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Two items. Item the First, Logan's Revenge breaks three weeks of radio silence to report that D.C. United is to blame for the Veron deal falling through. Key graf:

According to sources close to Veron, he felt a little smothered by DCU and was not pleased that they had jumped the gun on certain aspects of the proceedings. DCU had leaked that Veron had gotten a visa. That was true, but it wasn't to come stateside to announce his signing, but rather to first come check out the scene, the city, and the facilitates.*

Am I going to say that this isn't true? Nope, but I will say this - I don't see any real fault for DC here. United has carefully said nothing publicly about Veron. If the NDL story is true, then Veron has remarkably thin skin. I mean, seriously, leaks about rumors of a transfer? In the soccer world? Unthinkable! How could he possibly be asked to handle the pressure?! Interrobangs?!?!?!

More likely, this is a half true, half false situation which has managed to be spun in a way to make the DCU front office look bad. And while there are things to be upset with the Front Office with from time to time (such as the way Esky was notified of his trade to Toronto) this one doesn't make the list.

Item the Second. Commenter Adam notes today's Marc Fisher piece on Victor MacFarlane, and wonders about the kicker:

Might the team still end up with a stadium near Poplar Point, I asked. "Absolutely," MacFarlane replied. Stay tuned.

Am I ecstatic? No. If there is a plan, we're a long way from seeing it documented. And I would really, really like to see something. Until then, it the mirage of an illusion.

*Yes, I know. It's a blog post, though, and I'm not about to cast stones about spelling. "Definitely" still gives me problems some days. That's not the problem UPDATE: It now reads "facilities" See, just your average blog typo. Why didn't I correct it? Well, I'm not about that entire situational ethics and not wanting to misquote people thing. So I left it as is, even though I was sure it was a typo. Just so you know, this is the kind of thing I agonize over. For about two minutes.

Onward

I'd like to take this moment to wrap up the entire Veron story. The DCenters was pretty neutral on the signing of Juan Sebastian Veron, and to the extent that we're disappointed he's not signing it's because it was clear that this was the guy the Front Office wanted. We never believed, and I'm sure you never believed, that Veron was the magic bullet to take us to the next level. He would have been a piece of the plan that United was putting together. I bring this up especially in light of this Martin Rodgers piece on Yahoo:

The important question now is where D.C. United goes from here. Early suggestions indicate it may look elsewhere in South America for another high-profile player. How quickly, and how urgently, the club chases a designated or senior international player will give an important insight into the current mindset of president Kevin Payne and his organization.

Are they happy being perhaps the most-respected club in MLS, with a loyal and vocal fan-base and an effective, consistent, well-drilled team?

Or do they want to rival the Los Angeles Galaxy in the fame game and spread their message to a wider audience?

I don't believe the premise that United was bidding on Veron primarily as a play for global notice. Instead, Veron was a piece that United saw as a way of winning championships. While the team would certainly have changed with Veron in the mix (moving back to a 3-5-2 became a much higher probability bet), the team was never going to be about Veron.

The question for me, beyond who United signs, is how this affects their planning. Do they still intend to deploy the strategy they had developed with Juan Sebastian on the team, or do they look for the players they can find, and develop a new strategy for the next season? My sense, based on the last few years, is the latter is the more likely approach.

On a side note, reflecting a sentiment I think many of us share, commenter Goose writes the following: "His reason for not coming is the same reason that I would've loved having him on DC." True that.

Veronnonono

SI.COM is now retracting their earlier comments:

On the day Juan Sebastian Veron was to tell his teammates of his plans to leave Estudiantes de la Plata and play for D.C. United he realized he couldn't do it...Veron had agreed in principal to a multiyear contract with D.C. United that would have paid him close to $4 million annually. United was so confident in the deal that Veron was scheduled to leave Argentina on Tuesday and be in Washington D.C. for a Wednesday afternoon press conferences where he would be presented with his new jersey and meet his new teammates...It was his old teammates, however, that prevented him from making the move.
"I'm staying because of the fans and my teammates. The truth is that I couldn't say goodbye," Veron told Ole.com. "My teammates' request for me to stay was very important. And I couldn't ignore the fans' affection. It is impossible not to be touched when you are an Estudiantes fan."

Goff is confirming that the deal is off for now:

All those breathless reports you read last night and this morning that Veron had signed and was going to be introduced at RFK Wednesday? How shall I put it.....Dead Wrong. Y'all should know better than trust what you read on that Internet machine...There does remain a possibility a deal could be reached, but as of early this afternoon, it ain't happening.

I wonder if we could get Andrew Lloyd Weber to write a musical with everyone signing "Veron, Veron, Veron" waiting for Juan to appear on a balcony?

...and then the female part of the chorus would sing "La Brujita" as a coutnerpoint...

...and if we could get him to do that, would it still be overrated kitsch? (Yes.)

Regardless, the first major US media report that Veron has been signed is out from Sports Illustrated:

Juan Sebastian Veron and D.C. United have agreed to a $3-4 million a year deal that will be signed and officially announced next week, SI.com has learned.

Goff counters this report with "no, nothing is certain yet," and I am inclined to believe Goff on this. While many of the details in the SI.COM report match the rumors that we've seen publicly and have been emailed to us, and the salary details seem about right (in fact, exactly what we predicted), my (informed) guess is that an agreement exists in principle between United and Veron, including a timetable on final decisions and scheduling, but the deal is not yet fully consummated.

(UPDATE: Yes, reports like this or this, saying Veron is not coming, are pretty much treated the same way as reports like the ones that say he is coming. It is not yet confirmed one way or the other. I maintain that an agreement in principle was in fact reached, but until everything is final, it can go anywhere.)

Now, over on the Hello/Goodbye list on the right, I'm only putting in the confirmed news. Right now both Josh and Troy are still with the team, and I will hold off until there's an official announcement before updating the board. Still, looking at the key personnel changes, the big picture including probable (though perhaps not highly probable) moves is like this:

OUT: Boswell, Carroll, Gomez, Gros, Perkins

IN: Veron, Wells, 1 Attacker from Argentina (Lopez?), 1 defender, 1 more player?

Five starters out, five starters in... Yeah, perhaps 2007 was a rebuilding year, it just happened to be December when the rebuilding happened.

Change over Time

One year ago today, the news broke that Freddy Adu and Nick Rimando had been traded to Real Salt Lake. Four days later, Brandon Prideaux was gone to Colorado. On December 20, Piotr Nowak left and Tom Soehn was promoted. Two days later, Esky was gone. Within a span of two weeks, United saw five significant changes to its roster.

Why do I mention this now? Because we're about to enter the same time period, and while things may vary in the precise timing, I think we'll have answers from Christmas. Yes, we're hearing a bunch of rumors on things, but right now we don't have anything verified. Yes, I know that a date for the Veron signing has shown up on various message boards. December 18 was one. We've gotten an email that said December 19 and provided various specifics. Yes, we saw the rumor in the comments about Moreno leaving for Qatar, but then again Moreno has also been seen in town by certain writers of this blog, and so it's all up in the air. It's all confusion and mish-mash... for now. But things will settle down in the next few weeks. This is the time period when all sorts of things are whispered, shouted, denied, refuted, resurface, and finally appear. And here's the thing: We'll know soon. One way or the other, we'll know about Veron, and Gomez, and Moreno, and we'll probably know about some folks we haven't heard about. Patience, my friends.

Now, the more interesting question is this: Do you really want Veron? I think there's some concern from knowledgeable people that he could be that worst kind of acquisition - The supposed superstar who doesn't really have it anymore, or is injury prone, or whatever, so he lollygags around the midfield and things never click. I can understand that fear. Look at what Dallas (or, to a lesser degree, New York) got in their designated player signings. And while I understand the fear, I don't share it yet. I can say it is something that, if Veron is signed, people will be looking for signs of it, but we'll see. Right now Payne and company are doing pretty well in their recent acquisitions, having added a league MVP, quality midfielder, and sleeper left back last year. So right now they have credit to burn, and earned the "trust their judgement" tag for the time being. But this is, to be quite simple, the biggest acquisition move D.C. United has tried to make since 2004, so quite a bit of political capital has been invested in getting this player. And if things don't go well, you wonder how far the collateral damage could go.

Rumours of a Midfield shuffle...

So Veron is close to signing, and Gomez and DC are far apart in contract negotiations. Both Goff and Spanish language news sources report that Veron will sign for United The latter actually says that Veron "would be preparing his suitcases to join DC United in the United States" and more importantly, that the player has applied for a visa to come up north.

By some curious flow of events, Greg Baum in the Australian The Aget writes today How Victory bungled Fred deal, and drops a ton of gems for us to pick up and marvel at:

Sources close to Fred say he chose not even to look at what would obviously have been a lucrative offer from American club DC United when it arrived two days before the grand final, but asked instead for an upgrade of his terms with Victory.

Even more telling is that the difference between bringing him stateside might have been as little as $40k, or in MLS parlance approximately 3 Justin Mooses. Fred even considered playing for the Socceroos, thanks to fast tracking citizenship for elite athletes.

If you've stuck this far, you may be wondering where this post is headed. Let's see if I can tie this together. We've been speculating who would stay and go in the off season. Now, Gomez appears to be the odd man out, Moreno is likely to stay, and Veron should be training at the RFK Auxiliary fields come February. On the field, Soehn might experiment with Fred playing a more prominent role in the attack, along with Veron. It could be a worthwhile experiment at the beginning of the season.

A straight up Veron (400k) for Gomez (227k) swap, nets a Salary Cap increase of 173k. Just under D's estimated 200k that the team needs to trim. United still must renegotiate Moreno's salary down, maybe pad it with performance related incentives where PKs count 1/2 as much as goals in the run of plan.

The salary cap situation for United is still very tight. If the team is indeed looking to sign another defender and another forward, expect more player moves in the off-season, and not of the developmental player variety.

Uninformed Speculation: How to make Veron fit.

Yesterday's post on the salary cap implications of adding Veron to the roster inspired some great comments, and Skippy summarized the reaction like this: "Wow. I think you turned everyone sour on Veron with a single post." That was not my intent, but I can see why it happened. Things look really tight, especially if we're not just trying to add Veron, but also give Gomez a raise to keep him, and to add another player (either defensive depth or a good forward option - I think we get one or the other, not both.) So how will it happen?

First, let me be clear: I have no inside information of any sort, but I think we can take a reasoned approach and come up with an approximation. Veron is not coming to DC without the Designated Player rule, but I doubt he gets anything close to $10M per year. In fact, over $5M per year would be somewhat stunning. A two year deal (or, more likely, one year plus one option year) for $3M-$4M base salary would seem reasonable, with incentives and bonuses that could reach $5M. That still means we get a $400,000 cap hit, but even that is manageable.

Let's start with Vanney. My guess is United renegotiates his contract to somewhere in the 80K-130K range, and then trades him. No one is likely to want Vanney with his existing salary (in fact, United didn't take him without Colorado picking up much of the tab (Erpen's salary, which was around $120K if I recall correctly, was all United was on the hook for.) Still, that's only a savings of about $150K. United does have some allocation room left even after the Fred and Emilio signings, so that may get us another $50K. To me, that means you can add Veron just with the Vanney renegotiation. But what about other players?

To me, there are three decent options: Trade Vanney at the new contract price for allocation money, or rework Jaime Moreno's deal (almost $300K is a lot for his current production, even factoring in a "soul of the team" premium), or consider trading... Bryan Namoff. At nearly $90K, he's reasonably priced but still taking up a chunk of salary. I can see other teams being interested in him, and being willing to give up allocation money or a decent third forward option for anything from 50-120K. I don't like the idea, since we're not exactly deep at right bank, but it is something that I think should be in people's minds. Another option is to trade Boswell, who is very cheap against the cap, could command a decent return in either allocation money or personnel. The problem with trading Boswell is that he is a cap value right now, and his trade value is reduced since he was on the bench. It might make more sense to deal Boswell midseason if that's the way you want to go (and, really, I don't want to go that way, but I am horribly biased).

So I think there are ways of making this work, it's just going to be tight, especially if we're not just looking at Veron, but Veron plus one other starter. And it could be awkward.

Salary Cap Implications of Veron: Someone's gonna go.

While yesterday I talked about how the money for Veron didn't imply much of a trade-off, there is a trade that needs to be considered: Adding a designated player $400K to the salary cap. Ridge Mahoney talks a bit about this today, so let's look closer. $400K salary cap hit for a designated player. United doesn't have the room for that right now. Now, I don't have 2008 Salary figures, but I think we can take a good guess as to how things stand. Let's take the 2007 Base Salaries, and add 5% as a rough estimate for built-in contract increases, and we'll adjust for the departure of Brian Carroll and the anticipated retirement of Josh Gros:

I've left in North, Crowe, and Mupier since while they're gone, those salaries will also likely go to new draft picks. Now, to afford Veron's $400K salary hit, United would need to get to about $1.85M, and right now they're almost $150K over that number before any negotiations with Christian Gomez or others about raises. Given that I think there's no way we keep Christian without at least $50,000/year more, that means DCU is probably in a position where to keep Veron, plus Gomez, plus Moreno, they need to trim about $200K, or acquire allocations to help pay those salaries and keep us under the cap. Looking at the list, do you see where cuts can get made?

Yeah, there's Vanney. A salary renogitation has long been rumored, but even if you get him down $100,000, there's still another $100K you need to find somewhere. Now, in my mind, it would not surprise me to see Vanney's salary renegotiated, then see Vanney traded (getting him almost entirely off the books) for allocation money that would help us stay within the cap providing some money to help bolster the salaries of Gomez and Emilio (assuming we don't get the benefit of L.A. salary cap rules).

Of course, if either Moreno or Gomez leaves, then the situation is largely moot. And perhaps there are other people that we need to consider renegotiation with: As much as it hurts me to say it, Ben Olsen and Jaime Moreno are both getting a lot of money, and perhaps you can save some there. Of course, that means we'd be threatening the soul of United, and I can imagine how that would be perceived by hyperactive bloggers like me...

The Curious Economics of the Designated Player

One of the basic principles of economics is scarcity. There is a limited resource, and a task is how best to divide it. In Major League Soccer, money is the resource most subject to the rules on scarcity (even without jokes on profitability). We may want our teams to be talent stocked like Barcelona, or Liverpool, or Arsenal, but the money simply isn't there. Indeed, the salary cap puts a known figure to define the supply of the money you have to work with.

In practical terms, the salary cap lends itself to analyzing roster moves in trade-offs. Do you want a proven, above average holding midfielder at $90,000 a year? Or do you trade away that midfielder and promote two promising developmental players to around $45,000 a year? The supply of money is fixed, and you have to make the decision. Even in sports without the salary cap, your bankroll is limited by an owner's willingness and ability to spend money. Every choice in salary has to be viewed as a tradeoff against another choice. Economists like to invoke the term utility somewhere around here, talking about how much you get in return for each dollar your trade for your players.

The Designated Player is a strange world which doesn't seem to adhere to the typical considerations. Other than a choice between having $1.85M to spend in a cap, plus a designated player, or a $2.25M cap without a designated player, there's no trade-off among players to speak of. Look at the Veron situation: It looks that United has decided he's that player they would bring in using the Designated Player rule. Now, let's suppose the two sides sit down and talk money. United wants to spend $14M over two years, and Veron's people want $30M over three years. On a per-annum basis, that's a difference of $3M per year. But, here's the strange thing: In most other roster transactions, United would have to balance the prospect of moving towards the Veron number against better uses for investing that money. I mean, United could pay Veron the $10M he wanted, but they could also invest that $3M in other players. And that option, depending on the players, could look reasonably attractive. It doesn't work in the Veron case, though, since the choice is either "Do we spend more money, or not spend it at all?" You can't save that $3M and spend it elsewhere (other than in the sense of spending it on organizational details.) So there's less marginal utility to saving the money, making it an easier choice to give in to a demand for higher money.

I bring this up because both Anonymous and Nick had good reactions to the initial reports on salary figures being discussed foor Veron. Anon wrote:

How 'bout we pass on Veron and use the 30M for incentives instead. Cash and perks to the team for wins, goals, saves, silverware...

Better yet, how many Emilios could we bring on board for 30M?

Only partly kidding here... that kind of differential has got to weigh on the team a bit -- in the locker room if not on the field.

And that locker-room chemistry is one of the things that defines DCU and makes them great. A bit of a risk, no?

And I admit, that's partially how I look at things, except the answer to his question of "How many Emilios could we get for 30M?" has an answer -- at most one, and Emilio is costing us only a few hundred thousand under the cap. There's not really a choice there. As for locker room chemistry, I imagine that most of the leadership of the team will accept Veron. Galaxy players are standing up for Goldenballs, so there's no reason to think that United players won't accept Veron as one of their own.

Similarly, Nick wrote

The Argentinean press has said 2 years and 20 million dollars since last august. I love Veron, but I don't think he's worth 10 million a year. I'd say that would be Riquelme money...

I agree with Nick entirely -- I would willingly fork out $10M for Riquelme and personally offer him a piggy back ride from South America to DC if it would get him here, and I don't think Veron rises to that value in a traditional sports model. But the question is defeated by the strange economics. If the choice is Veron or nothing, the benefit of saving money is a salary negotiation is reduced. It leads, in a strange way, to artificially inflated salaries. That's not to say that there's no limit to what you spend. You still have to consider what revenue Veron would bring, and how many wins he gets you, and figure out if he's worth it, but the marginal value of each dollar saved is decreased because you can't spend that dollar saved in other places. So while I normally, running a team in pretty much any other league in the world, would look at $10M for Veron and say "that's ridiculous," I won't say it here. If United decides that $10M isn't too much to pay for the player they want, then I know that their paying $10M isn't in some way cheating us out of a better option. And in that case, I suppose the deal makes more sense then it would if there was no Designated Player rule.

Follow-up, extracurricular Monday

NAMOFF'S CHANCES TO SEE BRADLEY PLAY WERE ONLY MOSTLY DEAD: Bradley defeated Maryland, and so Bryan Namoff's pesky wedding thing will not be his last chance to see the Bradley team in the NCAA men's soccer finals. Steve Goff has the gamer. With Maryland out of the tournament, Bradley is likely to become my team of choice for the Round of 8, just for club support reasons.

TRIBAL FOOTBALL SAYS "31M USD FOR VERON": This falls well within the "take with a cellar of salt" type of news, but is the first time where a media outlet has claimed to know a number. Even if you assume that the fifteen million pound sum is spread over multiple years, that's still about 10M a year for a three year contract. It's possible that they have their currencies confused. A $15M price seems much more likely to me, as that would be a two year deal at 7M and 8M. Still steep, but at least within reason for United's standards. I mean...

UNITED OUTLAY PROJECT, ROUND 2: Thanks to everyone for their comments on trying to estimate United's outlays. The big expense people got that we didn't include was travel, which we've now added in as a new expense. We've also fiddled with the front office numbers in response to the comments, so we've reduced out estimated DC outlays to about 9.7M. And, of course, we're willing to go father, so if you have concrete data or better guesses, submit them in the comments please. So, to put the previous report in perspective...

TRAVIS - THE PERKINS, NOT THE BAND. NEVER THE BAND: Hat Tip to "Gunnersaurus" at Big Soccer for the news that Troy Perkins' brother Travis is in PGA Q-School, and has a decent shot at a tour card. The final round is today, and we're pulling for him. I figure Travis must be a pretty good golfer, given the way he'd try to flop a high, floating pitching wedge into the green, and Troy would run across and grab it in midair.

Watch the Skies

In the day or two before DC United was sold to MacFarlane's group, this blog saw an increase in searches for "D.C. United sale" or variants thereof. Similarly, when Nowak was out, we saw an increase in people reaching this site on searches for "Peter Novak United" and similar. Now, that just may mean that speculation was rife, or it might mean that people had an inkling it was coming and wanted to see if it had broken yet. Now, I'm seeing a larger number than normal of people using the search terms "veron" and "united." Is it just the traffic one would expect from the rumors that have been reported, or is there something else happening?

Succession Planning

If there's something we know, it's that United's front office thinks ahead. They kept tabs on Luciano Emilio for years before bringing him into the fold. No sooner had Piotr Nowak left the head coaching position than Tom Soehn was promoted. They replaced Freddy with Fred seamlessly, and things moved on.

Now, the off-season tends to make me depressed and gloomy, but I should also acknowledge that this team generally makes efforts to get better. So it's worth speculating what the plans are. We know of the pursuit of Veron in Argentina, and while he wouldn't be my first choice for a designated player from that part of the world (that would still be Riquelme... look, I can dream, right?) I've come to accept he's a good option. The conventional wisdom is that Veron, in addition to being a talented midfielder, is insurance against a possible Christian Gomez departure. That makes sense, but I want to throw another idea out there: Veron also helps the succession planning for Jaime Moreno if Gomez stays around.

In 2007, we saw Tom Soehn move Christian forward more frequently then Piotr Nowak would. And there's a certain logic to using Christian in a withdrawn forward type position. He can still create chances, he can still track back for the ball (although perhaps not as deep, but with Veron he theoretically would not need to), he has a decent shot from 20 yards out, and he's elusive in tight corners. The one downgrade is that I don't think he plays quite as well holding the ball at the top of the box than Jaime does (Christian can hold the bell well around the center circle, but the dynamics of midfielders trying to knock you off the ball and those of defenders are different). If Jamie were to go somewhere else (sad, but it must be considered) or see his playing time reduced (we know that must be considered) then it seems to me that Gomez would have to be considered a top candidate to move into that position -- moreso than Addlery, Kpene, Dyachenko, or any of the other reserve forward options.

Now, this premise sort of implies a few things: United would have to find a way to keep Gomez and Veron without Gomez getting Designated Player type money. That could be a difficult sell, but it is still possible. Getting Gomez to $300K is not impossible, and would be a 20% increase over his current yearly salary. Would Gomez be willing to take that? I don't know. Veron's going to count as $400K against the cap at least (and a salary around the $2M mark would not surprise me). But I can see uses for Veron beyond the obvious one-for-one substitution for Gomez, and that's intriguing.

Tuesday's Tryptophan Fighting Coffee

So The DCenters is awakening from our turkey slumber and we are realizing that we missed some news bits the past couple of days. If you joined your friends and family in giving thanks and skipped out on your DC United fix for some good home cooking this is the post to get you (and us) caught back up.

Carroll No Longer with DCU: Yeah, we saw this one and probably should have said a few words. San Jose taking Brian was expected, what was not expected was that he would be traded to Columbus for Kai Kamara. Either way we would just like to echo Dave Kaspar's comments,

"Brian has been a model professional on and off the field for D.C United, and we thank him for his five terrific years at the club."

Carroll was never a fan favorite at United but when he was on he made every other players job easier and made it possible for them to wow the crowd and please the fans. Clyde has basically been the starting D-Mid since the 2007 All-Star break, and Carroll was never as good in 2007 as he was in years past, but his service to DC United has been crucial to the success they have had since 2004. Only Moreno, Etcheverry, Olsen, Williams, Pope, Agoos, Namoff and Prideaux have played more minutes for United than Carroll.

Veron Rumors Pick Up Steam: Goff is hearing reports that a decision might be coming by December 15th. This would be an interesting move for United. I don't know how it will play out, but it could have interesting ripple effects in player moves, locker room cohesion and goals for next season.

CONCACAF Champions Cup: Six of the eight teams in the 2008 CONCACAF Champions Cup are set. CD Montagua, Deportivo Saprissa, Harbour View, Pachuca, DC United and the Houston Dynamo are already in the competition. CSD Municipal and LD Alajuelense are fighting for the third Central American spot which will be decided on December 4th, while the second Mexican spot will go to the winner of the Apertura. The Apertura season is down to four teams as Santos will play Pumas and Chivas will meet Atlante in the semifinals. So DC United could face Chivas yet again, though betting money has to go to Santos at this point. Goff is reporting that the dates for the first leg of the CCC are March 11-13 (first leg) and 18-20 (second leg). So that is when the off season ends.

DC United 2007 Player Grades: UnitedMania has given out player grades for the 2007 season. For the most part I agree with these grades. The grades seem to be given out based on expectations, making Burch one of the two people with an A, but overall it is a solid analysis.

Joe Machnik Interview: Kenn.com has a great interview with MLS’ Assistant to the Deputy Commissioner for On-Field Competition (wow, thats a long title) Joe Machnik. Basically Dr. Machnik is the guy in the MLS' organization that deals with the referees. The interview covers the entire officiating gamut and every MLS fan should read it.

MLS Blows Decision by Blowing the Galaxy: Ives reports on the decision by the honchos at MLS HQ to grandfather the contracts of Landon Donovan, Eddie Johnson and Carlos Ruiz so that their teams would not need to make them Designated Players to keep them. Basically they changed the rules halfway through the game...again. Frankly I thought MLS was beyond this, but I guess not. More than anything else in US Soccer, tampering like this is the thing that pisses me off the most.

2010 World Cup Qualifying: The draw was held on the 25th. The US will play the winner of Dominica and Barbados. Assuming they win that game they will be drawn into a group that will probably consist of themselves, Cuba, Trinidad & Tobago and Guatemala. Assuming no upsets the Group B will be Mexico, Honduras, Jamaica and Canada while Group C will consist of Haiti, Panama, Guyana and Costa Rica.

DC United chasing Veron for 2008

Ives is reporting on his blog that United " is deep in talks with Argentine star midfielder Juan Veron to sign him as a designated player for the 2008 season." Jump over ther for the full story.

Implications/Questions:

1. How much does Veron have left in the tank? Would he adjust to the more physical play in MLS if he couldn't adjust to playing in the EPL? I'd wager he would although his current Argentine season has been marred by minor injuries.
   
2. Is Gomez who we have to give up? Even in an arguably sub par season, I really hope there'd be some arrangement that keep Gomito in a United uniform. I'd rather he go overseas than to another MLS team.
3. Do we have the slots to keep so many foreign players? Moreno has a green card, so he doesn't count against the limit. Gomez, Emilio, Fred are our current Senior Internationals. Kpene is a Youth International, and I'm not clear on if he would count as an SI next year.
4. An interview in Ole, mentions that Veron would like to play in Copa Libertadores. If its true, is he willing to give up on that?
   

Rumors of Juan Sebastian Veron to DC

Sideline Views is trumpeting the translation of an article in Clarin where Veron supposedly states that he'd going to play for either DC United or Estudiantes in the upcoming season. This is not the first time this story has come out, but it is the first at least semi-reputable story. Max Rosenthal of Pitch Invasion and The Offside: DC United had emailed me about this over three weeks ago, and at the time I thought it was unlikely. The idea that Veron, who loves Estudiantes, would come to DC seemed far fetched. To be honest, it still does. This seems at least somewhat like a negotiating ploy. I'm sure DC would love to have him, even at 32 he's a very talented player for the midfield, but I would imagine it seems like what they refer to in negotiating classes as a Best Alternative to a Negotiated Outcome, saying that he can go elsewhere if Estudiantes doesn't give him what he wants (like, say, at least partial ownership of the club.) If it happens, it also creates some interesting maneuvering in DC's lineups, and doesn't address our backline. So right now, I'm a bit skeptical that this would come to pass, but I figure you should know.