2012 Major League Soccer Thread

[HailtotheYo]

Time for the new season thread as the draft has been completed: Results

Wenger and Mattocks were tabbed as the best players and they went 1 and 2. Kind of surprised though that Montreal couldn't move the 1st pick with as many teams out there that needed to get a "ready now" capable player. NE benefitted from the fact that there were 2 "can't miss" guys as Rowe is damn good as well and he fell to the 3 spot. Dallas got what they needed in Hedges (D) and Houston got a steal IMO with Rolfe at 18. I doubt there's too many others that follow college soccer enough but meh, if anyone wants to talk picks I'm up for it.

Updated moves: As of Jan 12

Robayo and Puppo at Chicago, Miller Bolanos at Chivas, Olman Vargas at Columbus, Blas Perez at Dallas (fuck yeah), Bernardez at SJ ..... these are the types of moves that are really going to push the league forward. These are the types of players that Mexican clubs get that give them the edge here in CONCACAF. The "in between" players in terms of having the talent to play somewhere other than over here, but not necessarily enough to make it worth it too stick it out in Europe OR the talent to play overseas, but play a style that doesn't necessarily translate.

Schedule

LA/Toronto/Seattle have CCL matches on March 7 and the League kicks off March 10/11. The FCD/NYRB match will be the first on the NBC SportsNetwork.

[HailtotheYo]

Kenny Cooper traded to NYRB. Oddly enough I think that might work out except for: Henry/Rodgers/Agudelo ... Cooper ? Seems a bit crowded.

[GoGo Yubari]

Cooper being brought in probably a measure to deal with the fact that at bare minimum, Agudelo will probably be overseas for the Olympics, but I wouldn't be shocked at all if he's not with NYRB by the end of July either. Plus, Luke Rodgers' future is up in the air because he needs to get a new work VISA.

Anyway, to prompt some actual discussion in here, thoughts on how everyone's respective teams they support are shaping up in the months leading to the season's opening? For me personally, I'm pretty confident in the Sounders and really pleased at how fantastic our depth is. As it stands right now there are a lot of good players competing for spots on the roster; I think Babayele Sodade, Andrew Duran, and Jason Banton are all really interesting draft picks who could make it onto the roster (Sodade's odds are best because we still have no clue if/when O'Brian White is coming back). Honestly, I wouldn't even care if we didn't get some major signing or a third DP, because our roster is so full right now and I think the only way we really need it is if we lose someone out of Montero, Fernandez, or Alonso. Plus, Steve Zakuani has returned to full training as of Friday! Still a good ways away from being able to play significant minutes/at his full form, but that's very encouraging.

Michael Gspurning and Adam Johansson are very capable replacements for Keller and Riley; Johansson might even be an upgrade, though I'm a little concerned that if he does get called up for Euro 2012 that it means we'll be weak in the RB area for a little bit. On the other hand, though, a player representing the Sounders in a major tournament would be very exciting. Not so sure about Marc Burch replacing Tyson Wahl, we'll see.

[Meacon Keaton]

Philadelphia Union's Facebook page announced there would be a "Special Announcement" tomorrow (Tuesday) around ten in the morning. Everyone is speculating that Le Toux is being sold, but I'm not sure they'd bill that as a "Special Announcement". I hope not anyway.

[GoGo Yubari]

Yeah, seems like decent odds that Le Toux is heading off to Bolton but surely that's not it.

[Meacon Keaton]

It's that single game tickets are going on sale.

[HailtotheYo]

Philadelphia Union's Facebook page announced there would be a "Special Announcement" tomorrow (Tuesday) around ten in the morning. Everyone is speculating that Le Toux is being sold, but I'm not sure they'd bill that as a "Special Announcement". I hope not anyway.

All Star game ......

[Lineker]

Ex-Rangers striker Kris Boyd has signed with the Portland Timbers.

[GoGo Yubari]

That sounds like it could be an annoyingly good signing for Portland.

[HailtotheYo]

That sounds like it could be an annoyingly good signing for Portland.

Houston gets a 2013 first round pick out of it. They'd put in the discovery claim but Boyd said no thanks to H-Town.

[HailtotheYo]

Mondragon back to Colombia

Ouch, on the heels of Boyd to Portland ... Philly announces this. Mutual consent so Mondragon can retire with his first ever club. That freaking hurts Philly though. MacMath will be all right, but another year or two under Mondragon would have done him wonders.

Also, Conde is back and he's in NY.

Some pretty damned good talent roped into the league in this window:

Rafeal Robayo

Federico Puppo

Miller Bolanos

Jaime Castrillon

Milovan Mirosevic

Olman Vargas

Blas Perez

Marcelo Sarvas

Nelson Rivas

Patrice Bernier

Markus Holgersson

Jeremy Vuolo

Josue Martinez

Gabriel Gomez

Kris Boyd

Victor Bernardez

Michael Gspurning

Adam Johansson

Christian Sivebaek

Reggie Lamb

Lee Young-Pyo

[GoGo Yubari]

Rumor has it Sebastien Le Toux was traded. To Vancouver. You fucking traded a USL Sounder to the scum? Fuck you, Peter Nowak, I hope the Union sucks this year for that.

[HailtotheYo]

Rumor has it Sebastien Le Toux was traded. To Vancouver. You fucking traded a USL Sounder to the scum? Fuck you, Peter Nowak, I hope the Union sucks this year for that.

Allocation money an international slot ... And a draft pick is the supposed return .... Looks like they're trying to cash in on him while he's a hot property. Signing Josue Martinez crowded the CF/ST picture and they're also going after Lionard Pajoy

Also seems to be a move to get the cash to buyout Roger Torres' contract from America de Cali ..... Arsenal if the MLS ?

[Szumi]

Nowak is putting a lot of stock on unproven commodities. Danny Mwanga and Jack McIerney are still really inconsistent, Martinez is an unknown for the MLS (I'm skeptical if a young guy like him can come in and lead a line right away), and Chase Hoffman is just a rookie coming in. Coupled with the loss of Mondragon, a lot of reasons for Union fans to be unhappy, which I am.

Le Toux was the heart and soul of the Union team.

[Meacon Keaton]

Yeah, I'm really skeptical about this year. Last year I was thrilled with the progress we had made, and we went to the playoffs.

I'll keep faith that Nowak is making us better, but I'm not anywhere near as sure about it as I was this time last year.

[GoGo Yubari]

Le Toux is clearly unhappy about it too, and I don't blame him. He just got traded out of the blue from one of the best Eastern Conference teams to the worst Western Conference team. Not to mention the fact that Vancouver didn't actually need more strikers.

[Hobo]

I intend to keep up my burgeoning Vancouver Whitecaps fandom this year, and maybe actually try and do better than I did last year, which amounted to just following them on Twitter and Facebook and not actually watching a single competitive game.

As such I just saw the news on the Whitecaps Facebook and was surprised. I expected LeToux to go off to Europe.

[HailtotheYo]

Eh, not exactly out of the blue. They tried with Bolton but Le Toux cut it short. He's out of contract at the end of the year, they brought in a younger striker, have two other young strikers, and they wanted to cash in.

They just announced the full signing of Torres, which also had something to do with it.

[HailtotheYo]

Eh, not exactly out of the blue. They tried with Bolton but Le Toux cut it short. He's out of contract at the end of the year, they brought in a younger striker, have two other young strikers, and they wanted to cash in.

They just announced the full signing of Torres, which also had something to do with it.

[GoGo Yubari]

Sebastien Le Toux is pissed. Wow.

Also, Luke Rodgers has got his work VISA sorted out so he'll definitely be a part of NYRB this year. Henry/Rodgers/Agudelo/Cooper, best lineup at striker in MLS as it stands?