"Ok ball - you take Hassli and I'll throw in some ball polish. Deal?" Welcome to our unexpectedly ongoing SuperDraft pre-game show. Up next Diana Ross takes a free kick. But first... "TFC did whaaaaaaaaaaaa?" Out of all of the mock draft prognostication and "will they/won't they" trade one or both of the picks, not many would have guessed at this one.
Their record and recent form may not suggest it, but the soccer gods must be smiling upon the
Revolution.
Two months ago, the Revolution inherited the to spot in the Allocation Process after Vancouver
traded first dibs to Philadelphia, which used it to select Bakary Soumare. And during those two
months, the Revolution held the trump card tight, as names like Maurice Edu, Alejandro Bedoya,
Carlos Bocanegra and Luis Robles were floated from Framingham to Farmington.
Most of us are still smarting after this morning's news of the Shalrie Joseph trade broke. The
New England Revolution will never be the same, and whether you agree with the trade or not, you
can't say it doesn't send shockwaves through this community.
John Murphy (right), seen here with former Revolution goalkeeper Adin Brown, served as an
assistant coach for the Revs from 2000 till February of 2004. (Photo by Art
Donahue/artdonahue.com)
Taylor Twellman, Sharie Joseph, Pat Noonan, Clint Dempsey – four stars of the New England
Revolution in the 2000s that came through the MLS SuperDraft thanks in part to John Murphy's input
into the team's draft decisions.
Any delusions of the New England Revolution making the playoffs were finally brought to an end
on Saturday with the Revs 2-1 loss to the Seattle Sounders. Now Revs head coach Steve Nicol has two
options: stay the course, keep playing the same struggling lineup and learn nothing new about his
reserves or give some rarely used players a chance to prove they belong on next year's roster.
Mock away! The MLS SuperDraft is upon us! It used to just be the MLS Draft but then it flew around the world really fast and turned back time to save its girlfriend from an earthquake (Not Frank Yallop) and then people started calling it SuperDraft. Okay? 　 One of the favourite pastimes for North American football writers is to try and attempt a series of mock drafts.
Teams searching for talent in the 2012 MLS Draft found quite a few quality gems. Several players who were able to step right in and make smooth transitions from college to the pros.
Some high draft picks lived up to their draft hype, like Darren Mattocks and Luis Silva, while some other rookies emerged to surprise and impress, like Connor Lade and Ray Gaddis.
Today is decision day for the New England Revolution front office. Based on reports it appears
the New England Revolution fully intend to select Juan Carlos Toja, but the question remains
whether or not he will be playing for the Revs as the New England Front Office entertains offers
from around Major League Soccer.
Danny Mwanga is headed back to Oregon. (Getty Images)
Holy moly. Philadelphia is trading away their team here. It was announced earlier that the
Portland Timbers have acquired forward Danny Mwanga from the Philadelphia Union in exchange for
forward Jorge Perlaza.
Sometimes items from Soccer America can be a total miss but check out today's MLS Confidential
on the Galaxy. For anyone out there that couldn't get how the LA Galaxy was able to squeeze in
Edson Buddle to their salary cap, check this article out.
By bringing back Edson Buddle into the fold, even if he costs slightly more
than the $178,488 salary he earned in 2010 before leaving for Germany, the Galaxy probably hasn't
crunched its salary cap to any great extent, because of player departures as well as amassing
allocation money.
The Philadelphia Union announced that Keon Daniel, along with Danny Mwanga, has joined the team
at its preseason training camp in Florida today.
The 25-year-old has been missing from the Union since a September call up to the Trinidad and
Tobago national team. Daniel left the United States on August 28 or 29, then did not re-enter the
country until possibly today.
The Houston Dynamo have always seemed to have a love-hate relationship with the MLS SuperDraft.
In the franchise's early years in Houston, Dynamo Coach Dominic Kinnear seemed to have no qualms
about trading away a top draft pick in order to obtain a player who filled a need or role right
away for his squad.
The MLS Draft is less than two weeks away, and the MLS Combine is now less than a week away,
meaning it's getting close to time for clubs to start figuring out what needs they want to address
and which players they plan to target when the draft kicks off in Kansas City.
There is still plenty we don't know about how the draft will shape up.
With the signing of Porfirio Lopez yesterday, the Philadelphia Union continued a busy offseason
that has already addressed many glaring needs.
Since the 2011 season ended in defeat at Houston, the Union have parted ways with Justin Mapp,
purchased the rights to a Costa Rican striker, a Costa Rican fullback, and a Panamanian utilityman,
signed a Tanzanian winger through the re-entry draft, and added a homegrown player.
Portland Timbers Trade Troy Perkins to Montreal Impact for Donovan Ricketts - Stumptown Footy
Is this the start of a fire-sale/complete rebuild for the Portland Timbers? With a new coach
coming it's going to happen soon, so why not start now and stockpile draft picks and allocation
money?
The Portland Timbers chose not to use their first round pick in the first round of the MLS
-Re-Entry Draft on December 5, but three teams made selections. Other clubs have been busy with
various trades of players or future draft picks, while rumors of upcoming signings for the Timbers
continue to gain some steam.
When you worry about missing the playoffs this year, just take a look at Vancouver and remember,
that could have been us.
The Timbers didn't get the benefits of being a lone expansion team in 2011, but instead had to
split a lot of things with Vancouver: dividing up expansion draft picks and the top MLS draft slot,
as well as all kinds of other obscure rankings and allocations.
Three home games. Three very different opponents. Three wins.
On a superficial level this is an impressive statistic in its own right. Historically MLS squads
do not feature tactical flexibility. But reviewed in the context of the injury report, this result
takes on a different significance.
In a game that featured reserves, Sporting KC kept their undefeated start to preseason alive with a
1-1 draw with the Montreal Impact in the second game of the Disney Pro Soccer Classic. Only 3
players that saw the field in the opener against the Houston Dynamo were even dressed for the game
today against the expansion Impact.
The roster compliance deadline passed for Sporting KC without incident last week. KC is currently
sitting below the roster max of 30 players, and is set on internationals currently. As of this
moment, KC has 28 players currently on their roster. That only includes the players that are
currently under contract, even if they are not in camp currently, and will likely not play a role
in the team this year.
The Philadelphia Union announced on Tuesday the signing of the remaining draft picks in
camp—Greg Jordan, Raymon Gaddis, Krystian Witkowski and Antoine Hoppenot—and goalkeeper Chase
Harrison.
Jordan and Gaddis were selected by the Union in January's SuperDraft, with Jordan being selected
32nd over all Gaddis 35th overall.
Roster flux continues though all under contract players are still with the team, some of the
Supplemental Draft picks and trialists are now in a different phase of their soccer journeys.
Joshua Mayers, of the Seattle Times, compiled the list of missing names. Harlinton Guiterres, Real
Espana reservist, is still in camp.
It's going to be a busy week for KC in the last week of the offseason. There's plenty of
information that looks like it will be coming out this week. Let's take a look real quick
chronologically.
Tomorrow, as I posted earlier today is the Supplemental Draft. KC will possibly add 5 more players
that would be coming into preseason this year.
Already two trades have become known. Ryan Smith goes to Chivas USA for 1st and 3rd Round
Supplemental draft picks. That's picks 43 and 81 overall. so we're talking no-risk, flyer types in
a draft that constantly adds more picks. Also, it came out today that the Portland Timbers loan of
Ryan Pore also included an international slot and a promise from the Montreal Impact that they
wouldn't take a player who ended the year on Portland's active roster.
Busy day in Commerce City as the organization has a new face, a returning face, and a promoted
face.
Let's start with the roster moves. In today's re-entry draft the Rapids selected Chicago midfielder
Baggio Husidic and Houston defender Hunter Freeman. Husidic is a 24 year old former Generation
Adidas player who's been with Chicago since leaving college 3 years ago.
What's the deal with Collin Cowherd? He's one of the most influential sports talkers in the biz,
he's from Seattle, he talks about Seattle sports all the time, but he never mentions what is
happening with the Sounders.
They had more than 55,000 people attend over the weekend to see Seattle stamp out the Vancouver
Whitecaps 2-0.
Tim Tebow playing for the New York Jets this upcoming NFL season is not a sure thing. There is a
lot of time between now and the start of the season for things to transpire.
There just seems like too much of a possibility for some kind of change to happen.
Despite being a closed session today without any tasty tidbits from John Spencer to chew on,
today's Timbers practice was an interesting one none the less.
Although Kris Boyd was, not surprisingly, not yet practicing we were told that he would likely
join the team in around ten days while they are in California.
It seems like just yesterday the Dynamo played for the MLS Cup in Los Angeles, in fact it was
only 66 days ago, but time waits for no one and the new season must get underway. Yesterday at the
team's training facilities, the Dynamo did just that, kicking off the 2012 season with the opening
of pre-season camp.
The MLS SuperDraft was held on Thursday and broadcast live on ESPN2. After two hours of
televised coverage, the feed switched to ESPN3.com. Adrian Healey manned the desk while Alexi Lalas
and Taylor Twellman handled much of the commentary heavy lifting and despite some hiccups, the
broadcast was generally well done.
In the first part of this series, we ran the rule over the current United roster. In this second
part, we'll compile a list of wants by position, setting us up for the grand finale, where we put
those wants in order...
Would you trust this man with your roster?
GOALKEEPER
Needs: Hamid and Willis are solid in the first two spots on the depth chart, so there
shouldn't be much work to do here.
Montreal coach Jesse Marsch, according to Fox Sports, covets Canadian national team defender
Andre Hainault and the framework of any deal will begin with him and also include draft picks.
