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McCarthy’s Musings: The Friday Five Examines Donovan’s New Galaxy Deal

By Kyle McCarthy

Landon Donovan may be headed to England in January, but it looks like his long-term future remains in Los Angeles.

Donovan signed a four-year contract extension with MLS and the Galaxy on Wednesday. The reported $9 million pact represents the most lucrative deal for an American player in MLS by quite some distance and makes Donovan the second-highest paid player in the American top flight behind Galaxy teammate David Beckham.

What impact will Donovan's new deal have on MLS, its salary structure and its players? The Friday Five examines the possible fallout from Donovan's record-breaking deal.

1. Donovan is “a special player.” That exact phrase came up twice as I gauged reaction about the deal yesterday. Given the context and the player in question, it's hard to quibble with its usage. Considering his performances on the field and his unique value to MLS, Donovan certainly deserves a pay packet in this price range. This is the perfect agreement for a player who wants to stay in MLS and for a league that wants and needs to keep him here. The lingering question is whether MLS will see this deal as a one-time exception for a special player in a unique set of circumstances or as a brief to raise the level of compensation for other domestic standouts.

2. The timing…well, it's a bit curious. For Donovan, the timing makes perfect sense. Why not take a big raise and a guarantee to have the flexibility to go away on loan? From the league's perspective, it is logical to keep Donovan happy and satisfied while demonstrating his commitment to MLS ahead of a Premier League loan deal and the World Cup, but it doesn't quite compute to give any player, even a vitally important one like Donovan, a massive deal six weeks before the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Make no mistake: this deal raises the bar for other players around MLS at a time when the league is trying fix its costs in the new CBA. Odd time to flash the cash then, isn't it?

3. How, if at all, will the Donovan deal impact the CBA negotiations? The relatively compressed pay scale for Americans has now widened considerably with Donovan now slated to make approximately $2.25 million per season, according to Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl. All of a sudden, the top American players around MLS – perhaps Stuart Holden, who just elicited a bumper contract offer that now represents approximately one-seventh of Donovan's yearly haul, will be the trail blazer – are going to start to wonder why their contract number isn't even in the same zip code as Donovan's take. Will those players possess enough sway or enough European interest to drag their wages up to a level they might feel is more appropriate? The circumstances - Donovan's unique importance and MLS' bargaining power in CBA negotiations, to name two - suggest that it may not happen as quickly as the players think it should after this deal.

4. The price for new Designated Players just rose significantly. European agents will absolutely have a field day with Donovan's new deal. After all, why should a player with impeccable credentials in the world game accept a discount when MLS is willing to shell out big bucks to someone not named Blanco or Beckham? Maybe MLS can still weasel its way into a discount or two because some potential DP targets love the idea of playing in America, but it'll be a tough sell when Donovan, who hasn't excelled overseas despite his stellar body of work Stateside, is on such an enormous chunk of change.

5. Goodbye, grandfather clause? Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but the magnitude of Donovan's new deal should hasten the end to the one lingering exception to the Designated Player rule. Donovan is the only player in MLS who makes DP money, but is not counted as a DP because he – along with the since departed Eddie Johnson and Carlos Ruiz – earned a DP-level deal before the rule's inception prior to the 2007 season. The Galaxy, to the best of my knowledge after writing a story on Donovan's situation in November 2007, picks up the tab as if Donovan was a DP without actually counting him as such. Donovan's presence as a non-DP player on DP money gives the Galaxy a significant competitive advantage. How many teams can find a player that will contribute as much on and off the field as Donovan does for a cap hit equal to that of a second Designated Player?

One further point to ponder: when AEG head honcho Tim Leiweke chatted with The Observer about possible changes to the DP rule in November, he suggested that a possible rule alteration would increase the number of available DP slots to three per team. In the context of the Donovan deal, it would make ample sense to hand each club two native DP slots and permit them to go out and acquire a third. In such a hypothetical situation, Beckham and Donovan would take up the Galaxy's two DP slots, while the Galaxy could sweet talk some team into conceding an extra slot to collect its third. Sounds like a win-win for everyone, even if it wouldn't do as much as it should to restore the competitive balance thrown askew when L.A. didn't have to pay the piper to acquire a DP slot for Donovan in the first place.

BONUS. Does this shatter the DP ceiling for MLS-reared American players? Donovan's contract upgrade opens MLS up to another question it may not want to answer: why can't other American players who developed in MLS earn DP dollars?

McCarthy's Musings: Survival And Growth Dominate Decade In MLS

Dec 30, 2009
By Kyle McCarthy

Seven years ago, MLS teetered on the precipice of failure.

Losses accumulated with each passing day as teams struggled with bad venue contracts and poor auxiliary revenue sources. Red ink flowed profusely and black ink represented a distant dream. A federal court in Boston held the structural existence of the league in its hands. Flailing teams in Miami and Tampa folded, the victims of shoddy ownership and no ownership at all, respectively.

At that point, the future looked murky at best. The worst, well, it's not even worth contemplating even in hindsight.

Contraction marked the bottom for MLS in this (and probably any other) decade when it struck on Jan. 8, 2002. The galling action dealt MLS a crippling blow, but it also permitted league executives to plan for a brighter future. Slowly, but surely, MLS crawled out of its nadir.

Three particularly committed investors – Philip Anschutz, Lamar Hunt and Robert Kraft – carried MLS when others ducked out or shunned the league. Instead of folding up shop and writing off the massive losses, Anschutz, Hunt and Kraft carried the league and transformed it into a viable investment opportunity for others.

Contraction certainly helped, removing two of the league's weakest markets and curbing some losses in the process. So too did the First Circuit's decision in Fraser v. Major League Soccer, which allowed MLS to keep its single-entity structure in tact, limited player personnel costs and ensured the inaugural Collective Bargaining Agreement talks would produce a management-friendly pact.

Most of all, the future brightened because the infrastructure improved. Oversized NFL stadiums were gradually replaced in many markets by intimate, soccer-specific facilities. These stadiums eliminated the tenant sinkhole and broadened revenue streams for many teams. Profit, for the first time in league history, looked like more than just a distant objective on a piece of paper.

Hope inspired investment on multiple fronts. The improved financial landscape attracted a diverse group of investors willing to share the burden and ameliorate the losses. Sponsors were more willing to sign larger deals. ESPN and Fox Soccer Channel stumped up rights fees. Profits were still hard to find, but a couple of teams started to function in the black rather than the red.

Financial progress allowed MLS to push the boundaries of financial conservatism. Key players were handed deals above the salary cap in order to keep them in the fold. Expansion strengthened the league with integral markets in Seattle and Toronto now involved while relocation brought Houston into the fold. With the player pool stretched, MLS petitioned for more foreign player spots and devised a rule that could bring the brightest stars in world football to the United States. David Beckham's arrival in 2007 signaled MLS' intent to make a splash and turn away from the cost control measures.

As the next decade begins, MLS remains a unique entity on the world landscape. The quality of play continues to improve, though considerable strides need to be made on the field and in the wage packets before MLS joins the upper echelons of club football. A liberalized form of the single-entity structure – certain functions have devolved to individual clubs, while others remain under the auspices of the central office – ensures reasonable cost control even in the face of a CBA certain to increase those costs in some manner. Even with the single-entity structures in place, fissures have started to appear between large market and small market clubs as MLS plots its new trajectory.

Failure, however, simply isn't an option anymore. After an often tumultuous ten-year period in which the pendulum swung between the dual objectives of survival and growth, that's one point worth lauding as the next decade begins.

McCarthy's Musings: Central Scouting Service Would Ease Burden On MLS Clubs
Evaluating college talent is hard work for coaches and technical directors. A central scouting service similar to the one maintained by the NHL would ease the burden and improve the process, writes Kyle McCarthy.

Jan 6, 2010

Scouting college players isn't as simple as it should be for MLS clubs.

Timing plays a factor in making things considerably more complicated. The college season dovetails with the vital fixtures of the MLS regular season, forcing most of the scouting responsibilities onto assistant coaches and limiting the amount of time any member of the technical staff can spend planning for the future without detracting from the week's preparations. When coaches squeeze the required scouting excursions into the schedule, minuscule budgets and the aforementioned time constraints generally restrict the missions to local and regional ventures to watch regular season games, selected post-season conference tournaments and carefully chosen NCAA tournament games. In addition to in-person scouting, coaches wade through endless reels of game tape culled from college matches across the country.

The current system places significant and disproportionate emphasis on important events – the ACC tournament, the Final Four and the MLS Player Combine – and favors some clubs over others simply by virtue of their geographic location and by their willingness to expend extra dollars on a technical director or a scouting position. While some clubs have worked the grapevine of college coaches in order to procure recommendations and mined talent regardless of the restrictions, the current ad hoc method can only prove so effective across the board. Most players are caught by the system, but some inevitably slip through the cracks.

Scouting talent doesn't have to be this difficult or this haphazard. MLS can improve the process substantially by borrowing from the NHL and instituting a central scouting service to help evaluate talent for the SuperDraft.

The concept is just as simple as it sounds. The NHL started its central scouting service in 1975 to serve its member clubs. Twenty-nine scouts – including eight full-time staffers and fifteen part-timers just to cover the U.S. and Canada – blanket North America and Europe and search for NHL prospects wherever they can be found. The service grades prospects on publicly-available criteria and issues two player ranking lists during the season. In addition to its player evaluation services, the central scouting service also offers weekly injury updates, supplies teams with game tapes and invites 100 top prospects to Toronto for medical and fitness testing.

A scaled-down version of the NHL's central scouting service would enhance the evaluation process considerably by improving the flow of information and rounding out the scouting procedures undertaken by the clubs. Often ignored areas – high-level youth club tournaments, non-DI colleges and smaller DI conferences – could receive more thorough inspection in the hopes of finding a player or two who might slip through the cracks. At the very least, the service could facilitate more opportunities to obtain knowledge about out-of-region major college players, provide different perspectives on the notable prospects already on the radar and build a bridge to younger talent until clubs can start to reap more consistent rewards from the academy initiatives adopted over the past few years.

As an additional bonus for a league trying to generate buzz around its draft process, a central service would provide ample debate fodder. By judging and ranking talent and posting its lists to its Web site, the NHL central scouting service starts the discussion on the annual entry draft. Once the rankings are released, the general media disseminates them to a wider audience. A few independent sources do similar work in MLS – Buzz Carrick's 3rdDegree.net and Joe Mauceri's Pro Player Pipeline are the most thorough – but the current cottage industry could earn a wider audience with a MLS-branded initiative.

Despite the apparent positives for a thorough, centralized scouting service, there are certain drawbacks that might preclude its creation. Chief among them is the significant cost involved to adequately staff and supply a service primarily used as a secondary source. Spending the required amount of money on a central scouting service would almost certainly require financial cuts in other player-related areas, an exchange that MLS may not deem cost-effective. There is also the significant question of whether any expenditure is merited considering the small rosters and the correspondingly brief four-round SuperDraft. The bulk of the scouting money would go toward improving the accuracy of third- and fourth-round draft picks, an area in which teams have experienced relative success over the years.

While those factors certainly build a substantial case against the concept, the institution of a central scouting service would provide benefits that exceed the significant financial considerations involved. A league-sponsored initiative would reduce the disparities between clubs and increase the flow of information in an area in which good intelligence is hard to accumulate. A central scouting service wouldn't supply all of the answers, but it would hand each club a valuable tool to aid in player evaluation.

Most of all, it might make life just a little bit simpler for coaches and personnel men around the league. After all, isn't wading through an arcane player acquisition system, developing the players already in the side and trying to win enough games to stay employed a hard enough task without trying to scout every potential professional player across the country on a meager budget?

MLS SuperDraft: Constructing the Draft Board
As MLS teams hunker down and tweak their draft boards ahead of tomorrow's SuperDraft, Kyle McCarthy reveals his own version to help preview the proceedings.

Jan 13, 2010
By Kyle McCarthy

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Forming a list of players to draft seems like a relatively straightforward task.

In the abstract, the steps aren't difficult to discern. Watch as many live matches as possible and supplement those matches with a bunch of games on tape. Obtain additional information from trusted confidants with pertinent knowledge. Assess the final evidence provided by the MLS Player Combine. Compile a list of the best players, cross them off one-by-one until your turn comes up and select the best player available. Rinse, lather and repeat year after year.

Reality, as one might expect, is considerably more complicated. The list of factors that actually impacts the player evaluation process – personal preferences in terms of playing style, projected tactics, personality types and team needs to name just four – is too expansive to boil down to one sentence. The permutations increase substantially when external factors – trades and unforeseen departures from the expected selections, for example – are weighed. An apparently simple process turns hopelessly complicated in short order.

Fortunately the purposes of this draft board, those complicated factors aren't in play. This list meshes the personal observations divined from the Combine with other data accumulated along the way to serve as a rough guide to how the SuperDraft could unfold.

* – Denotes foreign player who would require an international slot

The Chosen Three
1. Danny Mwanga, Oregon State forward (Generation adidas)*
2. Ike Opara, Wake Forest defender (Generation adidas)
3. Tony Tchani, Virginia midfielder (Generation adidas)

This trio has separated itself from the remainder of the class. All three players are prime prospects, so the difference on this board primarily comes down to the difficulty of finding a similarly effective player at that position on the field. New York or San Jose would be hard pressed to opt out of selecting either Opara or Tchani, even if the whispers about Opara returning to school to finish out his degree are true.

The Big Talents With One Glaring Flaw
4. Corben Bone, Wake Forest midfielder (Generation adidas)
5. Teal Bunbury, Akron forward (Generation adidas)

Bone faces questions about his size and its impact on where he'll fit on the field, while Bunbury can't shake concerns about his finishing prowess. The Wake schemer earns the slight edge here because his passing ability is rarer than Bunbury's speed.

Footballers
6. Zach Loyd, North Carolina midfielder
7. Toni Stahl, UConn midfielder*
8. Blair Gavin, Akron midfielder (Generation adidas)

Others might have more flash or more potential, but these three guys know what to do when you put them on the field. Loyd holds the edge because he can play in a number of spots, a distinct advantage in his favor when clubs are heading into battle with rosters the size of a postage stamp.

All About Upside
9. Amobi Okugo, UCLA midfielder (Generation adidas)
10. Dilly Duka, Rutgers midfielder

Picking either of these players is like prospecting for gold. The chances are hit or miss and there isn't likely to be much middle ground in between. Okugo's age (18 ) and athleticism (off the charts) could tempt some club to grab him higher, but his nascent positional sense places him behind players with lower ceilings on this board.

Two Examples Why MLS Coaches and Executives Scout Players Before the Combine
11. Andre Akpan, Harvard forward
12. Andrew Wiedeman, California forward (Generation adidas)

Both players are proceeding through the process of forgetting all about their underwhelming Combine performances and hoping most clubs will follow suit. The lackluster trip to Florida may plunge them further down the draft board than they might have anticipated, but the body of work on the whole – plus Wiedeman's status as a roster-exempt player – means they shouldn't slide too far.

(Fun fact: If Akpan is in fact selected in the first round of the SuperDraft, he would become the first Ivy League player to see his name come off the board in the opening set of picks.)

Just in Case a Defender is Required
13. Kwame Watson-Siriboe, UConn defender

Prototypical size, decent feet, nice coverage ability. What more do you want from a bottom of the first round central defender?

When All Things Are Equal, Choose a Wake Kid
14. Zack Schilawski, Wake Forest forward
15. Austin da Luz, Wake Forest midfielder

Demon Deacons coach Jay Vidovich churns out useful professionals year after year. Schilawski and da Luz fit the mold perfectly: smart players who can fill a role and contribute to the squad.

The Combine Surprise
16. Justin Morrow, Notre Dame defender

MLS coaches and executives love to throw curveballs in the back half of the first round. Usually, it's an unheralded player who played out of his skin at the Combine or a hidden gem that piqued the interest of a club when no one else was looking. Morrow is the best candidate from this year's Combine for three reasons: (1) he plays left back, a general position of need, (2) he can run all day and (3) he has upside because he only played defense for one year in college.

The Type of Player Teams Love to See in the Second Round
17. Collen Warner, Portland midfielder

He can step in and compete for a spot right away. Warner may not drop into the starting XI, but he makes practices better because he's a reserve option who can pass the ball, run at defenders and occasionally provide the telling cross.

Salcedo Tutelage Mandatory, Defensive Commitment and Size Optional
18. Michael Stephens, UCLA midfielder
19. David Estrada, UCLA midfielder
20. Kyle Nakazawa, UCLA midfielder

Stephens is the best player out of the three and could easily rate a few spots higher on a team's draft board if a club is looking for a different wide option or a reserve central midfielder with good vision. All three players are tidy enough with the ball at their feet, but can they shoulder the defensive responsibilities required as an outside midfielder?

What Ever Happened to the Reserve League, Anyways?
21. Jack McInerney, U.S. U-17 forward (Generation adidas)

The tools are there, if the Combine is a reliable indicator. However, it's going to take a significant amount of time for him to develop into an impact player in the attacking third at the MLS level.

Even When It's Chilly, South Florida is Worth the Trip
22. Drew Yates, Maryland midfielder
23. Mike Seamon, Villanova midfielder

Not a lot of buzz about either player heading into the Combine, but that changed as the weekend progressed. Both players possess decent size and showed particularly well on the weekend, though one has to wonder if the dreaded tweener tag might doom them to the second half of the draft. Harvard defender Kwaku Nyamekye might also fit here, but his Swiss citizenship means he'd take up a foreign slot that would probably be better used elsewhere.

Remember the Good Old Days?
24. Ofori Sarkodie, Indiana fullback

Didn't have the best of Combines, but two things work in his favor: (1) he plays left back and (2) someone might take a flier based on his days as a U-17 international.

The Token Goalkeeper
25. Brian Perk, UCLA goalkeeper (Generation adidas)

Need a goalkeeper? Look elsewhere. Perk's a decent choice even though he appears to have reached his ceiling, but, as a general rule, this crop of keepers won't provide many options or much comfort for clubs in search of a backup stopper.

The Friday Five Reviews The MLS SuperDraft
In a SuperDraft filled with trades and surprises, Philadelphia emerged as the biggest winner on and off the board. Kyle McCarthy explains why the Union enjoyed so much success and reviews all of the action in the Friday Five.

Jan 15, 2010
By Kyle McCarthy

PHILADELPHIA – Forget about the other fifteen teams. The 2010 MLS SuperDraft was all about Philadelphia and the hosts didn't disappoint.

If the Union's first forays onto the field are as successful as its first venture into the SuperDraft, then the Sons of Ben will have plenty to cheer about during the inaugural season. The local fans added atmosphere to an event that has occasionally lacked it in the past, though a tip of the hat has to go to the traveling fans from New York and Washington who made the short trek to support their teams. The local club invigorated the proceedings by accumulating three first-round picks after striking two deals within a 24-hour stretch. To cap it all off, the Union selected one of the most comprehensive draft classes in recent memory by using its draft-high six picks to compile an assortment of ready-made contributors and future projects.

The perfect storm of circumstances resulted in one massive win for MLS' newest franchise. The Friday Five reviews a few of the key victories and defeats that emerged during the SuperDraft, starting with the Union's bold moves to stockpile all of those first-round picks.

1. No established team could have or would have pulled off the moves Philadelphia made. As an expansion team, the Union benefits from two things most teams don't possess: flexibility and available resources. The most important resource for the two deals – a straight cash swap with FC Dallas for the sixth pick and a pact to assume Fred and his hefty salary in exchange for D.C. United's seventh selection – is the treasure trove of allocation money Philly inherited when it entered the league. Union manager Peter Nowak and assistant John Hackworth used their allocation dollars wisely to acquire two young and raw players – Amobi Okugo and Jack McInerney – who will likely make an impact a year or three down the line. Most teams can't afford to wait on an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old and they certainly can't afford to expend significant resources on two relative gambles. The Union can and benefited significantly from its ability to do so.

2. Ike Opara really is serious about heading back to Wake Forest and postponing the start of his rookie year. Opara, a communications major, had a clause inserted into his Generation adidas contract that allows him to attend school at Wake Forest this semester and postpone the beginning of his MLS career. Opara said yesterday that he has already enrolled in classes at Wake and said the plan now is to join San Jose in late April or early May.

“I'd be really close to (my degree),” said Opara, who left Wake after his junior season. “My parents are very highly educated individuals. My dad's in biochemical research and my mom is in the public school system. They really stress school. I wanted to do this because I really wanted to go pro. They worked out an option so I could do my spring semester. It's a pleasure. I feel really honored to do something like this.”

3. Corben Bone's stock fell because teams simply weren't sure where to play him. No player fell more surprisingly than Bone, the Wake Forest playmaker who almost everyone had as one of the top five players in the draft. Once FC Dallas passed on the Plano, Tex. native with the fifth pick, Bone's bottom fell out because most teams expected him to be off the board and had other players in mind. Bone slid all the way to a particularly grateful Chicago at 13. After talking to several people about why Bone dropped so precipitously, the general consensus coalesced around the fact that his projected position, not his ample talent, was the problem. In order to have Bone on the field, teams would have to create a tactical plan that would allow him some freedom from defensive responsibilities and plenty of time on the ball. Most teams aren't willing to do that and more than a few didn't see a spot for Bone as a true central midfielder, striker or winger. Ironically, the slide may have helped Bone in the end because he now joins a Fire side with plenty of experience in dealing with an offensive talent that needs plenty of room to roam in Cuauhtemoc Blanco.

4. Clint Mathis' road back to Los Angeles started with a simple request. Mathis wanted to move his family closer to his wife's family in the Los Angeles area. Real Salt Lake general manager Garth Lagerwey said the Claret-and-Cobalt wanted to accommodate Mathis' request if it could. RSL eventually struck a pick swap with Los Angeles at the bottom of the first round once it became clear that Portland midfielder Collen Warner would be available with the 15th pick and included Mathis in the deal.

“One of the things we have espoused to the level of getting cheesy is that we want to be a player-friendly organization,” Lagerwey said. “Clint had asked if we could send him back to L.A. He won a championship for us and we felt he'd held up his end of the bargain.”

5. MLS Commissioner Don Garber isn't nearly as doom and gloom about the CBA negotiations as one might think. The key point to the negotiations, Garber stressed when he addressed the media during a break in the action, is that there is still time remaining to strike a deal. The fact that the two sides are still talking – even if those discussions aren't yielding any results – represents a good sign, according to Garber.

“You know how these things are,” Garber said. “We're making progress. It's good that we're spending a lot of time (together). We met almost all day yesterday. That's progress. Better than we were (at) a couple of weeks ago.”

Questions & Answers
(In the spirit of interactivity, I've picked out a few choice questions each day during draft week and answered them in this space. Get in the game by following along on Twitter – @kylejmccarthy – or dropping me a line via e-mail.)

Why no love for GKs?
@zacrigg, via Twitter

Even the Goal.com editors were confused about why goalkeepers were persona non grata at the SuperDraft this year. Only two goalkeepers – Generation adidas stopper Sean Johnson (Central Florida) and senior signee Brian Perk (UCLA) – were selected and Perk was the first to come off the board after Los Angeles snatched him with the 49th pick. After watching the shotstoppers at the Combine, I wasn't particularly shocked by their scarcity in the draft. How bad were the goalkeepers? Just ask New York sporting director Erik Soler.

“Personally, I didn't think any of the goalkeepers would have helped us, so we didn't really look at that position,” Soler said. “That might be unfair to the goalies, but we didn't look much for a goalie.”

What draftee do you see most likely to be a USMNT regular down the road?
@Sean_Heffernan, via Twitter

Opara narrowly edges this one over Tony Tchani, assuming the newly minted Red Bull can get his American citizenship in order. Opara's style of play combines his physical tools and his mental acuity and that's a combination that few American defenders, past or present, can match. If Opara adapts well to the professional game, he's the type of player with a significant future at the international level.

Any news on KC trading Conrad?
@TheBackpost, via Twitter

Of all of the rumors floating around the Pennsylvania Convention Center, this one was certainly the most ridiculous. Peter Vermes would have to come out of retirement and play central defense for the Wizards if he shipped Conrad out of town. Vermes, incidentally, strongly denied the rumors to Soccer by Ives late on Thursday afternoon.

What's the deal with Revolution midfielder Jeff Larentowicz and Colorado?
Many, many New England fans, via Twitter

Larentowicz is out of contract and the two sides are at an impasse on a new deal. The contract stalemate means one of two things: Larentowicz has to go on trial and find a deal in Europe or he has to locate some MLS team that is willing to trade for his rights and meet his salary demands. Since Larentowicz has been continually bothered by a knee problem for the past several months and recently pulled out of U.S. national team camp, the European option looks somewhat suspect right now. Several MLS teams have expressed interest in acquiring Larentowicz's rights and Colorado is among them. Talks are ongoing between the two teams, but no deal has been struck and no deal was imminent as of Thursday night. In other words, there are still a few moving parts to this story, so stay tuned.

The Friday Five Wraps Up A Busy Week
The transaction wire hummed with activity this week and Kyle McCarthy recaps the all of the moves in the Friday Five.

Jan 22, 2010
By Kyle McCarthy

Open up the flood gates. Players are on the move.

With training camps scheduled to open over the next two weeks and the MLS Players Union announcing yesterday that players would report to them while the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations continue, MLS clubs completed a series of post-SuperDraft transactions to continue to assemble their rosters for the upcoming 2010 campaign.

The moves are too numerous to encapulsate in a brief space, but the Friday Five picked out a few of the noteworthy roster changes for further inspection:

1. Houston has some serious reconstruction work to do in the center of the park. With Ricardo Clark now on a short-term deal at Eintracht Frankfurt with an eye towards a long-term contract in the summer, the Dynamo has already officially lost its box-to-box midfielder. Replacing its creative presence in central midfield may be the next move after Houston COO Chris Canetti told the Houston Chronicle that he expects Stuart Holden will join Bolton. Dynamo coach Dominic Kinnear can shift the versatile Geoff Cameron into midfield to help address the void, but Cameron can't play both spots. A pair of Canadians – the recently-linked Patrice Bernier and the recently-acquired Kevin Harmse – might help to provide some depth, but Houston will likely have to make a more significant move to add some attacking thrust in midfield.

2. New England and Colorado pulled off a mutually beneficial blockbuster. There will be much more to say on this deal in the Monday MLS Breakdown, but it's fair to note for the moment that this is a swap that suits both sides. Colorado gets the best player (Jeff Larentowicz) and a much-needed winger (Wells Thompson), while New England fills two significant holes at left back (Cory Gibbs) and goalkeeper (Preston Burpo) and obtains a few extra spoils for its troubles (allocation money and a third-round draft pick in 2011). The key to the trade: Larentowicz inked a fresh contract with MLS, ensuring that Colorado would have him in uniform for the start of the 2010 season.

3. TFC needed a winger desperately, but does this particular winger make sense? In a related move, Colorado shipped Jacob Peterson to Toronto FC in exchange for allocation money. Peterson, 23, showed potential in flashes during his four years in Colorado, but often performs more like a runner than a footballer. Peterson's cap charge ($100,000 base last season, though the amount is always subject to change in MLS), international designation (an American on a club that needs to make a move to accommodate his nationality) and injury status (sidelined while recovering from a right ACL tear sustained in September) make this move a curious one even with the Reds' acute need for wide players.

4. Chivas USA will miss Paulo Nagamura far more than most people expect. The 26-year-old Brazilian midfielder may have featured frequently during a two-year stint with Los Angeles, but he found his home with the Red-and-White over the past three seasons after a brief stint in Toronto. During an impressive 2009 campaign, Nagamura burnished his credentials as a two-way player in central midfield. Those box-to-box performances - complete with his usual combativeness - caught the eye of scouts south of the border. Nagamura signed a six-month deal with Tigres this week, leaving a significant gap for Chivas USA to fill in its engine room. Others may have received more of the credit, but Nagamura made Chivas USA tick.

5. Blair Gavin may have to play sooner rather than later. With short-timer Harmse headed to Houston, Chivas USA can count on the experienced Jesse Marsch, the rangy and raw Michael Lahoud and the versatile Marcelo Saragosa to possibly form the central midfield duo if Sacha Kljestan remains out wide. One new option may have to play a significant role if Marsch struggles with his aging legs or injury problems or Lahoud and Saragosa fall out of form: recent draft pick Blair Gavin. The fit – a smooth, ball-winning defensive midfielder on a team that plays a possession-oriented style – made as much sense from the outside as it did to Chivas USA coach Martin Vasquez.

“I see him as a number six because he can do the job of a number six, but he can also be a creative player,” Vasquez said moments after the Red-and-White selected Gavin with the tenth overall pick in last week's SuperDraft. “When he was available, he was our man.”