Off-Season Player Rumors & Movement 2011-12

There goes my chance at becoming the Union's #3 goalie. The team does seem to be fairly good about signing trialists who make it to the foreign country parts of pre-season camps. One name that comes to mind in terms of breaking that trend was the big TnT CB - Radanfah Abu Bakr - who lasted a long time in the 2010 pre-season camp before getting cut.

Although there are always exceptions, these home grown players have to be in your academy for a year or more before MLS can sign them. Hernandez's (and really any of the players from the Newark NJ-based Player Development Academy) involvement with the Union Academy did not seem to surface until last Spring, IIRC - first time that Unions fans heard or saw him was his appearance in a reserve game against NY in early April 2011. I do not recall the Union Academy doing much that Spring - played in the SUM Tournament and Everton friendly in the summer - followed up in the Fall with a series of games against MLS U18 academy teams.

 

MLS.com's fantasy soccer manager has Hernandez on the union roster... wonder if they know something we dont

 

The good lads over at Philly Soccer Page unearthed this little tidbit about Charlie Blackmouth and Alejandro Bedoya.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/306099

At the right price, could the Union land one of these USMNT players or some of the other Rangers facing the sack?

 

USMNT players would go through the allocation draft.

 

Philly sits #12 in terms of allocation order - plenty of teams ahead of them could use those players assuming that they have salary budget $ available so the U would have to trade up if interested (Seattle jumped up a few more spots in the Eddie Johnson deal in which they were sitting #1 in the allocation order - trading two spot starters [Mike Fucito and Lamar Neagle] to switch spots with Montreal. Bedoya and Bocanegra would both have more MLS-wide interest as just Seattle and Colorado were intersted in Johnson). Bedoya is an outside mid so unless the team was not pleased with the platoon of the Farfans, Daniel, Adu, etc. - the interest may not be there. Bocanegra plays CB and some LB (although he is not as much of the go-forward type that Philly likes) but Philly is set there for starters.

 

Hernandez signed: http://www.philadelphiaunion.com/news/2012/03/union-sign-hernandez-homegrown-player

He will use an international slot.

 

Does anybody know if/when we can possibly sign Christiano Francois as a HGP? I remembered seeing his name on our academy roster pool. It seems like he was the best player on Hernandez's team.

 

Francois and Hernandez both played for the Union reserves against New York in April of 2011. My guess is Francois is at least as far along as Hernandez is in terms of eligibility.

Francois is now committed to the University of Maryland, and frankly I don't see the Union signing yet another young forward this year unless the bubonic plague hits the locker room.

 

According to this link Francois will be headed to the University of Maryland in the fall, but the Union will continue to hold his Homegrown rights in MLS.

 

I wonder if come summer time he will play for Reading in the PDL as well as with Union reserves to keep him close and rack up any extra required time spent in the Union's system.

 

I guess the question is at what point does NCAA elgibility requirements kick in, because I'm pretty sure an active college player can't play on the same team with pros.

I assume it kicks in at the start of the school year, which would allow these academy guys to possibly get some reserve time in over the spring and summer.

Re: Reading, once the Union academy gets more established, I definitely see that club becoming a hotbed for Union academy grads on college teams in the future.

 

Although the Union will not likely add another homegrown player until next off-season, Francois has the added challenge (as of now) of requiring an international roster spot (Haiti) - I recall that he has not been in the USA very long.

http://ussda.demosphere.com/teams/37416866/37418009-37416960/31708840.html

 

The NCAA revised those eligibility rules for college players playing alongside pros. Reading had several pros, Baker, Rodriguez, and Ackley on the squad last season. Not sure what the new rules technically are, but the team can mix and match pros and college players as of last season IIRC.

 

It does really depend on the stipulations of the sport it appears my sisters and I who only played or in my case ran for a D3 and D2 school couldn't run and win cash money or anything like that while we were in or pursing our sports in college. So one would assume unless rules have changed (which is probably true) they'd have to sign to a non-commercial contract of some sort.

 

It's likely that the pro players from Reading are not paid to play, but paid to coach youth players instead.

 

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/sports/2012/03/06/crew-in-talks-with-hejduk.html

Interesting news about the Crew's pursuit of Saprissa's leading scorer (Jairo Arrieta) of both this season (15 goals) and last season (12 goals). Arrieta is 28 years old and is 5'8" (not the age/size that Philly would probably want but he is fast) yet have to wonder if Philly has a discovery claim on him given their new Saprissa relationship which might force the Crew to trade to get his MLS rights.

On the pitch, McCullers also confirmed the team’s interest in Costa Rican striker Jairo Arrieta, who currently suits up for Deportivo Saprissa and has played for the national team.

“He’s a player that we have interest in,” he said. “Obviously we follow Central America close and we keep tabs on most of the players down there. He’s a goal scorer and he’s a different type of player than (Olman) Vargas in terms of his style and what he brings.

However, McCullers stopped short of saying the signing was imminent, adding that he “certainly doesn’t” see Arrieta leaving his current club before summer.

 

Hm. Great find, Zman. This definitely tests out whether or not the Union have a right to match transfers on any Saprissa players and could also, as you said, test out if the Union have first dibs on discovery claims. I'll try to poke around for an answer.