The Portland Timbers made one roster adjustment in preparation for their match with the Los Angeles
Galaxy on July 14, recalling forward Bright Dike from the Los Angeles Blues of USL Pro. Dike was
outstanding in his short stint with the Blues, scoring six goals in 10 matches. To keep their
roster in compliance with MLS rules, the Timbers sent defender Andrew Jean-Baptiste to the Blues on
loan for the remainder of the 2012 season, but he can be recalled at any point.
Player news is starting to pick up a little bit for Sporting KC. The team today made two
announcements on player news, and a new rumor has cropped up on another player.
First, after the announcement yesterday of the trade for Michael Thomas' rights, the team today
announced that they had signed the Olathe native to a contract.
Ives Galarcep reports at Fox Soccer that the Philadelphia Union have signed 6-foot-4-inch
central defender Bakary Soumare.
According to the report, Soumare, a 2008 Defender of the Year finalist when he was with Chicago
Fire, will join the Union after being let out of his contract with French side Boulogne.
Buy low, sell high. It might be the oldest rule in business.
So if Philadelphia Union was ever going to sell Sebastien Le Toux, now's the time.
At 28, Le Toux is in his prime. He may never be worth more than he is right now.
Bolton has never needed to buy good players for bargain prices more than right now, as they
desperately try to avoid a relegation that could devastate the club financially.
Buy low, sell high. It might be the oldest rule in business.
So if Philadelphia Union was ever going to sell Sebastien Le Toux, now's the time.
At 28, Le Toux is in his prime. He may never be worth more than he is right now.
Bolton has never needed to buy good players for bargain prices more than right now, as they
desperately try to avoid a relegation that could devastate the club financially.
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.
Until a decent U-23 league exists we should follow and expand upon the Seattle Sounders model.
The Sounders take pride in placing their U-18 graduates in good NCAA programs. MLS rules allow a
certain amount of leeway in retaining these players' rights provided they spent at least year
training with the Residency[1].
Adrian Hanauer's international roster slot math gets easier today as two of Seattle Sounders
FC's Designated Players receive their U.S. Green Cards per team release. This grants them legal
permanent residency status in the United States and also means that per MLS rules they no longer
count as "internationals.
On Friday afternoon, the Montreal Impact selected United States International Eddie Johnson via
the allocation process. Per MLS rules, the Impact will now move to the back of the allocation order
for the next time a player enters this process.
After only an hour of being a member of the Impact, it was announced that he was traded to the
Seattle Sounders in exchange for Lamar Neagle and Mike Fucito.
This summer we saw the first crop of Seattle Sounders Academy players moving on to the college
game. According to the (current) MLS rules, Seattle retains the ability to sign those players as
Home Grown Players if both parties agree instead of having to watch them go through the draft when
they choose to begin their pro careers.
Seattle Sounders FC conducted a buy out of O'Brian White's contract. White started the 2011
season with strong performances, but then suffered from a blood clot in his leg and he missed the
remainder of the season. With recovery for White unknown Seattle chose to buy the contract out. He
will not count on the roster limit or the salary cap.
Two weeks ago the Brotherly Game released information regarding the Philadelphia Union's roster
and salary cap, breaking down what the team looked like after releasing third string goalkeeper
Thorne Holder. Selling Guatemalan striker Carlos Ruiz to Veracruz, in Mexico, has created some
additional room in the Union's salary cap for possible moves (but not an additional international
player slot, as some people have speculated).
I just got beaten in posting this by Gooch over at the Star who basically posted some of the same
information. But I spent enough time working on this I'm going to post anyway.
Over the weekend, the MLS Players' Union put out the salaries for players through May 1st. When
the list was released there were certainly a few questions about the list.
Last night after posting about the Jack Jewsbury trade, someone posted about the allocation money
we were getting for Jewsbury. During my response I realized that along with explaining the
allocation money process it'd be interesting to look at how much money KC had available under the
cap. Well Gooch over at the Star beat me to both punches in the same post last night.
The Houston Dynamo have exercised their right to offer a contract to academy product Josue Soto
under the league's newly expanded "home grown" player rules. The 5-8, 180lb midfielder joined the
Dynamo Academy in 2007 after high school at Prepa Tec in Monterrey, Mexico.
Soto played for Campbell College in 2007 and 2008, earning First Team All-Atlantic Sun
Conference honors both seasons.
First off let me make this clear. My posting of these videos is not a protest against the
restrictions placed today on the Houston Dynamo supporters groups. It is not an attempt to absolve
certain individuals at recent Dynamo matches for their behavior. Objects CAN NOT be thrown on the
pitch under any circumstances, it's dangerous to other fans, to stadium staff and players.
Apparently, MLS is taking steps against Houston Dynamo Supporters Groups this season. Check this
one out:
This came via this Twitter feed.
Clearly this is in retaliation for Dynamo Supporters Groups' actions in 2011, with the most
visible example being the end of the MLS Cup Final, where Dynamo supporters were clearly seen on
national TV throwing flashlights, etc.
The MLS 101 series will be a "living/breathing document" in that I
will continue to edit and update these post to keep up to date with the inevitable changes that MLS
will make. I encourage you to bookmark the post so you can use them as a reference going
forward.
In this edition of MLS 101, it's time to tie up some lose ends about MLS roster rules, along
with player movement and acquisition.
The process that brought him in was a little unexpected, but the end result really wasn't. Today,
Sporting KC acquired the rights to former San Jose Earthquakes draft pick, Michael Thomas for a 4th
round Supplemental draft pick, the 73rd overall. The fact that Sporting had to give something to
San Jose for Thomas is the surprising part.
The UnionDues is reporting that a source close to the situation told the site that Philadelphia
Union midfielder Roger Torres has bought out the remainder of his contract with Colombian club
America de Cali. Speculation on the move is that that either the Union are set to sign the
20-year-old to a contract, or a European club may swoop in and take the talented Colombian off to
another continent.
When the Chicago Fire take on Real Salt Lake tonight at 8:00 PM CST at Rio Tinto Stadium in
Sandy, Utah, both teams will take the field having won four of their last five games. RSL was on a
5-game winning streak before losing to D.C. United 4-1 on Saturday. The Fire have two 2-game
winning streaks with an embarrassing loss to the San Jose Earthquakes in the middle.
MLS announced Wednesday morning that Sebastien Le Toux is the winner of the Xbox 360 Individual
Fair Play Award for the 2010 season. The award goes to the player who exhibits the best
sportsmanship and receives the least amount of yellow and red cards during the MLS regular season.
Le Toux has never been shown a card in his MLS career.
I know you're asking yourself, "How is this possible?" As your resident MLS rules expert, I can
only say, "I don't know." Maybe the Red Bulls are making DeRo a DP and paying down his cap hit with
allocation money, but that's just speculation.
Not even 24 hours after crowning its champion, MLS was back to business by requiring its clubs
to list its protected players for the expansion draft. The expansion draft is just one of several
drafts taking place this offseason for MLS, and the unprotected list for this draft has some
interesting names.
The winning ways of the Fire will hopefully continue tonight against a Portland team that has
struggled out of the gates early. Our Men In Red seem to be rounding into a fine form, and Chris
Rolfe hasn't even made his debut yet. I expect a pretty physical match tonight, especially given
the fact that Jeld-Wen Field features a pitch that is as small as you can have and still fall under
MLS rules.
Zach Pfeffer may not remain the Philadelphia Union's only Home Grown Player signing for long, as
academy star Christian Hernandez may soon join the club's first team.
His junior year of high school has been great for Hernandez, who is the star of the nation's
best high school team in the country.
Rumors of Pavel Pardo are flying around Chicago Fire Country and I think this as close to a done
deal as you can get for written and non-written reasons. The only problem? The current roster would
not allow it to happen. One of the main intrigues? The team already has several players in the
central midfield position.
As soon as Portland somewhat surprisingly selected Robbie Findley and Jonathan Bornstein in the
expansion draft, every Sounders fan (and to a lesser extent the fans of every other MLS team)
wished both a long and successful career overseas.
Sounders losses are Tyrone Marshall, Peter Vagenas, Nathan Sturgis and Sanna Nyassi
Sounders gains are Erik Friberg, O'Brian White, Danny Earls and Julien Baudet (or at least his
rights)
Here's the list of recommendations from Soccernomics in chapter 3 - Gentleman Prefer Blonds,
somewhat condensed.
