There is a weekly Keeper Notes newsletter that has details on various soccer activities in the Houston area. It's done by Jen Cooper, who's been involved in the sport for years and also works in the Houston FO in some capacity. This week's email has some details on how the expansion draft will work:
How's that going to work??? They can only pick two players from each team but only allowed three americans? are there enough Canadians in the league?
Exactly...this is so stupid. We are an American league so why can' they have as many American players as they want? They SHOULD waive international status of Canadians for TFC and thats it. A few years of getting their asses kicked and Toronto will be begging for change. You can't limit your player pool in MLS and expect to compete...just ask Chivas USA.
The three american SI's are extra and can use the other four on americans if they want. They will also get extra YI spots for a few years because they are an expansion team. I'm guessing the league assumes they will take players who qualify as YI's in the expansion draft.
I wonder if it means 'no developmental' players from 2006 season, or who would qualify as a DEV in 2007? That's quite an important differentation.
Expansion drafts are stupid. That being said, why wouldn't a GM protect all his Canadian players just to screw over Toronto? Why can't Americans and Canadians count domestic for everyone? That might even, you know, make sense.
It seems odd to even consider it a draft since only 1 team will be picking. So there's no strategy involved in passing up players you hope will be available later and all that stuff... Unless Toronto starts trading their expansion draft picks right now to other teams to make it more interesting!
TFC should just have US + Canadian players count as normal players or w/e and have four SI slots. I'm guessing theyre gonna sign alotta USL guys.
Perhaps TFC will use these picks to swing trades with other teams. Some of the selections will be kept and others will be used to trade for Canadians, draft picks, allocations and/or Senior Internationals...
iirc, last time it was the dev roster at the time of the draft, in other words, this year. However, I also think that they graduated the GenAd players before the draft. And that could be important.
Really, the only way you could make it fair to have US & Canadians count as normal players is to do so for the rest of the League. Or for that matter, just increas every team to 7SI slots. That would allow us to bring in some more international talent and still have plenty of roseter spots for Americans or Green-carded foreigners. Of course, someone pointed out in the Crew forum that Canada is a lot easier to get citizenship for if you are English or Australian since it is related to the British empire. So they will backdoor some players that way I'm sure.
My god i should have brought a bucket with me to catch all the tears some of you crybabys are shedding. There is a reason that MLS has determined that canadian players for Toronto will be domestic and why they went out of their way to give them additional spots for American Players. There is a general concern for this team to be identifiable to its fanbase as well as an underlying motivation to raise the level of canadian player, which is a small reason that their ownership group is involved. 4 SI 3 US 5YI thats 12 of 28 roster spots that could be all american players if they so choose. It is really not a big deal. Most likely TFC will use this draft to add some american players for depth and perhaps a desirable international as well. I would be surprised if the select 10. They have quite a few canadian players to choose from to fll out their roster.
Not with this phrase, "Once a player has been claimed from a team's non-protected roster, that same team may move an additional player to its protected roster." A team can then protect an additional player.
Why should that be? Does the league help the New York franchise be more identifiable to its fanbase? There is one easy solution for this, implement the homegrown player / youth development rule, and it will naturally happen.
I think the expansion draft is so overblown. Here are a couple of likely conclusions we can make right now--before we even know who is on the expansion draft list: 1. TFC could take extra Americans--but if they were seniors then their Yanks would qualify as SIs for that team. Over the course of 5-8 years, the ability to have some Americans count as local PLUS Canadians might be a competitive advantage but primarily b/c it is easier to get Canadian citizenship. 2. I remember the RSL folks talking about what a great expansion draft they had before their team got on the field in year 1. My position is that, baring something really bizarre, you should count on getting maybe 2-3 starters from your expansion draft (and yes, that is in year 1). Your other 8-9 players have to come from draft picks, trades, allocations, waiver signings. 3. The list of Canadians in MLS is short. I wouldn't be surprised of TFC tries to sweeten the pot to get teams to put players like Onstad on their expansion list. For instance, TFC could promise Houston that if they expose Onstad, they won't take any other Houston players. 4. A couple of teams in MLS (TFKAM, LAG) may use the draft to help clear space for what should be major roster changes in the off-season. 5. Given the roster that MoJo assembled to start the season with TFKAM, one has to be very pessimistic of what TFC will look like to start their inaugural year.