian De Guzman yesterday, he didn't have any specific info but he did not seem optimistic as to Atiba's chances of being with the #CanMNT for the June friendly or the Gold Cup.

[Bison44]

I wonder if a year or two from now IF the CPL is running, he might take a player spot (with an assistant coach job in the future carrot) like DeGuzman had with Ottawa.  Get in on the ground floor with a new franchise with a coaching future in front of him.   He is 34, how many more years can his body keep that high level of play?

[Gordon]

I don't see it. Atiba has had a very good, well compensated career. For him to play in CanPL would be equivalent of a career NHLer going to the southern professional hockey league. It only happens if Hutchinson is doing it for charitable reasons IMO. A few dream of playing until they are 40 "just because", but most are content to go when they can no longer keep up with their level...

[Complete Homer]

2 minutes ago, Gordon said:

I don't see it. Atiba has had a very good, well compensated career. For him to play in CanPL would be equivalent of a career NHLer going to the southern professional hockey league. It only happens if Hutchinson is doing it for charitable reasons IMO. A few dream of playing until they are 40 "just because", but most are content to go when they can no longer keep up with their level...

I see it much closer to Nik Antropov returning to play in a new Kazakh league at the end of his career. Someone from a non-traditional hockey market who made it big and might want to use their reputation to bolster the sport in their home country

40 is a bit generous, but a 37 year old isn't out of the question

Again, just saying it's plausible, not necessarily going to happen

[Unnamed Trialist]

8 hours ago, dyslexic nam said:

Stop with the positivity.

No chance, ever, of CPL being able to pay anyone $100 grand of our Monopoly money?

On a board where we collectively fawn over him and dream of having 10 clones of him to round out our national team, it is grossly insulting to Hutch for supporters to dream of a scenario under which he could help found our new national league?

I am glad I am not so miserable that this is the way I support Canadian footy.  

 

So you think CPL will be a charity league and anything criticizing that is unpatriotic? Lovely way to love the sport, treat it like the United Way and get people to do walks in pink t-shirts to fund it.

Why don't you quit your job and ho work for this league at minimum wage instead of suggesting similar for our most accomplished professionals? You're the one who's disgracing the concept not me.

[Bison44]

Hmm, maybe its just me, but why is this so strange??  Go watch a minor league baseball game and you;ll see some washed up late 30's guys who are also hitting coaches etc.  They want to parley the end of their playing days into a coaching job they can do for the next 30 years.  I bet DeGuzman had conversations with management about a coaching position after his legs gave out.  Why wouldnt Hutch in a year or two (age 35 or 36) come over play for the Hamilton or misc other Ontario club for the last season or two with a assistant coaching spot.  

There have been lots of comments about why Hutch isnt a household name or a bigger celebrity in Canada.  Come back and lead your team to a CPL title, upset TFC in CDN championship, plus get your coaching career started.  You'll be a hero to the next generation of kids!  Maybe he doesnt want that, maybe he wants to open up a chain of HOOKEN TOOKAS joints in Turkey and get out of soccer.  But I dont think its strange for a guy at the end of his career to start thinking like that.    

[dyslexic nam]

55 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

So you think CPL will be a charity league and anything criticizing that is unpatriotic? Lovely way to love the sport, treat it like the United Way and get people to do walks in pink t-shirts to fund it.

Why don't you quit your job and ho work for this league at minimum wage instead of suggesting similar for our most accomplished professionals? You're the one who's disgracing the concept not me.

Charity league?  Wtf are you talking about.  I am saying it could definitely pay decent salaries once it evolves.  You are the one who claimed it will never, ever be able to pay players a living wage.

And for the record, I agree that the chances of Atiba playing in CPL are extremely slim.  Barring some ill advised DP investment or a kind of player/owner arrangement that has never even been hinted at, there is no realistic scenario where he would come to the league.  

My point is just that you don't have to be such an ignorant prick when trying to get your point across.  You could have discussed CPL's salary limitations without crapping on the whole undertaking and essentially claiming it will be minor league forever.  You could have stated that Atiba to CPL isn't realistic without stating that everyone claiming/hoping otherwise is insulting our best CMNT player.  You could have - but true to form you chose the most intentionally confrontational way to make your point.  I have no idea why you constantly choose to engage this way with a group of people who support the same cause and group of players as you, but you do - an inordinate amount of time.  By all means make your point.  Be sceptical.  Just don't be such an ignorant asshole.

Edited May 28, 2017 by dyslexic nam

[Gordon]

43 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

Hmm, maybe its just me, but why is this so strange??  Go watch a minor league baseball game and you;ll see some washed up late 30's guys who are also hitting coaches etc.  They want to parley the end of their playing days into a coaching job they can do for the next 30 years.  I bet DeGuzman had conversations with management about a coaching position after his legs gave out.  Why wouldnt Hutch in a year or two (age 35 or 36) come over play for the Hamilton or misc other Ontario club for the last season or two with a assistant coaching spot.  

There have been lots of comments about why Hutch isnt a household name or a bigger celebrity in Canada.  Come back and lead your team to a CPL title, upset TFC in CDN championship, plus get your coaching career started.  You'll be a hero to the next generation of kids!  Maybe he doesnt want that, maybe he wants to open up a chain of HOOKEN TOOKAS joints in Turkey and get out of soccer.  But I dont think its strange for a guy at the end of his career to start thinking like that.    

Anything is possible, but if he seriously wants to pursue coaching/managing (fun fact, I once hired him as a scout on football manager) he probably has much better contacts and options in Europe. Practically speaking, it would be better training and opportunity. Again, never rule anything out, but any logical pathway seems so unlikely to me. Atiba has earned much better options. Not disparaging CanPL, and there are any number of ex-nats for whom it would be a logical and natural step, but Atiba? No, not convinced.

[mpg_29]

Surprised one of the Canadian MLS clubs haven't tried to get him on a a DP contract or even TAM..

[Vince193]

59 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

Surprised one of the Canadian MLS clubs haven't tried to get him on a a DP contract or even TAM..

TO and Montreal don't need him (Maybe when Bernier retires) and Vancouver's owners don't want to spend the cash needed to bring him in.

[Kent]

17 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

NASL has a salary structure on some teams that is way ahead of anything minimally conceivable for a CPL or whatever it may be. We are talking about a league that most likely will not pay anyone more than 80 grand, while NASL had players making ten times that, I believe. 

Julian to Ottawa was a slight shift down, Hutch to CPL is simply a figment of your imagination. 

I love the way folks here insist on dreaming up financially irresponsible ways to make sure a league that has not even started yet will immediately fail.

Others have already made good points against the overly certain viewpoint you have, but I imagine with your kind of outlook, 5 years ago you would have said it's impossible for Didier Drogba to be playing in USL at some point in the future.

None of us know what is going to happen. We don't know when CPL will start up (or indeed if it actually will start up) how much it will pay players, how long Hutch will want to continue playing, what his motivations will be at the end of his career, etc. We know with certainty that I will never play professional soccer. We do not know that Hutch won't decide to retire, and then be talked into one more season by a CPL team. One more season, making some money instead of no money, and the chance to promote a team/league that is important for the future of Canadian soccer, and become better known in the country he was raised in. This is a guy that has worked his butt off for Canadian soccer.

All I said is that it's possible that it happens some day. You responded as if I said it will definitely happen next year.

[Vince193]

Rollins said about a year ago that one of the things talked about in the early CPL owner meetings that a DP type system was talked about. But this was when things were fluid.

[Obinna]

I personally do not see or want to see Hutchinson play in a CanPL that will not even be MLS level when it kicks off. De Guzman playing in Ottawa was a little different, as he was on a clear decline at that stage. Hutchinson meanwhile is still near the peak of his powers. I think de Guzman was just finishing up at struggling Greek side Xanti when he was the same age as Hutchinson, who just won the Turkish league and went deep in Europa league. 

This is just a personal qualm, but I don't like seeing big players (and Hutch is a big player in our world) playing out there final days at a level far below what they are capable of. David Villa for instance is a different case, as there are other high level players like him in the league, even at the club with Pirlo and last season Lampard. De Guzman was not head and shoulders above his teammates in Ottawa, so I was fine with it. I feel like Hutchinson should go out on top, or at least finish up in MLS worst case, unless he suffers some sort of injury set back but still wants to play up until 40 or whatever.

[Unnamed Trialist]

People using delusion as a hammer to hit over thinking peoples' heads is pretty frigging rude, as I see it.

If you want to live with your fantasies, fine, no one is stopping you. But don't think you are not being aggressive jerks to keep insisting on total fantasy when anyone dares to point out the CPL does not exist, is very likely not going to anytime soon, and if it does it will be shoestring and be in danger of failure from day one. That is the reality, I am not being an asshole by pointing it out: you are by whining so hard when it gets mentioned. 

Even a 24-person roster, with a minimum salary at 30 grand, which is subsistence, means you are inevitably going over 800,000 for salaries. Hutch, in contrast, in two years, could go to Qatar and earn half a million, or close. Or China, if his body is holding up but he feels he's lost his edge. If he gets proper advice he'll realize that physically MLS is not in fact easier, though technically he would be able to handle it the pace might still be a challenge. Still, that would be an option, at 400 thousand as well.

You can't turn the so-called CPL into a charity league where every Canadian comes back and has to work for scratch to help an incompetent CSA and timid, vision-less, cheap Canadian business people to make their badly arranged league proposals stay afloat. That is totally insusting to the players, who have given Canada a hell of a lot more than we have them, since we have not been able to offer them a competitive context and structure, technically and financially, in decades.

[Unnamed Trialist]

2 hours ago, Kent said:

Others have already made good points against the overly certain viewpoint you have, but I imagine with your kind of outlook, 5 years ago you would have said it's impossible for Didier Drogba to be playing in USL at some point in the future.

Drogba is not "playing" for Phoenix, he is their lost leader for negotiations with MLS. He is not being paid to play, if you think that then you must believe Lady Gaga or Rhianna spend their free time making fragrances with her name on them. In a laboratory. With real rose petals. The same petals you are looking at the CPL through.

It is promotional, obviously, and it seems to be working. Take the total cost of an MLS franchise, the cost to get the bid together and considered, which is an entry fee of 150 million dollars, and all the budget to get there. Paying Drogba two million a year (I have no idea what he's making) is a tiny % of the project, it is miniscule, it would be near 1% of the total bid cost.

[Unnamed Trialist]

4 hours ago, dsqpr said:

I started a thread on expected CPL salaries here:

 

Thanks, but no real full layout there. As I see it you have your starting 11 averaging 50, and your next 11 at 30. Considering they are likely to have a relatively short season and could be in other employment, that seems reasonable. That would be 880 thousand, a million with your coaching staff. 

That seems thin to me, I know, it is really too little for someone to play for, like the old USL when we had pros making 30 in Canada, they really could not live properly if they were not  in their home town (I know since I spoke to players back then).

Most likely, you have to have a second team playing somewhere, as you need to be able to fill out a squad with injuries, even the odd Canada call-up. Better that than a big roster with a lot of guys not getting minutes who you are paying.

A million for salaries, but better if it's a 1.5.