IS BUYING CROSS-COUNTRY SKIS
After much deliberation - lasting until 5 a.m. Wednesday - the "war room" emptied at Philadelphia Union headquarters, and the team's coaches and staff were ready to make their picks in teh MLS Expansion Draft.
The 10 players selected, from those made available by the 15 MLS teams, were: goalkeeper Brad Knighton (New England Revolution); defenders David Myrie (Chicago Fire), Shavar Thomas ( Chivas USA) and Jordan Harvey (Colorado Rapids); midfielders Shea Salinas (San Jose Earthquakes), Stefani Miglioranzi (Los Angeles Galaxy) and Andrew Jacobson (D.C. United); and forwards Nick Zimmerman (New York Red Bulls), Alejandro Moreno (Columbus Crew), and Sebastian Le Toux (Seattle Sounders).
It's a young crop, with an average age of 25, that should be hungry to play for head coach Peter Nowak.
"The No. 1 pick is the team, first and foremost," Nowak said yesterday. "We think these are the guys we need moving forward here, but it's up to them to prove themselves."
One player who sticks out is Miglioranzi, who, at 32, boasts international club experience, playing briefly for English Premier League clubs Portsmouth and Everton before returning to the MLS' Columbus Crew, aiding in the Crew's first MLS Cup title in 2008.
But there is one name that needed to be explained, that being 24-year-old goalkeeper Knighton, because two top keepers in Kevin Hartman of the Kansas City Wizards and the Houston Dynamo's Pat Onstad were on the unprotected list.
"With all due respects to Kevin and Pat Onstad, we just felt that Knighton was the better fit for us going forward," Nowak said. "He's not scared of competition, and he is young. Brad will definitely compete for that starting spot."
It appears that Knighton will be fighting for that starting position with former Real Salt Lake goalkeeper Chris Seitz. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the Union acquired Seitz for allocation money from Major League Soccer and the promise that Salt Lake would be one of the five teams that would not have a player selected in the expansion draft. Seitz, 22, was on the roster of Nowak's 2008 U.S. Olympic Team in Beijing.
According to a survey on the MLS players' union Web site released on Sept. 15, the combined 2009 base salary was $615,199.96 for the 10 players selected. That number goes up $75,000 to $690,199.96 with the addition of Seitz.
This is just the beginning of the Union's soon-to-be 28-man roster that will be in place in time for the team's inaugural kickoff on March 25 in Seattle. The next step will be scouting for the upcoming MLS player combine, and finding that potential "diamond in the rough" at the team's open tryout sessions.
"Over the next month or so we will go back to looking at the market, go back and evaluate guys in the combine, prepare for the SuperDraft [on Jan. 13] and try to build on what we have," Nowak said. "This is an exciting time moving forward." *
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