Partial Translation of Zeca to Columbus Report

From Santos FC's player bio
(http://www.santosfc.com.br/elenco/ze-carlos/)

I was able to have some fluent Portuguese speakers look over the report on a loan of Zeca to Columbus. The original report is on a Brazilian ESPN site. It was picked up by reporters covering Crew SC including Adam Jardy and Patrick Guldan. Massive Report published a summary as well.

What follows is a partial translation of the original article without the last two paragraphs. Of note is the figure reportedly being offered if the Crew SC exercise an option to buy Zeca's rights after the loan period. The figure as reported is 1,000,000 US dollars. I've asked my sources if this could be read as 1,000,000 Brazilian Reais (which would be roughly 300,000 US dollars) and they think it is highly unlikely. This is more than the compensation for Columbus' highest paid player last year, Federico Higuain, and should raise eyebrows if true.

Also of interest is what my sources said about the last two paragraphs they did not translate. The penultimate paragraph talks about how the new coach, Dorival Junior has started playing Zeca as a means way to dissuade him from making a move to MLS. It then talks about how the salaries are comparable whether he stayed or moved to Columbus. Lastly, it mentions the presence of bonuses in contracts for reaching a certain number of assists and/or goals. My sources seemed to think this referred to whatever contract is being drafted by Columbus/MLS and not his present contract.

The translation:

The wing[back] Zeca is close to being the new reinforcement for [the] Columbus Crew for the MLS 2015 season.  The player, who is still training with Santos, finalized a loan agreement with the North American team initially for 6 months.  Some details are still being worked on [which] is holding up the public announcement.

From what I could discover, Columbus' idea is to continue the loan agreement for one more semester [note, my sources indicate 'semester' could be read as season or a period like six months] and then decide if it was going to definitely acquire [his] economic rights or not, but [...] president Modesto Roma Junior did not accept the free extension of the agreement.

This [means] the North American team will have to decide in December if it is going to keep the athlete after the loan period.  The Crew directors [are set] to pay $1 million for the player if he [proves himself technically].

At 21 yrs of age, Zeca plays on both wings and [his] foundational [development was at] Santos itself.  He was not used much by [...] ex-coach Marcelo Fernandes.  He played more in the Paulistao and in the Brasil Cup, when the reserve team played, as in the game with Londrina.

Another piece information that I received from MLS sources is that Columbus will use Zeca as a right wing, at the request of the coach Gregg Berhalter.   There he will be accompanied by important players such as the midfielder Argentine Federico Higuain and the center forward Kei Kamara, from Sierra Leone.  The team is playing for a position in the Eastern Conference [for] the league playoffs, where it is currently in second place.

I've indicated my own edits for clarity in brackets which were done with consultation.

Update on Domain Names

If you remember, what tipped me off about the Columbus Crew SC name change was the fact that they registered for new domain names. The whole explanation is available here.

What was intriguing was the fact that the Crew SC didn't go live with the new domain names. They sat parked by GoDaddy until a few weeks ago. On January 27, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications, Arica Kress tweeted that columbuscrewsc.com was live. The site remained the same as it was with the old domain thecrew.com, as they already had been using the new brand content there.

I jokingly asked Kress on Twitter about columbuscrewsc.org and columbuscrewsc.us. They were still parked at GoDaddy. A little bit later she said they were live. Those domains redirect to columbuscrewsc.com. Either I spoke a bit too soon or reminded them off the other domains they registered last year.

Black Jersey (Additional Images)

Early on Sunday Feb. 8, @mobilegame08 found Columbus Crew SC's Black Jersey. After some digging I was able to locate the same image along with additional views. The angles are much like those from the primary jersey leak.

Jersey Leak

Update: As many have pointed out on Twitter, Fanatics has removed the page selling the jerseys. Presumably they heard from the relevant people at MLS or Columbus Crew SC about their mistake.

This morning @istreetshooter noticed that the online sports apparel website fanatics.com was selling the 2015 Crew SC jersey. Since the jersey reveal is not due for another month (specifically March 3) it appears that they inadvertantly went live with the item early. Below are the highest resolution (1024x1024) images I could find from their website. The first set is scaled and the second set contains the original images at full resolution.

Scaled for easy viewing

Front & Back

Back Logo

Front Logo

Front

Back

MLS Logo

Original Size

Front &Back

Back Logo

Front Logo

Back

Front

MLS Logo

LAFC

In my attempt to scoop the Columbus Crew SC logo before it was unveiled I spent a fair amount of time in the database of the US Patent & Trademark Office. The filings are publicly available and fairly easy to search.

I came up empty handed in searching for the new Crew logo. However, I learned a few things about Major League Soccer in the process. For one, they hold the trademarks for most, if not all, the logos in the league. I presume this is because of the 1 entity system.

However, sometimes trademarks will filed by investor groups before they were transferred to MLS. There are two Los Angles related trademarks that were filed this way. These are the following images:

During the LAFC presser by MLS I noticed @wrongsideofpond retweeted an image from @fltrotta. They had stumbled across the first image above.

I remembered seeing these filings when searching the database for Major League Soccer owned trademarks. I did not think much of them at the time since I was focused on the Crew. However, they may be relevant given the LAFC announcement.

It seems that CHIVAS GUADALAJARA LICENSING LLC originally filed for both on January 17. 2014 and transferred them to Major League Soccer on February 26, 2014. The relevant filings can be seen here and here.

I have no idea what this means in regards to LAFC. If the new investor/operator group wants to use the LAFC logo above MLS already has the trademark. However, they could just sit on them and use a different logo.

I told ya

As you no doubt know by now, the Crew hosted a rebrand event last night. There the club revealed a new badge and name change. As I predicted in my previous post, the Crew is now "Columbus Crew SC". You can get all the details on the club's website.

There remains something interesting of note. Crew SC has not activated the domains (columbuscrewsc.com, columbuscrewsc.org, columbuscrewsc.us) they purchased back in July. They remained parked by GoDaddy.com. I presume they are holding onto them until brand is in full swing after the end of the season.

Alternative Theories

My previous post argued that the Crew is in fact adding SC to the end of their name for the upcoming rebrand. I hedged somewhat, but I remain convinced this is the case. I take it that the name change best explains why the Crew have acquired the new domains.

Some have wondered if there are other explanations. I thought about this while constructing the original post, but I neglected to write about why I ruled out some of these possibilities. It could be that the Crew reserved the domains without intending to use them. I can think of two reasons for this. The first is brand protection and the second is to hedge against a (future) decision.

The first theory involves a common PR tactic of buying of domain names that are related to your brand. This may be variations of your brand name, misspellings, or possible parody names. This prevents other people from securing those domains and setting up websites that benefit in some way from their relation to your brand. A nefarious case may involve spoofing a genuine website to defraud visitors.

The second theory is involves an organization anticipating a name change or a new product and reserving as many possible names. This does two things. First, it does all the legwork of acquiring the name ahead of time so that when the organization decides it has the domain in hand. Second, it prevents people from doing what I've done and inferring the name ahead of time.

I do not think either of these are the case. The reason is that Whois queries for variations of "columbuscrew" with things like "fc" or "96" turn up empty or reserved by others. Given "columbuscrewsc", these seem the most likely alternatives. Even less plausible additions like "sporting" or "real" turn up empty as well.

Here is a sample of unreserved names:

• columbuscrew96.com
• crew96.com
• columbuscrewfc.com
• columbuscrewfc.us
• columbuscrewfc.org
• crewfc.com
• realcolumbuscrew.com
• sportingcolumbus.com
• sportingcolumbuscrew.com

Here is a sample of names reserved by others:

• columbus96.com
• columbusfc.com
• realcolumbus.com

If either theory was correct, I would expect that the Crew would have reserved these domains as well.