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OT a little bit, but Timbers are apparently about to sign a Brazilian winger, a 22 YO kid currently playing in Portugal:
theathletic.com/4727891… (behind paywall but I believe a certain number of articles are free every month)
Whether that's as a Yimmi replacement or a Moreno replacement for next year, it's at least encouraging that Portland's starting on their roster revamp.
OT a little bit, but Timbers are apparently about to sign a Brazilian winger, a 22 YO kid currently playing in Portugal:
https://theathletic.com/4727891/2023/07/27/portland-timbers-antony-arouca/ (behind paywall but I believe a certain number of articles are free every month)
Whether that's as a Yimmi replacement or a Moreno replacement for next year, it's at least encouraging that Portland's starting on their roster revamp.
I have no idea who this kid is, but his FBRef scouting report doesn't look like it's worth a $2.5 million transfer fee. The only thing that seems like he is good at is playing defense (for a winger). If it's actually a U22 singing, that means that we are going to have to move one of Santi, Mosquera, or Ayala or sign them to regular senior team deals.
Dang, I'd rather hear he is good at offense
Yeah, I don't know anything about him either, but if he's a winger that can play decent defense, that's not a bad thing. His list of comps on FBRef is Haaland, Kane, Benzema and a couple others - that ain't a bad list. Tangentially, in looking that up, Haaland's G/90 last year was an absolutely absurd 1.17. The next closest in the PL was at 0.86.
And I could easily see him as being an Ayala replacement if those are the options; I'm not sure how much fire was really behind the Santi Moreno "I want to leave" smoke, but I'd definitely prefer if he stayed.
I was just reading about Inter Messi signing their own U-22 initiative player and I didn't realize this:
"The U-22 initiative is so valuable because transfer fees aren’t calculated into the budget charge and the players hit the salary cap at a fixed, low cost. (a U-22 initiative player) will hit the salary cap at $200,000, no matter what his contract is."
That makes spending $2.5M on this kid a lot more understandable/reasonable. Miami's 20 year old signing, Facundo Farias, is at $5.5M. His FBRef comps are higher (Messi, CR7, De Bruyne, Havertz), but his scouting report sample size is a lot smaller (481 minutes) than Antony's (3000) so I'm not sure how much faith I put in Farias' comps at this point.
Back to the main thought, though - $2.5M for a kid who will only occupy 200K on the salary budget is a pretty decent risk to take, I think.
Yeah, that's why SEI-ing Ayala makes more sense than Williamson.
I think SEI isn't an option at this point. Looking at the rules (https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/2023-mls-roster-rules-and-regulations), it would appear that a player has to be SEI'd before July 5, and as far as I am aware, neither Ayala or Williamson were given that designation.
Reading one of the Timbers fan sites, it does appear we put Ayala on the list.
ah, good to know. Thanks.
I saw Jeremy Peterman post about it on Twitter a while back but then never saw anything else (and nothing official). If they didn't do it by July 5th, then it's going to be interesting how they get Antony done as a U22 deal (as Bogert suggested they are trying to do).
OLive seems to confirm that Ayala was SEI'd:
https://www.oregonlive.com/timbers/2023/07/report-portland-timbers-in-final-stages-of-signing-brazilian-winger-antony.html
"Antony will join the Timbers’ roster via transfer under the MLS under-22 initiative, The Athletic first reported, occupying a slot freed up by the season-ending injury designation of midfielder David Ayala."