Dec 2, 2010 - The signings of Fredy Montero and Alvaro Saborio to Designated Player contracts on Tuesday was not necessarily huge news in and of itself. Both players had performed like DPs during the relatively brief times in MLS (they've combined for 36 goals in 83 regular season games), and it was widely expected that if their teams wanted to keep them it was going to have to be by giving them significant raises and buying out their loan deals.
What is news is how these signings fit into the continuing evolution of the way MLS teams are using their Designated Player slots.
Prior to this year, these spots were essentially reserved for well-established players that had made their names in the major European leagues or for big clubs in Argentina or Mexico and were almost always in their 30s. Saborio and Montero were none of those things.
While Soborio had played in Europe, it's doubtful Real Salt Lake was counting on their fanbase being impressed by his time the middling Swiss league. It's far more likely they saw a player that had scored 133 goals over the past nine seasons, was an imposing physical presence and could possibly be a replacement for the recently departed Yura Movsisyan.
Saborio, of course, helped lead RSL to their best ever regular season, scored 12 goals and was named MLS Newcomer of the Year.
Similarly, the Sounders originally acquired Montero because they liked the promise he showed while scoring 27 times in 56 matches at Deportivo Cali before he turned 22. They saw a player who they hoped would form a nice partnership with Freddie Ljungberg, not someone who was going to sell tickets based on name recognition.
He followed up his own Newcomer of the Year season by becoming the second youngest player in MLS history to have at least 10 goals and 10 assists in the same season. The 23-year-old scored five game-winning goals, two of which came after the 85th minute.
Now, RSL and the Sounders control the rights of a pair of players that can be the focal point of their offenses for years to come, could very well lead their teams to glory for several more years and are still young enough that they could be sold to European teams for tidy profits.
While many teams get caught up in bringing DPs on board as a way of boosting turnstile numbers, in both of these cases the general managers credited their fans for making these kind of forward-looking signings possible.
"Our attendance has steadily increased since we moved into Rio Tinto Stadium and that increased fan support is one of the primary reasons we as an organization were able to make this happen," RSL's Garth Lagerwey said in a team release.
Seattle's Adrian Hanauer acknowledged that the perpetual sellouts at Qwest Field give him flexibility in what kind of players he can sign that other teams lack. Since making Freddie Ljungberg one the franchise's first signings, none of the Soundres' three subsequent DPs have carried anywhere near his profile. Blaise Nkufo, Alvaro Fernandez and now Montero were clearly signed to fill specific roles, not sell tickets.
"In the big markets - in LA and New York - they've decided they want a combination," Hanauer said. "Obviously they're looking for quality on the field and they've signed some quality players. They're also looking for a little buzz and some names that are going to move the needle on ticket sales and television and sponsorship and merchandise. They're in tough, tough sports markets - entertainment markets - where to stand out above the clutter is very difficult.
"We don't have to think as much about the marketing side. That said, I think there's a great opportunity to bring young players like Fredy and Alvaro and have them evolve into stars that do sell tickets and sponsorship and merchandise."
One added benefit to signing relatively young players like this, Hanauer pointed out, was they are far more likely to stay healthy than some of the older DPs. Montero, for instance, played 40 matches and Saborio played 36 matches across all competitions last year. Combined, Thierry Henry, Rafa Marquez and David Beckham - the three highest paid players in MLS - played 34 matches this season as all of them battled injuries.
The Sounders and RSL are not the only teams seeing the value in signing younger, cheaper and less well known Designated Players.
In the first two years of the DP rule, DC United's Luciano Emilio was the only of the nine DPs who was younger than 30 or had never played in France, Spain, England, Mexico or Argentina. In the two years since, six of the 14 DPs were younger than 30 and seven of them had never played in one of those countries.
To be sure, some of those gambles have not paid off. Luis Angel Landin, who was 24 when the Dynamo brought him on loan from Mexican side Morelia, played just 16 matches over two seasons before being released. Nery Castillo, a 26-year-old Mexican international, played just eight matches for the Chicago Fire and was paid nearly $1.8 million last year.
On the other hand, the two biggest DP flops in history were probably fellow one-namers Mista and Denilson. They had played in La Liga and Ligue 1, respectively, prior to coming to MLS and they combined for two goals in 20 MLS matches before being released.
Hopefully, MLS decision-makers realize the upside to gambling on younger players is far greater than banking on theoretically safe older players.
The day when the best soccer players in the world want to play in MLS because it is the best league is still a long ways off, but at least MLS is becoming an acceptable place for those players to hone their crafts. Montero, for one, has never hidden his desire to one day play for the best teams in Europe. But the grin he was wearing at his Wednesday press conference indicated MLS will do just fine for the time being.
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