{"id":21263,"date":"2013-08-14T20:50:09","date_gmt":"2013-08-15T00:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=21263"},"modified":"2013-08-14T23:02:15","modified_gmt":"2013-08-15T03:02:15","slug":"agudelo-mls-wasnt-cooperative-on-new-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=21263","title":{"rendered":"Agudelo: MLS Wasn’t ‘Cooperative’ on New Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Juan<\/a>

Juan Agudelo, who signed a future contract with Stoke City last week, said that MLS wasn’t “cooperative” in getting a potential deal done to stay in MLS. (Photo: Kari Heistad\/capturedimages.biz)<\/p><\/div>\n

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Two weeks\u00a0ago, the league helped the Seattle Sounders sign\u00a0Clint Dempsey\u00a0to the richest contract (4 years\/$32 million) for an American player in MLS history. But when it came to\u00a0retaining a talented American,\u00a0the\u00a0league wasn’t as enthusiastic.<\/p>\n

Following Wednesday’s training session, Revolution striker Juan Agudelo briefly outlined his contract situation prior to Stoke City signing him to a future deal that will commence on Jan. 1, 2014.<\/p>\n

“I felt like the (Revolution front) office was cooperative on a new deal,” Agudelo said. “But the MLS wasn’t so (cooperative).”<\/p>\n

Perhaps it was with good reason. Agudelo has never made his overseas ambitions a secret, and didn’t seem bothered that a deal wasn’t able to be worked out with the league. In fact, when asked whether there was a price that would’ve kept him Stateside, he succinctly replied, “Not really.”<\/p>\n

And even though he’s still four months shy his 21st birthday, Agudelo feels like the chance to play in one of the best leagues in the world was something he couldn’t say no to.<\/p>\n

“I mean, it’s the EPL so, yeah (I couldn’t turn it down),” Agudelo said with a laugh. “But\u00a0that\u00a0opportunity is better\u00a0(in the sense)\u00a0of not regretting not\u00a0taking an opportunity like that.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Revolution coach Jay Heaps didn’t express any concerns about managing a player like Agudelo, who has a separate commitment to another club lined up.\u00a0 In discussing Agudelo’s remaining time in New England with the Stoke coaching staff, Heaps doesn’t believe his dynamic striker will be lacking any motivation for the final two months of the season.<\/p>\n

“This is basically what\u00a0(Stoke’s coaching staff is)\u00a0looking at,” Heaps said. “This is his platform. To me, this is a great opportunity for him to really separate himself with Stoke adding strikers left and right.\u00a0(These last two months will)\u00a0let Juan stay in form and then when he joins them in January, he can get some real EPL action. I think it’s a great opportunity for him to hit his stride with us, and then go there fully fit.”<\/p>\n

Although\u00a0a\u00a0sprained right knee\u00a0forced him to miss his\u00a0eighth straight game last week in Kansas City, Agudelo is optimistic about returning to the pitch for Saturday’s crucial conference\u00a0showdown against Chicago.<\/p>\n

“The knee’s good,” Agudelo said.\u00a0“(It) feels great this week. It\u00a0felt good last week. Maybe I’ll be upgraded this week, but we’ll see how the next two days of practice go.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Juan Agudelo couldn’t say no to Stoke City, but even before they signed him last week, he believes that MLS wasn’t ‘cooperative’ on a deal for him to stay in the league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[115,1304,49,1274,500],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Juan-10.png?fit=486%2C258&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21263"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21279,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21263\/revisions\/21279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}