Most would write it off as a casual conversation. But Zoran Krneta saw no reason not to see if it could become a special one.
"We’ve built the most amazing facilities, training facilities that are getting a lot of compliments from everybody who is arriving as a guest. Real Madrid were training with us for two days [during their preseason],” explained Charlotte FC’s general manager during a recent one-on-one conversation with MLSsoccer.com. “I spoke to Luka Modrić, he was very impressed by Charlotte and the facilities and the stadium. He literally said to me, ‘I could not believe that you have this here.’”
Krneta was an agent before he took up the task of building CLT FC from scratch. He knows sometimes big things can sprout from fleeting moments like these.
Shooters shoot, right?
“And I said, ‘Well, want to come? Are you interested in exploring a little bit more?’” Krneta recounted with a grin. “And he basically said, ‘No, I have this one-year contract. Once you’re in Madrid, it’s very difficult to leave Madrid.’ And I agree. I don't think you leave Real Madrid unless you have to.
“But my point is that we have a very ambitious owner who has the means to support us. I had a conversation yesterday with an agent, asking about one of my players, and I said, ‘Look, one thing in this world this club does not need, that's money. We need good players. We want to win.’
"We're not interested in making profits – I mean, we will when the time is right, and the right club comes. We're not into making profit for the profit’s sake. We want to make sure that we basically improve the team and get the team better and then compete [first]. We want to be on the same level as LAFC and Columbus and those kind of guys, and I think we are very close.”
Ambitious Secondary Transfer Window
While The Crown didn’t recruit anyone quite on the level of Modrić, a six-time UEFA Champions League winner and arguably the greatest midfielder of his generation, in this summer’s transfer window, it wasn’t for lack of trying. Krneta’s outlook is an apt reflection of the club’s aggressive approach.
Charlotte convinced US men’s national team mainstay Tim Ream they were the best landing spot for his MLS return after more than a decade in England. They continued to mine the emerging Israeli market, adding young attacker Idan Toklomati to their MLS NEXT Pro squad with an eye towards a 2025 promotion to the first team (the presence of his countryman Liel Abada is expected to help him settle).
And when big-ticket swoops for Giovani Lo Celso, Calvin Stengs and Miguel Almirón fell through, they pivoted to acquire Spanish playmaker Pep Biel on a loan from Olympiacos that Krneta considers a “flexible, risk-free” opportunity to kick the tires on a Designated Player-level talent. They then added free-agent attacker Jamie Paterson, who played for CLT head coach Dean Smith at Walsall. Polish attacker Karol Swiderski returned from his loan to Italian Serie A side Hellas Verona, too.
Even if you frame the misses as strikeouts, rest assured the third-year side will keep swinging big, backed by committed owner David Tepper.
“We’re an ambitious club. We want to go places,” said Krneta. “We’re building this team to be very competitive. We think we are not far off; we need a few missing pieces. We know very well what the missing pieces are, and we tried. We’d actually done our homework well, and we had a list of players that we really want to bring on board, some of them well documented in the press, unfortunately too early.
“[Tepper] supported fully all our desires and wishes when it comes to new players. He was phenomenal, to be honest. I spoke to him on an hourly basis sometimes, and he really was pushing. We managed to agree in most of the deals, in principle, with almost all sides. One deal obviously fell out because of the things outside of our control; everything was agreed. A couple of others were close.”
Timing's everything
Like a growing number of other chief soccer officers across the league, Charlotte felt constrained by the quirk of the calendar by which the United States’ transfer window closed on Aug. 14 while most of Europe’s top leagues run until Friday night (Aug. 30). For Krneta, that split hurts MLS clubs’ negotiating leverage and cut them out entirely from the last-minute bargains that often crop up this week.
“I wish our window was a little bit more friendly to us. I am a big advocate for the window being moved to, like, the fifth of September, because I think we would not only have way more chances to pick up really good players, but we will also have a chance to pick up the players that suddenly are surplus to requirements,” he said. “Sometimes with those deals that fail the last two days and the club's like, ‘OK, what do we do now?’”
By the time European players, agents and sporting directors find themselves at the proverbial Last Chance Cafe, MLSers are already out of the game, shifting their focus towards the winter window. And the knife cuts in both directions, because a European club can still make an approach for an important MLS contributor, yet the selling club would have much less scope for replacing him in the event of a sale.
“If you had a little bit more time to negotiate, I think we would probably be coming close,” said Krneta of the deals CLT FC didn’t pull off this month. “Especially this year, because of Copa América and Euros, I think everything was pulled back a little bit. Everything was a little bit slower than normally would be so that the 10th of August deals, or eighth of August deals were really like doing a deal on 25th of July in a year before. So the clubs were very relaxed. They didn't want to do deals unless the price that they liked, one of these astronomical prices, were met.
“And that price normally in a window, and I've seen it many times, I've been involved in this kind of type of deals for 20 years, that price starts slowly going down, and your price is going up, and that price going down, so suddenly you get yourself to the level where both sides are happy. But this never happens on a 10th of August. It always happens on the 25th or 28th or 29th, 30th. This is why you have deadline day, where you have live television and everyone is expecting, because so many things happen.”
He points to the conundrum currently facing London giants Chelsea FC, who are eager to trim down a bloated roster with outbound loans or sales before the English Premier League’s window closes.
“I mean, if I'm Chelsea, what do I do? I need to move the players. If they don't move by the 31st of August, they would push them and give them, practically bargains, on a loan to us on the second, third or fourth,” said Krneta. “It would really be a smart move by American clubs and Major League Soccer. I think we are a smart league, and I think we should really change that going forward. I know the league was keen to change it this year, but they couldn't for various other reasons, but I think this is where we need to go to be super competitive.”
"We're not afraid of anyone"
All that said, he’s pleased to have strengthened the spine of his squad for the run-in while also staying on course in the longer term. The Crown are already well-ensconced in the Eastern Conference’s Audi MLS Cup Playoffs field, buoyed by the organization and stingy defense – statistically the second-best in the league behind Columbus – nurtured by Smith since his winter arrival.
Their hope is those reinforcements can help them climb into the top half of the postseason bracket, where most of the true contenders live.
“I don't think the playoffs is depending on the newcomers. I think we will be in playoffs regardless. I think what we want to do is make sure that these guys are ready and fitting in well before the playoffs start,” said Krneta. “Because the playoffs, I believe it's for anybody to take. So there are no clear favorites as such, in playoffs.
"I mean, we just played Cincinnati and Columbus, and did really well away. So that's an indication for us and our players that we can take anybody. We're not afraid of anyone.”
Outside of a Sept. 28 visit to league-leading Inter Miami, their stretch-run schedule looks manageable, and they’ve still lost just twice at Bank of America Stadium this year. If the comparisons to the last two MLS Cup champions sound like wishful thinking, consider they’ve taken four of six points from their two meetings with the Crew and beat reigning Supporters’ Shield holders FC Cincinnati at TQL Stadium last month. Charlotte have beaten three of the five teams currently ahead of them in the East table and posted victories over six of the eight other teams that qualified for last year’s playoffs.
Seeking more 'wolves'
Back in 2020, when he first began building the expansion club’s soccer operations, Krneta quoted his fellow Serbian Bozidar Maljkovic, a top European basketball coach, in saying he wanted “a team full of wolves” at CLT. While he acknowledges “my own share of mistakes” in the construction process – “I would do things a little bit differently if I am starting all over again building the club,” he said – Krneta sees a rugged pack taking shape.
“I don't think it's yet finalized. I think this team still needs a few missing pieces, maybe another wolf. But I think we have the kind of wolf leaders right now in Ashley Westwood and Ream; we have young wolves like Patrick Agyemang, Abada, Kerwin Vargas, Iuri Tavares, Brandon Cambridge, Tyger Smalls.
“We might need maybe a little bit more experience there in the future, going forward, and a few more bits and bobs that would improve the team. So I think the wolfpack is not finalized, if you like. But I think, I'm hoping, by the next window, and then beginning of next season, that we will be there … I think this team showed that we have gone from strength to strength.”
