We all knew that it would happen eventually. Dwayne De Rosario didn’t make it a secret that he wanted to eventually play in his home country. De Rosario plays with the Canadian national team so he is on his way to Toronto FC.
In exchange for Dwayne De Rosario Toronto FC send Julius James and allocation money to the Houston Dynamo. James is a defender who played in 13 games during his rookie season this past year with TFC. James was the 9th selection in the draft from UConn, where he was the Big East defender of the year 3 straight years.
Will Dwayne De Rosario be able to help TFC get into the playoffs for the first time in the club’s history?
The new team on the block could be in trouble with the league well before their first game is ever played. Recently Sigi Schmid announced he would not return to Columbus after winning the MLS Cup with them this year. Rumors flew that Schmid was going to take the job at Seattle Sounders FC for their first season in the league.
Now the Columbus Crew have filed a complaint with the league office saying that Seattle had improperly contacted Schmid before they should have. The likely outcome will be a payment from Seattle to Columbus if the league does determine that Seattle acted inappropriately.
Hopefully this isn’t a sign of things to come for Seattle. You don’t really want your team getting in trouble even before playing their first ever game.
If you were planning on getting season tickets for Toronto FC you better have picked those up already – other wise you are out of luck.
TFC play at the 20,000 capacity BMO Field. They restrict the number of season tickets sold to 16,000, all of which have already been purchased for the 2009 season. It is impressive that they’ve sold out their season tickets already, but even more impressive is the fact that 95% of those season tickets purchased were renewals of season ticket holders from last year. For a team that finished close to the bottom of the league that is very impressive. This means they’ve sold more season tickets than the reigning champions Columbus Crew had average attendance.
Good job Toronto! Some other MLS cities could learn a lesson from you on how to support your team.
New England Revolution defender and former Rookie of the Year Michael Parkhurst is leaving Major League Soccer after 4 seasons. Parkhurst is finishing up contract negotiations with FC Nordsjaelland, a team from Denmark’s Superligaen.
Parkhurst’s contract was up at the end of this past season so his move is free for FC Nordsjaelland. He didn’t make it a secret that he wanted to go overseas at the end of his contract, so it was no surprise to the Revolution. The 24 year old defender thought this was going to be the right time in his career to make the move.
This past season’s rookie of the year, Chad Marshall, is also trying out Europe. Marshall defends for the Columbus Crew but will be appearing in a test match for Mainz05 as a guest player. Only time will tell if he will fill a more permanent role with the team than “guest”.
Dario Sala was the lone representative from MLS in a goal keeper challenge called Keeper Kombat. The event took place in Mexico where he competed against 11 keepers that play for Mexican teams. Sala came out victorious over each of his opponents to claim probably nothing for winning the Keeper Kombat.
The event was put on by a company that makes keeper gloves called Rinat.
Would the New England Revolution be willing to trade Taylor Twellman? mls-rumors.net has a story that the Revolution might be getting ready to do just that. They suggest that LA Galaxy might be his future home.
I couldn’t imagine this happening unless Donovan actually leaves the team full time to play in Germany. Then they might need someone like Twellman to replace Donovan. What do you think? What are the chances Twellman goes to LA, and what would the Revolution get for him?
The expansion draft took place last week on Wednesday. Seattle Sounders FC were able to choose 10 players from the unprotected lists of each current MLS team. This is what the full SSFC roster looks like as of today.
Brad Evans (drafted from Columbus Crew)
Nate Jaqua (drafted from Houston Dynamo)
Kasey Keller
Stephen King (drafted from Chicago Fire)
Sebastien Le Toux
Freddie Ljungberg
Sanna Nyassi
Jeff Parke (drafted from New York Red Bull)
James Riley (drafted from San Jose Earthquakes)
Jarrod Smith (drafted from Toronto FC)
Khano Smith (drafted from New England Revolution)
Nathan Sturgis (drafted from Real Salt Lake)
Peter Vagenas (drafted from LA Galaxy)
Tyson Wahl (drafted from Kansas City Wizards)
The expansion draft took place last week on Wednesday. Seattle Sounders FC were able to choose 10 players from the unprotected lists of each current MLS team. This is what the full SSFC roster looks like as of today.