Might be an interesting day. Hearing that Orlando City is trading Mohamed El-Munir to LAFC for Joao Moutinho.— The Mane Land (@TheManeLand) December 9, 2018 1071636770230398976 is not a valid tweet id
https://www.tycsports.com/nota/rive...-de-river-por-que-se-va-a-estados-unidos.html So, what happens if someone doesn't meet Atlanta/MLS' valuation of Almiron?
Almiron also came out saying he will stay for the 2019 pre season. Something tells me he wasn't sold and ATL will have a problem by having Almiron, Josef, Barco and Pity. Same problem LA Galaxy will have with the Dos Santos bros as no one wants to take Gio plus they have Alessandrini and now Zatlan getting DP money. MLS needs to come up with something quick.
I would relax a bit, it’s not even January yet. I’m pretty confident a deal will get done rather than MLS needing to quickly make up a new rule.
It's also not MLS' problem to solve. This comes down to the individual teams figuring out how to make the salary puzzle pieces fit within the Salary Budget guidelines.
Is Manny Lagos a secret consultant with FCC???? I mean....that's a LOT of USL players they are bringing with them to MLS.................. https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018...ins-growing-contingent-fcc-players-coming-mls https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018/12/10/fc-cincinnati-sign-midfielder-nazmi-albadawi-usl-squad https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018...er-montreal-impact-back-blake-smith-usl-squad
Expansion draft list out: https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018...le-players-selection-2018-mls-expansion-draft Not many surprises on there. Sacha being available is a bit interesting. Don't think FCC goes for him but some other team may trade some GAM/TAM to grab him for a year.
Is Yangel Herrera leaving MLS? I'd have thought he'd be protected. I wonder if FCC goes for Mitch Hildebrandt?
His loan from Man City is over. I doubt they send him back if someone else owns his rights and it sounds like he wants to play somewhere in Europe, so it is no risk to leave him unprotected.
That list of free agents is pretty underwhelming...a lot of "last legs" type guys along with fringe players that would struggle to make a good roster. I guess the gems in there are Ozzie Alonso and perhaps Feilhaber/Harvey? Also interesting to see players that already retired on there as well...
Hmmm.. Not that I mind too much, but I wasn’t aware teams that lost players in the LAFC expansion draft were exempt for this round..
Yeah this seems to be some brand new nonsense the league made up this year. I'm curious to see if this logic will hold true for next year. If i were a team I'd be working hard to get FCC to take someone off my team, trade to reacquire them with allocation money, then not have to worry about the 2020 expansion draft.
The rationale is that LAFC and Cincinnati are paired with the drafts taking place in consecutive years. The league didn't want some teams losing two players. It looks like the expansion draft next year will be for Miami and Nashville so it should be back to normal since teams won't be capable of losing two players in the joint draft. If they do not both come in 2020 then the league will probably do the same thing with any team losing a player in the 2020 draft being exempt from the 2021 draft.
Interesting seeing the comparisons drawn between FCC and Minnesota. They both added some pieces from their lower division squads. FCC is doing it on a much larger scale. As of today, they have signed 8 players from their USL squad, more than MNFC ever had. MNFC had at most 5, and most of them were signed in January. FCC is also keeping their USL coach, Koch. The big question is will the cohesion of keeping 8+ USL guys on the roster outweigh the risk associated with bringing in new players on the limited scouting resources (both time and $) available due to the short lead time. I doubt FCC makes the playoffs, but they aren't exactly "following the MNFC blueprint" that has been the narrative so far.
I'll reserve judgement on them until they start making their international signings and see what MLS free agents they sign or other MLS players they trade for. Minnesota came into their first game with three players that had more than 50 MLS appearances. Shuttleworth is a rotational goalkeeper, Jermaine Taylor was already showing signs of not being MLS caliber anymore, and Bernardo Anor had done ok at times in Columbus but managed just 483 minutes for SKC. The rest of their roster was mainly players that played in USL/NASL (even if they were contracted to an MLS team at the time) and some signings from Scandinavia. FCC already has more MLS experience on their team with Adi and Alashe. Assuming several of these signings are supplemental signings they still have room to bring in a few good international signings and a free agent or two and be fine. I would caution though that they already have filled, at a minimum, 7 senior spots and they haven't even hit the draft yet. Now, assuming they go after a GA player at #1 that moves another player up to the senior roster from this group of signed players. That means they'll need their other picks to fill out the reserve roster since no one they've signed is 24 or younger.
So FCC looks like this right now as best I can tell: Senior Roster (12/20): Adi (DP), Alashe, Albadawi, Alexander, Garza, Hoyte (INTL), Lasso, Lamah (INTL), Ledesma (INTL), Mattocks, Richey, Smith Supplemental Roster (4/4): #1 Pick, McGlaughlin, Bone, Welshman (INTL) Reserve Roster (1/4): Ndam (INTL) Now, I'm assuming that at least 3 of the USL players signed are on senior minimum and will be on the supplemental roster. Might not be the three I put down but those slots should be filled. I've put Lamah and Ndam down but I'm not 100% certain they aren't getting traded. Neither of them are on FCC's roster page while Alexander, Garza, and Mattocks are. It is probably nothing since Richey isn't on there either, but it is something to consider. That leaves them 8 slots to fill with rumors of Waston and Ullola supposedly on their way. I believe Waston would be an international for FCC (assuming he got the Canadian equivalent of a green card) so that would fill 6 of their 8 slots (assuming that the rumors of that international slot acquired today go to Vancouver for Waston). Not a lot of wiggle room to improve with foreign talent if that is all true. Will likely see them trading GAM/TAM for a slot or two. Feel like they are wasting slots for no reason.
One "build"--FCC--and half a dozen total rebuilds, from Orlando to Galaxy, Vancouver to Dallas, Revs to San Jose. And let's be honest--Chicago and Colorado need total rebuilds, whether they get them or not.
There's real weirdness going on right now with Luiz Muzzi. He was the recently named technical director of FCD after Fernando Clavijo had to step down. However, he's reportedly on the way to Orlando City & making decisions for them. Per a league source: Luiz Muzzi is the one making recent roster decisions for Orlando City. Club has not announced him yet, but he's the one working on these decisions. #OCSC— Jordan Culver (@JordanCulver) December 12, 2018 However, FCD ownership and spokesmen have said that he's still working for them. https://sportsday.dallasnews.com/so...cer-operations-luiz-muzzi-still-fc-dallas-now Is Luiz Muzzi making roster decisions for two clubs at the moment? So when Tesho Akindele was recently traded from Dallas to Orlando............did Muzzi represent both clubs? What the hell is going on here..............somebody is fibbing.
This is the downfall of the quality of the league. They don't have enough "good" players to fill out the newest team. They are looking to bring in more in the near future. If you are willing to go out and buy a team ala AU, it will mean less playing time for yanks. OTH, they can find more spots on new or newly bottom dwelling teams. Seems to be the greedy sports community model, so par for the course.