RSL player news (re: draft news)

SoccerPrime · 11-14-2006, 01:40 PM

I emailed them about some news and they gave me a nice reply. Here is basically what I've learned:

Mehdi Ballouchy graduated from Generation Addidas and will be protected in the draft

Besagno, Jimenez and Watson remain GA and are not eligible to be picked.

Under the rules, RSL has to protect three of these four: Knowles,
Sequeira, Soto, Torres; Sequeira is the one who will be exposed.

RSL expects that Paul Broome is retiring due to injuries.

RSL has decided upon 10 of the 11 protected players. There are some
potential moves around the league (involving trades) that could involve
the fate of the 11th, so we're struggling. RSL will submit the list at
2pm today and it will be public shortly thereafter.

Deuce · 11-14-2006, 06:45 PM

RSL announces unprotected list

SoccerPrime · 11-15-2006, 05:22 AM

Theres a lot of good players on that list. Going to be hard for TFC to pick just 10.

Only one per team too.

Wow.

Aero · 11-15-2006, 07:39 AM

RSL and Chivas really got the short end of the stick. Not only did they have the least to pick from, but they had to share those players. Toronto has better players left unprotected and they don't have to share those players with anyone else. They should be much better than RSL or Chivas were their first year.

Aerick · 11-15-2006, 08:27 AM

Jason Kreis and Andy Williams left unprotected. Can't say I saw that coming.

SoccerPrime · 11-15-2006, 08:35 AM

Andy Williams was born in Canada and RSL says they are prepared to lose him (Ballouchy I think).

Word is Toronto will draft Andy. Bye-bye Andy! 🙁

TFC can only take 1 RSL player. Kreis and Garlick are safe.

Aerick · 11-15-2006, 08:53 AM

That's not good news. But I guess we should expect somebody halfway decent will go.

Andy was one of my favorite players. But then so was Dipsy.

Aero · 11-15-2006, 09:06 AM

Andy was a good player, but it might be a good thing that he is going. Now Mehdi will get the chance he needs to play in the middle where he is probably best. This is probably better for the team overall in the long run.

Personally though, I'll be sad to see him leave. He was a good player and a good guy. I wish him all the success in the world (except when playing RSL) in the future.

I_Believe_In_Kreis · 11-15-2006, 10:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aero

Andy was a good player, but it might be a good thing that he is going. Now Mehdi will get the chance he needs to play in the middle where he is probably best. This is probably better for the team overall in the long run.

Personally though, I'll be sad to see him leave. He was a good player and a good guy. I wish him all the success in the world (except when playing RSL) in the future.

I agree with everything you've said here, but the way RSL went about it is crap. RSL's goal should have been aiming to be 1 of the 2 teams that doesn't lose a player in the expansion draft. Losing players this way, whether you want them gone or not, is bad because you don't get anything in return. If RSL wants Williams gone, fine. I can see why. But at least do it via trade so you get something in return.

If I were RSL I would have protected Williams and unprotected Harris knowing that there's no way TFC would pick him. Instead we're losing a midfielder who had trade value and getting nothing back.

Aero · 11-15-2006, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by I_Believe_In_Kreis

I agree with everything you've said here, but the way RSL went about it is crap. RSL's goal should have been aiming to be 1 of the 2 teams that doesn't lose a player in the expansion draft. Losing players this way, whether you want them gone or not, is bad because you don't get anything in return. If RSL wants Williams gone, fine. I can see why. But at least do it via trade so you get something in return.

If I were RSL I would have protected Williams and unprotected Harris knowing that there's no way TFC would pick him. Instead we're losing a midfielder who had trade value and getting nothing back.

You do have a point. It seems that they are giving Williams away knowing that he would be picked.

From what I understand, Andy has family in Toronto. Maybe they are doing this partly at his request. He may have wanted to go do Toronto. He may very well have been the 11th player that Prime mentioned being the one that they were trying to trade. Maybe they were trying to work out some a trade for him, but it didn't work out for whatever reason. Maybe Toronto wasn't willing to trade for him at all, but he still wanted to go there and rather than keep him around clogging up the midfield for RSL they decided this would be a good and painless way to benefit everyone. That way we don't lose any other players that we may have wanted to keep more than Andy and Andy gets to move to a place that he has family in.

That's the thing. We just don't know all the details that went into making this decision. We can sit back and pretend like we do and make judgements about whether it was smart or not to leave him unprotected, but we are just guessing. Maybe if we knew everything it might seem smarter to us than it actually is.

I think that if Andy had any trade value in the league at all, he would have been moved last year. The fact that he is still on the team might speak to how much trade value he actually has.