By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Nov 6, 2014) US Soccer Players – Erick “Cubo” Torres is an exciting young player, full of ingenuity and athleticism. He makes MLS better by his presence. Torres turned Chivas USA, a moribund franchise on the verge of dissolution, into a worthwhile watch during the 2014 campaign. Torres is the future of MLS, both because he’s talented and because he’s a Mexican playing in a country with millions of Mexican-American soccer fans who have yet to get turned on by the American league.
Erick Torres is also a problem.
Torres is an MLS problem, for the exact reasons that he’s also an asset. By virtue of the league’s decision to shutter Chivas USA and spin the franchise rights on to a group who won’t start play until 2017, Torres is a player without a team. Well, at least one in MLS. The league currently faces a decision on Torres’s future. MLS holds the option to purchase his rights from his parent club, C.D. Guadalajara.
Buying Torres and keeping him in MLS should be a no-brainer. MLS certainly can’t afford to pass up the chance to leverage Torres’s star power in their bid to attract more eyeballs—both among fans of Mexican descent and those who appreciate talented goal scorers (aka pretty much everybody). Torres might have sell-on value down the road as well, should any European teams come calling (and they might already be).
While the rest of Chivas USA’s roster awaits an early December dispersal draft that will decide their 2015 future, MLS has made a point to announce that Torres will not be available. That condition is likely as much about the undecided nature of his purchase option (and where the money will come from) as it is about the obvious fact that Torres will interest multiple MLS teams. It’s the competition issue that will bring the league the most scrutiny.
Assuming MLS does the smart thing and purchases Torres’ contract from Chivas de Guadalajara, finding him a new MLS home will be a tricky proposition. This is a league of parity, salary caps, and allocation order, after all, so it’s not as simple as shipping him to the highest bidder. Even if only a few teams are willing to pay Torres what he’s worth and have an open DP slot available, MLS set a precedent that demands some sort of nominally even-handed mechanism for allocating him.
This is what MLS has wrought with the “blind draw” used to send Jermaine Jones to New England in the summer. Though Jones is the type of player all MLS teams could benefit from having, in the end only two clubs were willing to pay his asking price and could accommodate him on their rosters. Despite reports that Chicago’s offer was less than New England’s, MLS maneuvered to avoid the appearance that Jones would choose his destination.
The fallout from the backlash over the “blind draw” is still felt. Unless it was coincidence that the league did something unprecedented by streaming the “priority draft” between New York City FC and Orlando City, the call for transparency struck a chord with MLS HQ. If MLS chooses to backtrack on that shift in policy when it comes to Torres. If he lands somewhere that smacks of predetermination, the howling will only grow louder.
At the same time, MLS being MLS, there’s every reason to think that Torres will end up in a city where his talent and provenance can be used to most effect. If the league pays the transfer fee, it’s in everyone (read: the owners) to get the most out of what will essentially be a collective purchase.
The list of destinations that meet the above criteria is short. LA, where Torres made a name with Chivas. Chicago, home to a large Mexican diaspora. Houston, also because of the Mexican-American market. New York, an ethnically diverse city with a large media presence that could take Torres’s star to the next level. That’s it, that’s the list.
Again, it’s not that clubs in other markets couldn’t use the talents of Torres, because most could. It’s that MLS, by virtue of its very makeup, can’t leave his new home to chance. The league will work to meet two ends, no matter how they decide to allocate the striker: Keep up the pretense of competitive balance, and maximize the player’s marketing potential.
For that reason alone, a cynical fan base already views Torres’s eventual move through jaded lenses. It hardly matters where he ends up, or the manner in which MLS directs him there. The well-earned expectation is that MLS will do whatever serves MLS purposes. If Torres lands in Chicago, fans will view it as the Fire’s reward for missing out on Jones. If he lands in Houston, it will be easy to view it as pandering. Both New York and LA will elicit the same reaction as large markets that are too often assumed to get extra help from the league when it comes to player acquisition.
The Torres cost/benefit analysis is squarely on the side of keeping one of the best young attacking players in MLS, assuming the transfer price attached to him is not astronomical. Torres is exactly the type of player MLS should want to build their league on. He’s good, he’s young, he’s exciting, and he’s Latino. From a purely cynical business-of-soccer perspective, he represents an investment that could pay off down the line.
Yet, it was MLS killing off his club, putting him in limbo, and turning him into something more than just a special player worth holding onto. It makes Torres a problem, but one MLS can’t do without.
Jason Davis is the founder of MatchFitUSA.com and the co-host of The Best Soccer Show. Contact him: matchfitusa@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter:http://twitter.com/davisjsn.
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