Finally somebody with credibility has hinted at what I always said and suspected. "Contraction was designed to help certain teams" - Bob Bradley. Well, well, welll... I bet the guys at the MLS office are rubbing their hands in delight that NE is in the semis. They will be even more delighted if it makes the final and wins. I have always said that it was obvious that his years MLS badly wanted NE to win. It loaded the team with the best players it could while trying (unsuccessfuly) not to be very obvious. I know I know: they can't get guarantee what happens in the field ( at least I hope so) but like in boxing you can stack the deack in a way that your fighter ( in this case the team) becomes a contender. and then once it plays for the title... you never know. It stinks to high heaven. Who the heck decides in the MLS offices which teams can break the salary cap and which ones can't? Major League S C A M.. True?
Also, how did Brown end up in NE after the dispersal draft, without a waiver draft? He had a contract with MLS. As such, he was supposed to go through a waiver draft. DC United has lost two draft picks and future considerations in waiver drafts this year. GM
New England benefited most from contract because they had so much expendable crap in the first place. Even now, the contraction thing didn't help New England as much as Bradley's and jsanarita's comments imply. Diallo was a bust. Serna, traded for Diallo, was promptly injured. Chacon has gone largely unused by Steve Nichol. Llamosa was hurt for much of the season and/or with the national team. Adin Brown backed up Juergen Sommer for a long time and didn't begin to play like a giant until the last two months of the season. Ralston was the only player picked in the expansion draft that really had a big impact over the course of the whole season. And as for your allegation of bizarre policy making in the MLS offices, it's hardly a revelation.
You forgot to mention Rooney (and with good reason). He fits well into the bust category also. The Revs got Brown (I still don't know how or why he was such a special case) by outbidding the other teams for him. Somehow, the league was going to put him on whichever team offered to pick up the highest percentage of his current contract. Bradley said that contraction helped the bad teams but hurt the good teams. How was his team hurt by contraction?
Whoever started this thread is just whining (for what reason I have no idea). What would be the point of contracting a team and giving the top players to LA, for example? I'm sure fan interest would fly high if LA dominated the league every year. Two teams were contracted because they were losing a great deal of money, and the players on those teams were reallocated in a way that would increase the level of the league as a whole. PS: Chacon was signed by NE only because no one else had any cap room left. Now I can see why they didn't want him...
If it wasn't for Twellman (who was picked in the Superdraft) the Revs would have been the worst team in league history. I didn't think they were going to be that good after the contraction draft. I'm surprised and happy for them.