{"id":29714,"date":"2014-12-05T17:17:44","date_gmt":"2014-12-05T22:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=29714"},"modified":"2014-12-05T17:17:44","modified_gmt":"2014-12-05T22:17:44","slug":"bilello-found-out-about-jones-draw-at-family-bbq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=29714","title":{"rendered":"Bilello Found Out About Jones Draw at Family BBQ"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Kari Heistad\/capturedimages.biz<\/p><\/div>\n

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. \u2013 Talk about a barbeque to remember for Revolution President Brian Bilello.<\/p>\n

With the club deep in the hunt for the services of U.S. International\u00a0Jermaine Jones during the late-summer, Bilello was hosting a\u00a0party\u00a0at his house when he found out the results of the now-infamous Aug. 24\u00a0blind draw via video conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a whole bunch of friends and family over at my house at the time I was on the conference call,\u201d Bilello said. “I was the first person who found out. It was very exciting for me; I had a good moment there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after he\u00a0discovered that the Revolution had landed the signing of the summer, he quickly informed the Kraft Family and General Manager Michael Burns, and from there, the wheels were set in motion for the news to be released to the public.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, Bilello was particularly anxious to do all he could to get the star midfielder into Foxborough as promptly as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom that point, it was just \u2018Alright, let\u2019s get him here and get the physicals and all that kind of stuff done, and get him with the squad,\u2019\u201d Bilello said. \u201cIt was a pretty exciting time, knowing we had the potential to bring him here, and certainly nerve-wracking moments when we had the draw.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike other Designated Player who\u2019ve come and gone through MLS, Jones wasn\u2019t simply brought in to appease the fan base or attract larger crowds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a guy that we, unequivocally, felt would help us on the field in a really big way,\u201d Bilello said. \u201cFrom an off the field standpoint, no, we didn\u2019t think that he would pay for himself and then some. We didn\u2019t think he\u2019d pay for himself financially.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones reportedly signed a\u00a01.5 year deal worth $4.7 million,\u00a0making him\u00a0the highest-paid player in franchise history by a wide margin.\u00a0One of the reasons why the Kraft Family decided to open its checkbook for Jones was actually\u00a0due to a development that occurred earlier in the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe (weren\u2019t) going to let the great start to the season kind of go to waste this year,\u201d Bilello said. \u201cWe really felt strongly that we had a great team here, and a great group of players. We wanted to do whatever it took to kind of put them in the best position that we could.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, that decision seemed like a relatively easy one to make in terms of what he would bring to the squad, and looking back, I think we feel pretty good about the decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

With his club on the verge of its first championship, Bilello clearly has no reason for regrets given the impact Jones had on the squad. But as far as ducking out on his own barbeque?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was what it was, so I was the worst party host of all-time that day because I basically never showed up at my own party,\u201d Bilello said, with a laugh. \u201cBut it was a good day, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian Bilello recently recounted the moment he found out that Jermaine Jones was headed to the Revs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29714"}],"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=29714"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29717,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29714\/revisions\/29717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}