Charlotte FC vs. MLS Media

[travisura]

Recently, there has been a trend of MLS pundits and twitter accounts offering (sometimes harsh) critiques of CLTFC, and how they've operated thus far. Their critiques seem to boil down to:

1. Not following in the foot steps of Atlanta United, LAFC, and Nashville SC in terms of roster building, and overall plan of attack is a grave misstep.

2. David Tepper and the front office have been derelict in their duties of running the organization, particularly as it pertains to still not having a permanent practice and training facility, and

3. Sporting Director Zoran Krneta and his lack of MLS experience will be the downfall of CLTFC.

To address point number 1, there seems to be a consensus amongst the talking heads and pundits, that THE way to start in the MLS is to do it exactly the way that Atlanta United and LAFC have done it. Sign 1-2 verifiable talents, and surround them with a domestic core of MLS experienced players. Here is a snippet of the Athletic article written on the subject:

It didn’t need to be this way. Tepper, who agreed to pay an expansion fee that could rise as high as $325 million just to join the league, is reportedly the wealthiest individual owner in MLS. He has the money to fund a top contender. There was plenty of time to get things right. And while it isn’t easy to assemble an expansion roster in MLS, there are more than enough recent examples of what leads to success and failure for first-year clubs. Charlotte had a road map. The technical staff, led by Krneta, just appears to have ignored it.

Atlanta, LAFC and Nashville showed how to enter the league on a positive note. Atlanta, which began play in 2017, and LAFC, which joined in 2018, spent big on stars like Miguel Almiron and Carlos Vela, then solidified their rosters with dependable MLS talent, particularly in goal, along the backline and in midfield. Nashville, which debuted in 2020, didn’t come close to matching the initial financial outlay of those two clubs, but they developed a strong, defensive identity, went out and acquired players from within the league who fit their disciplined tactics, then made new signings and tweaked their system in a way that built on their strong early foundation. All three clubs did business efficiently ahead of their first seasons in the league. All built technical staffs with significant previous MLS experience, an especially important quality in a league with such a complex set of roster rules.

This reads as a fair critique, if you assume that this is the only way that it is possible to be successful early on in the MLS, but then you remember that CLTCFC has only played two (2) games thus far, and you might start to wonder why they are being written off after such a short time. And let's not forget how close Charlotte was to signing players that would have drastically increased the overall talent level of the squad. If Charlotte had signed one of Arriola or Machis, we are having an entirely different conversation right now. 

Now, obviously I support Charlotte so I am not an unbiased party in this, but tweets like this read as cynical to me. Again, we are only 2 games in. 

On to point number 2, this one is less defendable in my mind. There is absolutely no excuse why a person worth north of 14 billion dollars cant build a dedicated, full time training facility for a professional sports team in two years. Or at the very minimum, have concrete plans for one. To quote from the article again:

The issues extend beyond the roster. Though they’ve now been a part of MLS for 27 months, the club still hasn’t announced a plan for a permanent training facility. They currently split practices between Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium, which has an artificial surface, and the suburban Sportsplex at Matthews, which has grass fields. Players are bussed about 20 minutes each way from the stadium, which recently underwent a $50 million renovation to better accommodate soccer and which holds the team’s main locker room and workout facilities, to the Sportsplex on days the club trains in Matthews. 

Nick Kelly, who was hired as club president in December 2020 and elevated to CEO of Tepper Sports and Entertainment after ex-CEO Tom Glick departed the organization last month, told The Athletic last week that the club is hoping to unveil “a semi-permanent (training) solution” in the next two or three weeks and that the organization is in conversations with the city of Charlotte to construct a permanent training ground in the city that would be in-line with new facilities around MLS. But it’s still somewhat damning that they haven’t yet sorted out a stable solution.  

This critique is valid, to me. Tepper, get it done.

On to point 3.  Zoran Krneta has been roundly criticized for his preference for European talent, over MLS veterans. From the article:

Instead of trying to replicate those successes, Charlotte attempted to reinvent the wheel. That started with the hiring of Krneta, a former agent who primarily represented players in Europe, in December 2019. Krneta’s appointment was driven by Glick, and he arrived in Charlotte with a long history of sealing huge deals for his clients but with zero previous experience working at a club and little working knowledge of MLS. His resume is more similar to failed former San Jose GM Jesse Fioranelli than it is to most of the successful chief soccer officers around the league, many of whom, including LAFC GM John Thorrington and Nashville GM Mike Jacobs, entered their current positions with years of experience within the American and Canadian soccer ecosystem. 

Nicholls was meant to balance out Krneta, someone who could add MLS know-how to Krneta’s international savvy. He studied the recent expansion teams, telling the club’s website in September that he’d “looked at a lot of (new) clubs, especially those that joined since 2017, and there are very specific clues to be identified from their perceived successes and failures.” 

There’s little evidence that Charlotte paid any attention to those “themes and fundamentals” while building their inaugural roster, which has almost zero meaningful MLS experience and no real domestic core.

Despite the initial struggles on the field and the incomplete nature of the squad, neither Krneta nor Kelly said they would change much about how Charlotte have constructed their roster. Both said that they would’ve tried to sign a few more players last summer to avoid what should have been foreseeable difficulties the team has experienced obtaining work visas for international players in recent months, but they wanted to be patient with how they built. They thought it best to leave room to see which players perform well and which players perform poorly in actual MLS games, then add as needed. There’s merit in that strategy, to be sure. But leaving the roster so light, especially in attack, seems to have been a misstep.

 

They also both cited Ramirez’s preferred game model as perhaps the deciding factor in which players the team has targeted. The head coach wants his team to build from the back and disorganize opponents with the ball, a strategy that’s difficult for any first-year outfit to pull off due to general lack of time together. Krneta felt that players who fit that model weren’t really available in MLS. 

“For the specific playing style we have, we need to kind of make some certain exceptions and bring some players who simply have a better fit for our certain play and certain style,” he said.

Kelly echoed that stance when asked about Charlotte’s lack of MLS experience on the field, on the bench and in the front office. 

I think when the totality of the situation is considered, especially given Miguel's preferred style of play, and the fact of the Arriola and Machis deals falling through, it seems pretty straight forward why CLTFC finds itself in the position that it does. As the article mentions, Miguel's preferred style of playing out from the back requires a high level of team chemistry and technically gifted players. Until you have both of those elements present, growing pains are expected. The article goes on to mention that things could end up working out. But my question is, why such harsh criticism so early on in the tenure of Charlotte FC. Granted, I did not follow MLS heavily until this season, so can someone tell me if Orlando City, Minnesota, or Cincinnati, or any of the expansion teams that did not have immediate success, were treated this harshly after two games? Why Charlotte?

TL/DR: CLTFC has been on the receiving end of some harsh criticism after only 2 games played. Some of it is warranted, some of it is a bit too cynical, in my opinion.

Apologies for the long post, just wanted to comment on a growing trend I've been seeing. I'll be interested to revisit this at the end of the season to see if these criticisms were merited, or levied too early.

Link to Athletic article: https://theathletic.com/3173825/2022/03/09/charlotte-fcs-mls-introduction-huge-crowds-off-the-field-but-screwed-on-it/

 

[54th man]

The only issue I can find that could be a head scratcher I'd the training facility. Surely Tepper has the money buy with significant upgrades to remodel BOA, the ongoing situation of the Panthers training facility in SC, and with a distant eye on a future home for both the Panthers and Charlotte FC it could just be alots on the stove and that in time this will be taken care of, time will tell.

[MillionDollarCam]

This is the problem with MLS… the MLS pundits, media, and homers think that there is only one way to build an MLS team… that’s also the reason that the MLS will always be a cellar dweller league.

I applaud Zoran for trying something different, if Arriola and Machis were on this team then we’d be the talk of the town.

The style of play (and not having relegation with the USL) is what’s holding the MLS back.

Charlotte will continue to pull numbers because eventually this style of play will pay off.

Hell, New England won the Supporters Shield last year and they can’t even pull.

We will be fine after a couple of transfer windows.

[travisura]

1 hour ago, MillionDollarCam said:

This is the problem with MLS… the MLS pundits, media, and homers think that there is only one way to build an MLS team… that’s also the reason that the MLS will always be a cellar dweller league.

I applaud Zoran for trying something different, if Arriola and Machis were on this team then we’d be the talk of the town.

The style of play (and not having relegation with the USL) is what’s holding the MLS back.

Charlotte will continue to pull numbers because eventually this style of play will pay off.

Hell, New England won the Supporters Shield last year and they can’t even pull.

We will be fine after a couple of transfer windows.

Yeah that’s generally how I feel too. These criticisms feel like retrospectives after a project falls apart, not after they’ve played two games. 

[NAS]

That roster looked pretty good last night. 

[MechaZain]

They're being overly critical because they see the potential in our fanbase. MLS's dream is for every team to have fans like Seattle, Atlanta, Charlotte etc and thus the hamfisted comparisons. The commentators in the first game were rooting for us to score to please the crowd.

[Panthercougar68]

They were going to build a practice facility and hq on the site of the old Eastland mall in Charlotte till the deal feel through.

Edited March 26, 2022 by Panthercougar68