"2 young Americans" - Let the speculation begin

What's the status of that Nguyen dude that was playing in the Vietnamese league? I know nothing about him but MLS's website was making a stink about him for a few days.

Bedoya just transferred and would require allocation.

I am guessing these are not going to be big name guys.

I'm hoping its Eric Lichaj to fill in our RB area but that is probably a bit optimistic. I agree that it will probably be someone off the radar. If it wasn't a "young American" I would take Michael Parkhurst back as well since he has 1/2 an year on his contract left.

Lichaj would be perfect! But yeah, probably a bit unrealistic.

I think he meant keepers, at least that's how I took it..

Why the hell would Lichaj come to MLS?

lol it's probably going to be some player playing in the 3rd Scottish League and the player probably has had experience playing with the u-16 team..

Don't get too excited.

bedoya is the only person on that list that I would even look at realistically. But that would not make any sense as he just moved to rangers and correct me if I am wrong was he not hurt for a little while? You could also argue that Stephan Frei is American and has over seas experience. And he seems to be on the outs with Toronto fc.

potential "young americans" who have been playing "abroad":

Eric Lichaj: 23, RB/LB, Aston Villa, has been injured but even so hadn't broken thru to the first team regularly, did go on loan to Leeds so maybe a loan is possible? not very likely it is him tho.

Jemal Johnson: 26, F, Southend United, has bounced around Bulgaria and League1/League2 in England ... might be looking to come back to the US?

Ryan Miller: 26, CB, Halmstad (SWE1), plays all the time for his 1st division SWE club but has been there since 2009, 3 years, which is about the time that foreign players taxes go up and this has caused more than a few players to return to the US so .... previous to SWE he was in MLS with DCU and CLB so maybe a rights issue?

Tyrel Lacey: 25, GK, FC Lyn (NOR), his club in Norway went bankrupt and he is now a free agent...but young american GKs are a dime a dozen and who knows if this guy is any good or not?

Babajide Ogunbiyi: 25, CB, Viborg FF (DEN2), well he was a RedBull so maybe he'll come back? 2nd div in denmark isn't exactly glamourville.

Will John: 26, AM/F, NK Vinogradar, played in MLS 2006-2008 then went to Randers in DEN, has since bounced around in Serbia, Slovakia and Croatia ... was released in the summer and is a free agent.

Marcus Tracy: 25, F, Aalborg, went to Aalborg straight from Wake Forrest but only played 21 games in 3 seasons due to injury, recently released and is a free agent

Michael Thomas: 23, RM, Ljungskile SC, drafted by SJE in 2010 but went to SWE, first with Halmstad for 3 months and then to Ljungskile where he has played about 45 games in two seasons ... probably one year away from the "tax hike" so perhaps not very likely.

Amaechi Igwe: 23, LB, SV Babelsberg 02, left NER in 2010 and has since played in the GER 2 and currently 3rd div. probably don't want NER cast offs.

Preston Zimmerman: 23, RM, SV Darmstadt 98, signed straight with Hamburg SV out of high school at 18 and played in their reserves, then went to a newly promoted Austrian top league team, then went to Mainz II (reserves) and recently signed for Bund3 club SV Darmstadt 98 .... might want to end his "european adventure" and come to MLS?

Johann Smith: 24, F, Kalmar FF, originally signed to Bolton's youth academy out of high school he has also had stops in TFC's inagural season then Croatia and Sweden, currently a free agent ... also has 5 U20 caps back in 26-07.

Kamani Hill: 25, F, Vitoria Guimarares SC, signed with VfL Wolfsburg out of UCLA and ended up in the reserves, next went to Portugese club Vitoria Guimarares ... unclear if he was waived by them or not but has been trailed by SJE where he is from a couple of times

and there are tons and tons of others none of whom are remarkable in any real way so i am sure others could come up with more to add to this list ...

My money is on Baba. He'll likely come with a price tag (100K?) but he's got professional experience, fills a need and the club retains his MLS rights. But what do I know? I thought there were players to be had in the re-entry draft.

This is a more likely list, but we have to exclude certain players such as Marcus Tracey whose rights belong to Houston who drafted him. I also believe we have to look at midfielders, defenders and GK's as I just don't see forwards on our team as we are in such need of the other two. So I would think players such as Ryan Miller perfect as playing in Sweden and CB, Tyrel Lacey, GK free agent having played in Norway, Will John AM played in Denmark and free agent, Michael Thomas, RM played in Sweden, Igwe-LB played in Germany and Preston Zimmerman-RM having played in Germany. I don't know how good any of them really are, but I think the Red Bulls would focus here from this list given their better scouting network in this area.

How about Gale Agbossoumonde? I don't think any MLS team has rights to him and he plays in Sweden. I would really like to have this guy if he wants to play in MLS. He plays CB.

I think I would stay away from Lee Nguyen as anything I have heard about this guy is negative. I can't pinpoint anything, but not good vibes here.

Regarding Baba, I read somewhere that this appears unlikely as I think he wants to stay in Europe for now.

Gale Agbossoumonde rights I think are still owned by Traffic Sports. Ryan Miller fills a need as well, and I think he might have been gone long enough that no one holds his rights anymore.

Realistically the team needs two keepers a right back and at least one CB. Also a more offensive minded midfielder though Solli might actually fill that role if a right back can be found.

The major road block is Traffic. They want some redonkulous amount of money for the kid. But you have to figure he would be in the 100k range.

Soler makes no sense, " two americans". north american, south american. lol Well, all I can say is , be it Russian or from Mars, I just want them to play fundamentally well.

Isn't there a 2- or 3-year limit on how long a player's rights are owned after being drafted? Houston drafted him in January 2009, so I think at latest he'd be free next month, if not already a year ago.

He "plays" now in Germany. IE, he's on the books for Eintracht Frankfurt's second team in the 4th German division, but isn't actually getting any playing time. Still, I don't see him being one of these guys, mainly because of the Traffic complication.

Before his knee surgery in August, he was a rather prized asset for Viborg and there was interest for him in the German 2nd Bundesliga. He'll be back for the spring half of Viborg's season in March, and my guess is that he'll eventually move on elsewhere in Europe, either beforehand, or in the summer after he's had half a season to get back into form.

In any case, he got screwed over by NY before, and I doubt he'd exactly be jumping at the opportunity to come back, even under new management.


My baseless speculation is that one of them is Jonathan Borrajo - he just finished a very strong season at HamKam in Norway (2nd div, were nearly promoted), is out of contract, supposedly wanting to come back to the US, is a right back, and is from NJ.

The other - I'd guess it's either Tracy, or more likely Joseph Bendik - a backup keeper for Sogndal IL (Norwegian top div) who is out of contract, played well when he got off the bench, and also looking to come back to the US.

The one youtube compilation of Bendik was promising, and with a 39 year old keeper you know we'll need a reliable backup sooner rather than later. Borrajo sounds like a reasonable guess at it too.

Somehow I don't think they are asking for a lot. $100K may not be much. The guy is playing in Sweden and did not find it easy getting there so I don't think that it would be much. The bigger question is if he is still under contract and if he wants to come to MLS.

The issue is not his pay check which is what I was referring to as being in the 100k range. The issue is that Traffic has time and time again refused offers for the kid that would be more than most MLS teams are willing to spend. Granted he has had a rough go of it, but Traffic still has I believe two years on him. So I do not think they are ready to off load him cheaply yet.

I think Bendik would be a savvy pickup. The kid looks like he's ready to be a longtime fix at a troubling position for RBNY. I don't know much about Borrajo but if he's a solid RB then he is exactly what this team needs imo.

This is what I was going to ask, but the previous posters seemed pretty definitive in their statements.

My recollection was that it was almost 2 yrs, ie. draft the guy in the '09 draft (January 15, 2009) and the rights expire Dec. 31, 2010.

So we wouldn't have Baba's rights....but MLS is fairly arbitrary in what they decide the actual rules say.