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| Praying for goals. |
Movement at last! Maicon Santos makes it 15 for Salary Budget players, and United drops a 14-trialist bomb as pre-season camp gets underway. Of course, the majority of the trialists are guys with limited to no MLS experience, but such was always going to be the major source to roster depth1. Of greater concern, at least to me, is the lack of a starting-caliber left back and the thought that Santos doesn’t quite address the problems up top.
The updated roster (with questions and limited tidbits of analysis/supposition) looks like this…
Salary Budget Players (minimum 18 required)
- D (I) Jakovic, Dejan
- D Woolard, Daniel - Is he really a starting-quality MLS fullback?
- D Korb, Chris2
- D McDonald, Brandon
- D Russell, Robbie - Past it or the second coming of Namoff?
- D/M Kitchen, Perry3
- M Morsink, Kurt - Under threat from trialists? (the author hopes, knowing it probably isn’t so…)
- M King, Stephen4 - Ditto
- M (I, DP) Boskovic, Branko - Ready to make a statement?
- M/F DeLeon, Nick
- M/F De Rosario, Dwayne
- M/F Pontius, Chris
- F Brettschneider, Blake - Wonder how safe his spot is…
- F Wolff, Josh
- F Santos, Maicon
- -
- -
- -
Optional Salary Budget Players (maximum 2 allowed)
- -
- -
Off-Budget Players (maximum 10 allowed)
- GK (HG) Hamid, Bill
- GK (HG) Willis, Joe
- D (HG) White, Ethan
- D/M (HG) Shanosky, Conor - Big plus if he’s ready to contribute
- M (HG) Najar, Andy
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
Trialists
- GK Dykstra, Andrew - MLS experience, excellent competition for the largely unproven Willis if the price is right
- GK Goody, Carl - Coming out of college. English. Does he have a green card?
- GK Swaim, Will - Another college (UMD) keeper
- D Rodriguez, Charles - Suppie pickup. Projects as left/center back depth?
- D Zayner, Jed - Versatile back-line veteran, but is he healthy?
- M C’deBaca, Seth - Trained with the big boys last year and played with U-23’s so we should have a firm handle on his qualities
- M da Fonte, Mike - Small college and small euro-club experience, just 21
- M Richter, Ryan - Union washout #1, college goalscorer (for what it’s worth)
- M Rozeboom, Lance - Suppie pickup. D-mid depth?
- M/F Berhanu, Yoni - Hometown kid means off-budget possibility?
- M/F Kuhn, Matthew - Suppie pickup. 11 goals, 4 assists in 20 collegiate matches
- F Houapeu, Levi - Union washout #2 and another hometown kid with experience in the DCU youth ranks
- F Oduran, Matt - Academy kid and UMD product, sensing a pattern?
- F Touray, Sainey - Gambian youth nat with USL experience. Green card?
That’s an impressive list of trialists, at least in size. The quality? Tough to say, but I wouldn’t expect anybody outside of Dykstra or Zayner to potentially have much of an impact as anything beyond raw depth. With the number of local products being looked over, I vacilate between being worried (penny-pinching, lack of ambition) and understanding (local kids are what you stock the off-budget pond with and have probably seen the most of and therefore know who best might fit).
Given my admittedly limited knowledge of the college game, I welcome any further input/opinions/contradictions.
At least we’ve got more guys in camp than we have roster spots, so that’s saying something, right? Still not enough to inspire optimism though.
We’ll entertain a limited hope that there may be foreign mercenaries on the way, but won’t be holding our breath, will we? ↩
Korb turns 25 this year, making him (to my understanding under previous year’s rules) ineligible for Off-Budget status. ↩
Graduated from Generation Adidas. ↩
Listed as Off-Budget on dcunited.com, but turned 25 last year. Doesn’t that make him ineligible for Off-Budget status? ↩
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