I thought it might be fun to revisit what the squad did during other offseason windows, and I plan on posting one update per weekend to keep me occupied through about the start of camp in mid-January. First up is our first offseason (figuring that prior to 2005 we just had one looooong preseason), 2005-2006, when we had an awful lot to do. I am not positive these moves are in order, but it ought to be close. 1) Brian Dunseth traded to Chivas USA for Douglas Sequiera and Christian Jimenez; 2) Waived DJ Countess, Dante Washington, Rusty Pierce, Jeff Stewart, and Matt Behncke (who, though released in the middle of the 2005 season, was still officially ours at the time); 3) Traded for Scott Garlick and Carey Talley, from Dallas, for a portion of an allocation; 4) Traded with Kansas City for Diego "I am Freaking Crap" Walsh for a third round supplemental pick; 5) Sent Clint Mathis to Colorado in exchange for Jeff Cunningham; 6) Signed Danny Torres on a free transfer from Sweden/Norway (he played for teams in both in 2005); 7) Traded a portion of an allocation to Kansas City for Chris Klein; 8) Drafted Mehdi Ballouchy and Ryan Johnson; 9) Selected Jeff Rowland, Willis Forko, Chase Harrison (still in the league in 2012), and Chris Lancos in the Supplemental Draft; 10) Waived Adolfo Gregorio and Diego "I Am Freaking Crap" Walsh; 11) Somewhere and somehow picked up Atiba Harris.
Fun times. I think most of those moves make me cry. Especially #2 and #10 since we gave up a permanent Int'l slot to get them...
Summation IN (Counting only players who were on the 2006 roster at some point; all stats from MLSSoccer.com) GK - Scott Garlick (31 games/starts, 1.41 GAA in 2006) D - Willis Forko (26 games/26 starts, 1 assist) D - Carey Talley (30 games/starts, 2g/4a) D - Danny Torres (16 games/starts) M - Mehdi Ballouchy (32 games/26 starts, 2g/2a) M - Christian Jimenez (one appearance/6 minutes in 2006, tore acl) M - Ryan Johnson ( 7 appearances/1 start/152 minutes) M - Chris Klein (32 games/starts, 7g/8a) M - Douglas Sequeira (18 appearances, one goal in 2006) F - Jeff Cunningham (31 games/26 starts, 16 goals, 11 assists) F - Atiba Harris (22 games/12 starts, 4g/1a) Yes, that's an entire starting lineup, a 3-5-2, all acquired in one offseason.
This is awesome. So many memories (mostly bad, but some good) coming back. Chris Klein was one of my favorite players in the early years and I miss watching him play. In a way, he deserves credit for helping win the 2009 cup since he was traded for Findley who scored the tying goal. Looking at the roster for that year is interesting. People from those years I wouldn't mind seeing in an RSL jersey again are Chris Brown and Jafet Soto (since he had that awesome half bicycle kick goal). /greenfont
So, 2006 was a year that Emblosion was celebrated as well? I remember changes, but I didn't remember that many. What a crazy offseason.
How cunningham did not win MVP that year is beyond me, he was the only reason RSL was even a half way competitive team at any point and his 16 goals and 11 assists where amazing. He won the golden boot and I believe he came in 2nd or 3rd in assists.
Don't we still have Chris Brown on the roster? He just goes by Ned Grabavoy. All hustle, the occasional brilliant run/pass/goal.
You guys are so wrong on Ned. He's the most versatile role player in the mid. Before we got Yordany, he was the best backup for Beckerman (although we had Jean Alexander). He fills in well either left or right. He isn't ideal to replace Javi, but who is? Really, he's the perfect midfielder to float so that any injuries or call-ups don't hurt the team. It's hard to find a great 5th guy who won't make the team miss a beat.
I'm fine with him being the 5th guy it's when we count on him as a consistent starter that we struggle. Also, when a guy can play anywhere in the midfield, it is also code for "this guy isn't great at any of these spots, but covers well enough" On Topic: Drafting Mehdi Ballouchy needs to be stated as possibly one of our best draft picks, ever. Not because of what Mehdi did here, but because of what we got (our captain and identity) in exchange for him
This thread reminds me of this bomb from Carey Talley (about 5 second mark): Wonder what he's up to now? Love him are hate him, he always seemed to play very for RSL.
I liked Carey Talley while he was with RSL. After he left though, he seemed to really decline and every time we played him, he was the cause of 2 or 3 goals for us.
Talley gave us everything that was left in his body and really helped keep a patchwork team from disintegrating even more.
The thing that struck me when compiling the list is that as terrible a job as Pastorino and Ellinger did prior to and during 2005, the '05-'06 offseason was pretty well done.
I think I read that he applied for Fraser's job when he left for Chivas but was beaten out by CJ Brown.
Yeah, I'd say Forko and maybe Torres were the only two "busts" on that list, although they sure were an upgrade, albeit not an adequate one. (Sequeira just didn't work out, but is good)
I've posted this pic once or twice before--but every time I think about Carey I visualize this photo I took several years back. Love live Talley in the hearts of RSL fans!
I am less sure of the order of things for the 2006-07 offseason, and even the completeness of the list. But insofar as I can be certain, here's the list for the 2006-07 offseason: 1) Lost Jason Kreis in the expansion draft to Toronto FC (enjoy reviewing our thread on that and #2 on this thread here, starting with post 94); 2) Traded ~$80,000 in allocation money to Toronto FC for Jason Kreis; 3) Waived Jacob Besagno, Cameron Knowles, Seth Trembly, and Douglas Sequeira (yes, we had a second Besagno brother on the roster); 4) Traded a major allocation, the rights to Jay Nolly, and future considerations to DC United for Freddy Adu and Nick Rimando; 5) Made our big offseason signing of Luis Tejada (who Ellinger was soon telling to get in shape); 6) Picked Chris Seitz and Steve Curfman in the SuperDraft; 7) Selected Haddon Kirk, Jared Kent, Kyle Reynish, and Dustin Kirby in the Supplemental Draft; 8) Traded Nick Rimando to New York for future considerations; 9) Signed Chris Lancos, whose rights we had acquired in the 2006 Supplemental Draft; 10) Scott Garlick retired; 11) Released Kevin Novak; 12) Traded a 2008 Super Draft pick and a 2009 Supplemental Draft pick to New York for Nick Rimando. And I think that was it.
Also: I totally forgot we had a Gil before Luis joined the team. Brian Gil, a M/F from South Florida, spent a year or so on the roster.
EEK!!! The offseason of complete blunders. With all the progress made the year prior, they really stunk it up the 2nd time around!
I dunno...that major allocation + Jay Nolly in exchange for Freddy Adu and Nick Rimando is right up there with the Ballouchy/Beckerman trade in RSL lore as far as the most lopsided trade in our favor. Obviously Rimando (the afterthought) was the gem of that trade, but let's not forget that Freddy Adu went overseas after that season and RSL got a significant portion of his transfer fee. That transfer fee eventually became the seed money that bought Mantilla, Espindola, and Morales. I thank the heavens every day for that trade.
This is exactly what I was going to say. While the reward for the Allocation + Nolly for Adu/Rimando trade was not apparent in the year it happened, it is VERY apparent now. People forget that RSL (and I also believe DC) got a decent chunk of change for Adu going oversees, money that allowed us to go after very key players that year. Of course we all know what Rimando has done for RSL in his years here. No denying that RSL made a cluster******** of that offseason though, what with all the random trades to get players back after deciding to trade them away (or lose them).
Point taken, but we shouldn't have lost Rimando in the first place and been trading to get him back. Superfluff. In the context that we lost Kreis in the expansion draft and had to trade back for him, PLUS we had to do nearly the same thing for Rimando too = complete fail. Adu would have happened anyway, and having to through Rimando into the mix probably increased the amount of allocation we traded away.
Although trading and re-trading Rimando looked foolish, it was really a blind-slide by Garlick to put RSL in that position. Karmatic justice; Garlick retired from RSL to get into real estate, in Florida, just a few months before the real estate market literally imploded in Florida.
Next up on the hit parade: the first offseason with Garth Lagerway at the helm, 2007-08. Garson already brought in Beckerman, Yura, Matias Mantilla, Fabi, and Javi in their short time in charge, and they had work to do between seasons. In rough order, this is what transpired during the 2007-08 offseason: 1) Eddie Pope retired. He was only 33; 2) We waived Chris Brown, Steve Curfman, Christian Jimenez, Jack Stewart, and Jean-Martial Kipre. Here on BigSoccer lots of folks flipped out about cutting Kipre, he of the four penalty kicks committed in six games for RSL. He was fast, and folks seemed to think he could come around - though he played one more season in the French fourth division before his career was over; 3) Traded Atiba Harris to Chivas USA for a 3rd round pick in the draft; 4) Brought a guy first reported to be named Jamerson Olave in on a one-year loan with an option to buy from Deportivo Cali; 5) Traded a draft pick and allocation money to New York fro Dema Kovalenko; 6) Drafted Tony Beltran, David Horst, Alex Nimo, and Brennan Tennelle in the SuperDraft; 7) That same day, traded Alecko Eskandarian to Chivas USA for allocation money; 8) Drafted Tino Nunez, Kevin Reiman, and Kenny Anaba in the Supplemental Draft; 9) Released Jamie Watson (man, some awesome threads on this one, including the appearance of a poster called Lakeboy who introduced the immortal phrase "Jason's stupid cry kids" in the the RSL BigSoccer lexicon); 10) Signed Ian Joy from St. Pauli in Germany; 11) Brought Mattias Cordoba on loan from Tigre in Argentina; 12) Signed Nat Borchers from ODD Grenland in Norway; 13) Signed Kenny Deuchar from Gretna in Scotland; 14) Waived Kyle Brown, Duke Hashimoto, Ritchie Kotschau, and Chris Lancos. Whew!