Showing posts with label dilly duka. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dilly duka. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Dilly Duka, Survivor
Playing around with tools today. Since he recently moved abroad to KF Partizani Tirana in Albania, above is Dilly Duka's career timeline. Duka's career is unique in that he has had two separate layoffs between MLS teams. It's something I don't see often, if at all. I love to see players fighting for their career. If I was starting a team, I'd want a few players like Duka on it.
The timeline is interactive, should be able to click around, get info.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Duka for Oduro, It Is Done. Balchan.
Dilly Duka and Dominic Oduro have swapped sides... A romance that had been rumored for sometime. It'll be interesting to see if Major League Soccer stepped in to make this deal happen. Ultimately, it's a couple talented players caught in the middle between a bunch of lunkheaded jocks trying to run professional sports teams.
Not to be lost in the Duka / Oduro deal in all of this is a player Chicago had to release in order to make room for Duka in Chicago. Rich Balchan. Former Crew player and witness to Kirk Urso's passing last year. You've got to imagine that it's been a remarkably difficult year for both but they are are talented players and will be successful at their next stop. I wish both of them the best in the future.
Not to be lost in the Duka / Oduro deal in all of this is a player Chicago had to release in order to make room for Duka in Chicago. Rich Balchan. Former Crew player and witness to Kirk Urso's passing last year. You've got to imagine that it's been a remarkably difficult year for both but they are are talented players and will be successful at their next stop. I wish both of them the best in the future.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Massive Report Post on Duka, more
Going through his season I can see where the frustration set in. As soon as he recovered from his game one injury and started getting minutes he really started to improve the team (also, it helped that Mirosevic was not out there during that time). Once Mirosevic got healthy and Federico Higuain came in, things really changed.
The difference between when Duka was on the field and when he was off was crazy. I really don't have much of an explanation for that other than the complete change in tactics late in the game by the coach. Speaking of which, the coach uses 3 subs each game, regardless of what is going on at the time. Part of that behavior is probably what drove Duka and a few other players crazy.
Duka ended the year +5 on Goal Differential which ended up being around +0.36 per start. Good enough for 3rd on the team. His 2.00 pts per start was 2nd best on the club.
His final record was 8 wins, 2 draws and 4 loss.
Duka is a good player. He's been with the club since 2010 and you could tell a familiarity was there when he was on the field. Definitely something the Crew need more of in 2013.
What's frustrating for me is that I have not found evidence anywhere that the Crew look at any type of measurement I list above. I think it more comes down to how well players get along with coach's and mentions from pundits. The recent addition of the coaches son to the list of trialists in Florida all but confirms this sort of behavior.
LASTLY
There were two things that stuck in my mind when writing the post.
1. Watch around minute 3:25 of the video. It's the 30th minute of the Chivas USA game where Duka skips the bench and sets the team off. It's where the picture in this post comes from. Duka takes a shot / cross off a nifty back heel from J Williams. It heads out of bounds for a goal kick. There is a tight shot of him after the play, he just looks exhausted from trying way too hard and beat down from whatever the coaching staff was doing to him.
2. Playing a lot of Max Payne 3. Yes. There is a beautifully set scene in Hoboken, NJ about a third into the game. I've been up that way and also have met a handful of folks from that part of NJ over the years and they are great people. Also, completely different then around here and certainly different than Robert Warzycha. Anyhow, Duka is from about a half hour west of there. I dunno, guess you had to be there. Here's a picture I took.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Crew Roster Notes, Those On the Move
As we enter a new calendar year let's take a look at the current status of three players currently listed Crew roster who don't seem to be settled.
Milovan Mirosevic, Wants Out
Reportedly looking to return to Universidad Católica with a year left on his Crew contract. Pretty sure the Crew are looking to get something in return for the player and I don't think it is out of the question to think fellow countryman Sebastian Miranda was let go with this in mind. Then again, I may be giving the Crew brain trust too much credit. If no deal is met than the Crew have a pretty unmotivated player on their hands.
My thought: It's probably best to reach a deal and let him go.
Emilio Renteria, Contract Expiring
Has less than 48 hours remaining on his contract. Rumblings of him / agent not liking the language in the new deal. I'm sure Emilio would like to be a starter as a forward playing, attacking player but the Crew moved him to midfield since the arrival of Jairo Arrieta.
My thought: Re-sign him. With Arrieta's playing style (aggressive) chances are the club will need another forward.
Dilly Duka, Trade / Transfer
The Crew have made it known they want to use Duka in a trade or transfer if possible. It's got to be shitty for a player to hear they are trade bait. I consider Duka to be a more than capable fill in for Mirosevic were he to go (which he should). Watch Duka on the U23 US team (1:05 and 1:30). He is best playing more centrally. Also, look up images of Mirosevic... now Duka. Note that Mirosevic is always getting knocked down.
My thought: Take Duka off the transfer list, build his confidence. The return would be less valuable. He has the talent, develop it.
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Combined these player's salaries are $600,208 in guaranteed monies. Or, 25% of total guaranteed salary of the 21 players currently listed on the team roster. There is a possibility that all three are being shopped to make room for one player of which @patricksp71 as brought some attention too. His name is Diego Valeri and, according to Soccerway.com captains Guillermo Barros Schelotto's Lanús side in Argentina.
Should be an interesting start to the new year.
Milovan Mirosevic, Wants Out
Reportedly looking to return to Universidad Católica with a year left on his Crew contract. Pretty sure the Crew are looking to get something in return for the player and I don't think it is out of the question to think fellow countryman Sebastian Miranda was let go with this in mind. Then again, I may be giving the Crew brain trust too much credit. If no deal is met than the Crew have a pretty unmotivated player on their hands.
My thought: It's probably best to reach a deal and let him go.
Emilio Renteria, Contract Expiring
Has less than 48 hours remaining on his contract. Rumblings of him / agent not liking the language in the new deal. I'm sure Emilio would like to be a starter as a forward playing, attacking player but the Crew moved him to midfield since the arrival of Jairo Arrieta.
My thought: Re-sign him. With Arrieta's playing style (aggressive) chances are the club will need another forward.
Dilly Duka, Trade / Transfer
The Crew have made it known they want to use Duka in a trade or transfer if possible. It's got to be shitty for a player to hear they are trade bait. I consider Duka to be a more than capable fill in for Mirosevic were he to go (which he should). Watch Duka on the U23 US team (1:05 and 1:30). He is best playing more centrally. Also, look up images of Mirosevic... now Duka. Note that Mirosevic is always getting knocked down.
My thought: Take Duka off the transfer list, build his confidence. The return would be less valuable. He has the talent, develop it.
----------
Combined these player's salaries are $600,208 in guaranteed monies. Or, 25% of total guaranteed salary of the 21 players currently listed on the team roster. There is a possibility that all three are being shopped to make room for one player of which @patricksp71 as brought some attention too. His name is Diego Valeri and, according to Soccerway.com captains Guillermo Barros Schelotto's Lanús side in Argentina.
Should be an interesting start to the new year.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Crew Midfield, MLS Value Conversation
The more time I spend with on this type of analysis the more things start jumping out at me. It's especially apparent now that I've reviewed the Crew Defenders and Midfield. While the specific numbers matter to me, the simpler way to look at this is to call a players contract either a "Hit" or "Miss".
It's great that there are some players far exceeding contract but what is also impressive are those players that demand larger contracts and perform up to that level. Going back to my last post real quick, you'll notice two players that were definite salary / contract "Hits" in Sebastian Miranda and Carlos Mendes and three decidedly "Miss" in James, Vukovic, and Marshall.
Looking at the group as a whole it's easy to say that the Crew missed on the entire backline with contracts falling -$(195,506) to the red. That actually puts them 14th in the league (not good) in regards to the backline (TFC, COL, VAN, PHI) territory. However, upon closer inspection I see that C. Marshall makes up 89% of that deficit.
Similar tale to tell here with the Crew midfield. The players at this position carry a contract deficit of -$(186,126) and through not much fault on his own, Dilly Duka makes up 74% of it (reminder: I always use 'guaranteed contract'). Duka is coming of Generation Adidas graduation and appears to be saddled with a heavily incentivised contract. It is very possible that the 'herky-jerky' nature of his playing time was due to this. Has the Robert Warzycha and Co. ruined a talented player here? I have a feeling we will find out very soon when/if he suits up for another club and plays his natural central MF spot.
Other midfield contract misses are Milovan Mirosevic, Danny O'Rourke and possibly Chris Birchall. Mirosevic's $223,000 is 28% too high in my book. I value him at a healthy $160k, which is significantly above league median of $110k, which means he added value but he did not live up to this heavy price tag.
In fact, no midfielder in MLS really lives up to a salary that high when looking a value based on performance. My analysis shows that anything over $215k might be too high for a MF player in MLS. Or, another way to put that is to say; that if you are a team looking at a offering a contract above $200k... don't, the risk far outweighs the return you will likely get.
As for the contract "Hits" I show Eddie Gaven and Tony Tchani. Now, Gaven is a solid Hit. I rank him as the 3rd best MF in MLS this year. Tchani's hit is a bit of a strange thing, but it makes sense upon closer inspection. MLS is littered with midfield players. Almost 200 different players saw time there (compared with 150 Defenders, 110 Forwards) and a good chunk of them only played in half the games. Only 25% saw more than 2000 minutes compared to 36% of defenders. What this means is the MLS has a lot of midfield players making good money only playing half the time. There are many possible reasons for this, first being that a MF does a lot of running.
That said. This is a 'market value' look at the league so while MLS has a collective problem in searching for the right MF players, Tchani falls into a sweet spot on the list. Here are some of the players around him on my player rating and make similar salary: Gabriel Gomez, Luiz Camargo, David Ferreira, Bobby Convey, Branko Boskovic... Those are some heavy hitters but also some large salaries. All of these players only played in about half their team's games yet make over 200k.
Tony Tchani also has one of these Generation Adidas contracts that tend to out pace player value according to MLS. The difference between his base and guaranteed is $104k and Duka's diff is $130k. That's a lot of added pressure on both player and coach and I can see why MLS is taking a closer look at the GA program (It could be argued that this Adidas program pays correctly and MLS themselves undervalue. I'm not taking that on). Regardless, in my opinion any team with both these players should start them game in / game out. They are talented and will bring wins. Problem with the Crew is that they reached on them before their salary counted towards the cap and now that it does, they realize that, while they are valuable and meet their "Base Salary", they are not worth their heavy guaranteed rates.
CIRCUMSTANCE GUIDES BLISS
Brian Bliss is the Crew Technical Director. On his own, he knows young undiscovered talent (he is connected to that pipeline) but I think he tends to miss on experienced players when he doesn't have the help of folks like Guillermo Barros Schelotto.
Looking up and down the list of Crew midfielders it is circumstance might do in Dilly Duka and Tony Tchani while in my opinion the wise cut might be Mirosevic. If the Crew can rework Duka and Tchani's contracts down to where their guaranteed is at base levels they should keep them as they are both worth that.
One other larger contract th Crew have is Chris Birchall. I'm not sure about him, because he came into the season a little late, if is $109k contract has to be paid in full. I am confident that had he been around all season he would have been a "Hit".
Lastly, we have a trio of lower wage midfielders that contributed well above their league mandated minimums. They were
Kevan George
$33,750 salary : 67,500 HB Value
Bernardo Anor
$44,100 salary : 75,833 HB Value
Cole Grossman (released)
$44,100 salary : 67,600 HB Value
Bernardo could very well end up on the defender list next year even though he's only a defender in the eyes of Robert Warzycha. Note: Ethan Finlay is listed as a Forward by Stats, Inc. I will cover him later with that group.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The MF positions in this league seem to be a revolving door and the Crew is no different. This muddies the waters and makes contract evaluation difficult. My recommendation to the Crew would be to work on a consistent and durable MF lineup (and formation) and work from there. Constant change will only make things more difficult to evaluate and therefore reward/compensate appropriately.
The reason this post is in conversational for is because there is very little to ground these players with. You've got GA players with unbalanced contracts, an aging Chilean who never found his rhythm, a talented young leader who requested out, a skillful gazelle who was put into an unnatural left back position and tore his knee apart, and another who very well could be one of the best MLS midfielders of his generation.
The Crew's problem is here - in the midfield. Not so much in that there isn't enough talent, more that it is probably been misused or there is a disconnect between Brian Bliss and the coaching staff.
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THANKSGIVING
As I'm finishing this midfield post up and getting ready to head out to meet friends on this day I can't help but think of Kirk Urso and his family. While I'd give a lot to be writing about his performance and what he would contribute to next year - his life reminds us all of what is really important.
It's great that there are some players far exceeding contract but what is also impressive are those players that demand larger contracts and perform up to that level. Going back to my last post real quick, you'll notice two players that were definite salary / contract "Hits" in Sebastian Miranda and Carlos Mendes and three decidedly "Miss" in James, Vukovic, and Marshall.
Looking at the group as a whole it's easy to say that the Crew missed on the entire backline with contracts falling -$(195,506) to the red. That actually puts them 14th in the league (not good) in regards to the backline (TFC, COL, VAN, PHI) territory. However, upon closer inspection I see that C. Marshall makes up 89% of that deficit.
Similar tale to tell here with the Crew midfield. The players at this position carry a contract deficit of -$(186,126) and through not much fault on his own, Dilly Duka makes up 74% of it (reminder: I always use 'guaranteed contract'). Duka is coming of Generation Adidas graduation and appears to be saddled with a heavily incentivised contract. It is very possible that the 'herky-jerky' nature of his playing time was due to this. Has the Robert Warzycha and Co. ruined a talented player here? I have a feeling we will find out very soon when/if he suits up for another club and plays his natural central MF spot.
Other midfield contract misses are Milovan Mirosevic, Danny O'Rourke and possibly Chris Birchall. Mirosevic's $223,000 is 28% too high in my book. I value him at a healthy $160k, which is significantly above league median of $110k, which means he added value but he did not live up to this heavy price tag.
In fact, no midfielder in MLS really lives up to a salary that high when looking a value based on performance. My analysis shows that anything over $215k might be too high for a MF player in MLS. Or, another way to put that is to say; that if you are a team looking at a offering a contract above $200k... don't, the risk far outweighs the return you will likely get.
As for the contract "Hits" I show Eddie Gaven and Tony Tchani. Now, Gaven is a solid Hit. I rank him as the 3rd best MF in MLS this year. Tchani's hit is a bit of a strange thing, but it makes sense upon closer inspection. MLS is littered with midfield players. Almost 200 different players saw time there (compared with 150 Defenders, 110 Forwards) and a good chunk of them only played in half the games. Only 25% saw more than 2000 minutes compared to 36% of defenders. What this means is the MLS has a lot of midfield players making good money only playing half the time. There are many possible reasons for this, first being that a MF does a lot of running.
That said. This is a 'market value' look at the league so while MLS has a collective problem in searching for the right MF players, Tchani falls into a sweet spot on the list. Here are some of the players around him on my player rating and make similar salary: Gabriel Gomez, Luiz Camargo, David Ferreira, Bobby Convey, Branko Boskovic... Those are some heavy hitters but also some large salaries. All of these players only played in about half their team's games yet make over 200k.
Tony Tchani also has one of these Generation Adidas contracts that tend to out pace player value according to MLS. The difference between his base and guaranteed is $104k and Duka's diff is $130k. That's a lot of added pressure on both player and coach and I can see why MLS is taking a closer look at the GA program (It could be argued that this Adidas program pays correctly and MLS themselves undervalue. I'm not taking that on). Regardless, in my opinion any team with both these players should start them game in / game out. They are talented and will bring wins. Problem with the Crew is that they reached on them before their salary counted towards the cap and now that it does, they realize that, while they are valuable and meet their "Base Salary", they are not worth their heavy guaranteed rates.
CIRCUMSTANCE GUIDES BLISS
Brian Bliss is the Crew Technical Director. On his own, he knows young undiscovered talent (he is connected to that pipeline) but I think he tends to miss on experienced players when he doesn't have the help of folks like Guillermo Barros Schelotto.
Looking up and down the list of Crew midfielders it is circumstance might do in Dilly Duka and Tony Tchani while in my opinion the wise cut might be Mirosevic. If the Crew can rework Duka and Tchani's contracts down to where their guaranteed is at base levels they should keep them as they are both worth that.
One other larger contract th Crew have is Chris Birchall. I'm not sure about him, because he came into the season a little late, if is $109k contract has to be paid in full. I am confident that had he been around all season he would have been a "Hit".
Lastly, we have a trio of lower wage midfielders that contributed well above their league mandated minimums. They were
Kevan George
$33,750 salary : 67,500 HB Value
Bernardo Anor
$44,100 salary : 75,833 HB Value
Cole Grossman (released)
$44,100 salary : 67,600 HB Value
Bernardo could very well end up on the defender list next year even though he's only a defender in the eyes of Robert Warzycha. Note: Ethan Finlay is listed as a Forward by Stats, Inc. I will cover him later with that group.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The MF positions in this league seem to be a revolving door and the Crew is no different. This muddies the waters and makes contract evaluation difficult. My recommendation to the Crew would be to work on a consistent and durable MF lineup (and formation) and work from there. Constant change will only make things more difficult to evaluate and therefore reward/compensate appropriately.
The reason this post is in conversational for is because there is very little to ground these players with. You've got GA players with unbalanced contracts, an aging Chilean who never found his rhythm, a talented young leader who requested out, a skillful gazelle who was put into an unnatural left back position and tore his knee apart, and another who very well could be one of the best MLS midfielders of his generation.
The Crew's problem is here - in the midfield. Not so much in that there isn't enough talent, more that it is probably been misused or there is a disconnect between Brian Bliss and the coaching staff.
----------
THANKSGIVING
As I'm finishing this midfield post up and getting ready to head out to meet friends on this day I can't help but think of Kirk Urso and his family. While I'd give a lot to be writing about his performance and what he would contribute to next year - his life reminds us all of what is really important.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Dilly Duka, Void
This illustration is sort of what happens when you try and take on a post about the Columbus Crew's Dilly Duka. Nothing to latch on to with this guy.One thing to comment on is his contract. It's a little wonky. Let me 'splain.
I had the pleasure of meeting David Burgin (of Global Football Today) recently and he raised some interesting questions about the difference between Duka's Base Salary and his Guaranteed. Same thing as with Tony Tchani's contract.
Why the large discrepancy betwixt "base" and "guaranteed" with these two? Is it performance related? Or is it, as Burgin thinks, tied to playing time. If so, are we seeing a couple players getting more starting minutes solely based on contract stipulations and/or requirements?
How about we look at these two Crew players in relationship to the rest of the league. Below are are the Major League Soccer Players that stand to double (2x) their listed base salary* in guaranteed monies. In other words, these are the contracts with the biggest difference between base and guaranteed in the league!
Team : Name
POR : Darlington Nagbe (2.5x)
CLB : Dilly Duka (2.2x)
NER : Kelyn Rowe (2.1x)
MTL : Andrew Wenger (2.0x)
DCU : Perry Kitchen (2.0x)
CLB : Tony Tchani (2.0x)
SKC : Teal Bunbury (1.9x)
CHV : Laurent Courtois (1.9x)
Wow, talented players there. It's predictable that MLS has tagged these players as "hot" and have negotiated contracts as such. I would much rather a broader market determine the worth of these players and not single entity like corporation. It is what it is though.
Interesting that Columbus has two players in the top 8 here. I personally think that the Crew org. went after Generation Adidas players in order to navigate waters below the cap as long as they could. Both Duka and Tchani declared their graduation last year though and thus have thrust their base salaries on the 2012 cap.
Overall the Crew is 13th in league Base Salary. 12th in Guaranteed. They are as about as average as you get when looking at this salary stuff. Remember all that mess about being the lowest paid team in major league whatevers? Yeah, the Crew are fine now. A lot of that had to do with timing and << shocker >> bad data.
Chicago, New Englend, Kansas City, Houston, Chivas and Montreal all have lower base salaries than the Crew right now.
Stepping back now, in early June, Columbus is just in the middle in everything. Regardless of whether Dilly Duka and Tony Tchani do well... it looks like it'll be just fine for the club, in relationship to the rest of the league. Just a matter how how much Mark McCullers, Brian Bliss, Lapper, Iribarren, and Warzycha think these guys matter. Contract or not.
Questions will linger about whether or not Duka and Tchani are playing based on current form and playing level, though. You can be the judge. Tchani or Duka making a mysterious start out of nowhere is more than likely contract related.
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*I'm only using what MLS Player's Union has publically provided in terms of contract data. I consider it reliable (at this time).
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Duka and Olympic Qualifying, U23
U23 US team took on NASL side San Antonio Scorpions last night. Dilly Duka had a Goal and helped set up the other two. Duka has on the 10 shirt. LINKOlympic qualifying for this team starts the weekend of March 22nd against Cuba in Tennessee. Then vs. Canada on the 24th and El Salvador on the 26th in group play.
The US has to finish in the top two in that group to advance to the 4 team knock out stage. Just getting out of the group will not be a walk in the park. Canada and El Salvador will be hungry.
Advancing past the group stage doesn't qualify you for England. To qualify you have to win one more and play in the final on April 2nd.
Groups are set up so that most likely it'll be Mexico v. US advancing but it certainly isn't a gimme for either side.
If the US qualify the Crew will be missing a player in some good form for a significant number of games this year, which means Crew fans will see Meram and Anor more this year.
Both those players are hungry, ready and capable. Just keep 'em healthy.
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