By: Matthew@no_other_club
In January of 2014, Grant Wahl received information from a source that a Juventus club representative reached out to Sporting Kansas City about the availability of a young defender. Erik Palmer-Brown, who would spend his mornings training with the first team and his afternoons attending high school, was just 16 years of age at the time.
Palmer-Brown, who was versatile enough to play as a defender or as a defensive midfielder, receive accolades for his performances in both the U-20 CONCACAF (Golden Ball Award) and the U-20 World Cup (multiple Best XI of the Tournament nods), looked to have a ceiling as high as any American prospect ever had (“Freddie Adu” shouts — I’ll be back for you later), even making the Top 50 Wonderkids list in 2014.
Juventus — who at the time started the centerback pairing of Bonucci and Chiellini, and who had Pogba, Vidal, and Pirlo competing for time at defensive mid — offered to buy Erik Palmer-Brown for $1 million. The saga between SKC and Juventus would continue for nearly a year and a half, but ultimately collapsed. Palmer-Brown would remain at the club until 2017, where he only made 20 total appearances (to be fair, this period includes a season-long loan to FC Porto B). Palmer-Brown would announce midway through 2017 of his intent to move his career to Europe, and sign a free transfer with Manchester City.
Yesterday, sources reported that SKC’s Gianluca Busio was generating interest from European clubs — notably Fiorentina and Manchester United. The report claimed that Fiorentina was interested for between $3-4 million, whereas SKC felt something more in the $10 million range was a reasonable price tag. Understandably, this was not received well — per Twitter experts, the number SKC has in mind for Busio has been described as “ridiculous”, “insane”, and “a f***ing joke”. Admittedly, I was skeptical of the price tag, but as a bit of time has passed, I think it’s more realistic than my initial impression.
Being a lifelong Kansas City soccer fan, and having personally watched Busio play, I thought I could maybe weigh in. In order to do this, you need to understand one very important item:
Peter Vermes does not care about what Gianluca Busio means to the USMNT.
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I understand, as a fellow countryman who wants to see our nats become as successful as we are capable of, how frustrating being able to accept this statement can be. Did you know that Peter Vermes visited with USSF officials while we had the insanely long vacancy? In one of the most overlooked/underrated USMNT-related pieces in history, @ridgemax got to ask PV some incredible questions about that experience.
Considering Vermes is somewhat of an intellectual type, and is a former representative of the USMNT, himself, we can accurately conclude that there would have been some interest in him taking that job. What unfolded during this conversation, though, was pure comedy.
When asked what he learned during this meeting about the direction the USSF/USMNT is headed, Vermes responded “I don’t know. I don’t know what any of those steps are.” When asked how the USSF is going to pursue hiring a coach having no direction whatsoever, Vermes countered with “Honestly, it’s hard for me to answer that question. I’m really serious. They want a coach and a GM but I don’t know what their plans are beyond that. I really don’t know”.
Vermes returned from this meeting with USSF and promptly signed a contract extension with Sporting Kansas City through 2023. He clearly wanted no part of that mess. Who would? Can you imagine going into a job interview and having absolutely no clue where the direction of the company was going?
For Vermes, with 66 international caps during his career, you have to believe it became clear that the organization that he once took pride in — where he served on advisory boards and promoted growth of the sport in our country — was an absolute five-alarm dumpster fire. What logically should have been the best possible time for him to come in, take the reigns, and really turn things around… he found himself sitting across the table from imbeciles with drool slowly leaking from the corner of their mouths, down to their weird soul patches.
On the subject of that contract extension, Vermes has one job, and that job is to put his club in to a position where it is competitive with everyone else in Major League Soccer. His job is to create a good on-field product and to deliver to the owners and operators of Sporting Kansas City. Knowing that Busio is, at least, a top talent from our young American crop, and knowing that he has total control over the transfer of his players, and after realizing that the USSF is being led by a bunch of airheads…Peter Vermes does not give a rat’s you-know-what about what Gianluca Busio means to the USMNT.
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As for Busio, I hesitate to put too much in to trying to persuade a reader that he’s worth $10 million based on what I see in him. As enthusiasts of the sport, our opinions based on viewing an individual athlete are all subjective, and are often blindly biased. Having said that, it’s still an important component to my argument, so I’ll just breeze through a couple of paragraphs here, and we can move on.
Looking at a few statistics, Busio, who is currently 16, is the second youngest player to sign an MLS contract… the youngest? Everyone’s favorite American prospect, Freddy Adu. In July of 2018, he became the third youngest MLS starter behind Adu and former Whitecaps standout Alphonso Davies. In a season and a half, Busio has logged 4 goals and 2 assists across 1,076 minutes, and has not been called offside once. Davies, who transferred to Bayern Munich in 2018 at 17 years old, logged 8 goals and 4 assists across 3,800 minutes in Vancouver.
As far as the eye-test goes, Busio certainly has a number of American fans to win back after the U-17 World Cup. Busio, like other youth and arguably Ralph Wicky, struggled to find consistency throughout the tournament. Given that Busio has had captain’s armband responsibilities, I do think an increased amount of pressure was rightfully placed on him, but I don’t know how much fault I can put on the kids.
Busio has the Chris Wondolowski gift — he seems to always have a way to predict where the ball is going to end up, and time his run just right so that he’s in a position to score. He is typically smart with the ball, but is clever enough to recover a giveaway with some consistency. Busio may not be a clinical finisher yet, but you won’t have to look far to find a few examples of the raw power this young man has (here’s a look at a shot he rifled during this year’s league play) Unfortunately, we haven’t seen that type of play consistently from him at the club level. Candidly, I don’t think Vermes has done a great job putting Busio into a position where he feels comfortable really opening up. If you’ve watched Busio for Swope Park and for SKC, you’ll be able to attest that we are afforded opportunities to see him play with nothing held back, but again, it feels like he’s just not there yet.
Davies, who was 17 when Bayern Munich brought him aboard, yielded a fixed fee of $11.4 million, and with reported incentives, could add up to an additional $11 million.
Looking elsewhere in Europe and shifting focus back young nats, Tim Weah commanded an $11.4 million transfer fee from PSG for his move to Lille at age 19. At age 23, Deandre Yedlin was sold to Newcastle from Spurs at a fee of $6.7 million. Manchester City secured Zach Steffen, at age 24, for $9.12 million.
And someone who I’ve not talked about yet — someone who a lot of people inside the circles of American soccer weren’t even well-versed with prior to this week — is Joe Scally.
Scally, who has yet to play a minute in league or post-season play, has signed a commitment to play for Borussia Mönchengladbach after the 2020 season, with a fixed transfer fee of $2 million, and an additional (NYCFC-friendly) incentive option for an additional $5 million.
Considering Busio is only 16, he has (largely) been effective and played an attractive brand of ball, he’s scored a handful of goals at every level he’s been played, and furthermore, given that he already has a passport, a $10 million valuation actually starts to sound pretty reasonable.
As for what will actually happen when the phones stop ringing and the dust settles? And as for what it will mean for the future of the USMNT? All I know for the time being, is that, to repeat, Peter Vermes is not concerned about what you, or I, anyone thinks about the value he places on Gianluca Busio.
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