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MLS Notes: United adds Saragosa, RBNY signs Meara, and more

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photo by David Bernal/ISIphotos.com

By FRANCO PANIZO

D.C. United added more depth to its midfield on Monday, signing a player who is no stranger to MLS.

United announced the acquisition of midfielder Marcelo Saragosa, the 30-year-old Brazilian who previously had stints with FC Dallas and Chivas USA. Saragosa last played in MLS in 2010, when he registered one assist in 14 matches with Chivas USA.

Having spent the past two seasons in Azerbaijan's first division with clubs FC Absheron and Ravan Baku, Saragosa is expected to compete with Perry Kitchen, among others, for minutes at defensive midfielder.

Here are more stories from around MLS:

NEW YORK SIGNS MEARA

Less than a month after drafting him in the 2012 MLS SuperDraft, the New York Red Bulls agreed to a deal with goalkeeper Ryan Meara. The former Fordham University player joins Jeremy Vuolo as the only two goalkeepers currently listed on New York's roster. Meara was taken 31st overall in the draft in January.

FC DALLAS-RED BULLS FRIENDLY RESCHEDULED

FC Dallas and the New Yok Red Bulls were set to face off in a preseason match in Mexico on Monday, but that match has been postponed. The game scheduled for Monday afternoon was canceled and pushed back due to poor field conditions caused by rain. The match has now been postponed to Tuesday at 4pm ET.

PORTLAND MAKES PAIR OF TRADES

The Portland Timbers were busy wheeling and dealing on Monday, as they made trades with D.C. United and the Montreal Impact. Portland acquired an international roster slot from D.C. United for the 2012 and 2013 seasons in exchange for allocation money. The Timbers then received a natural fourth-round draft pick in the 2015 MLS Supplemental Draft from the Impact by trading an international roster slot to the expansion team for the 2012 season.

Comments

  1. Or you look at the other side: it rewards teams that develop domestic talent by giving them an asset to trade away, as well as those teams that keep foreign players long enough to get green cards. An international slot is a quick fix, if you develop players for the long term, the slots are a bonus.

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  2. dcu needs a little of that bite/scrappy-ness. he’s great on the ball too which our team, particularly our midfield will benefit. he will also provide competition for Kitchen. dcu’s squad is shaping up nicely imo.

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  3. Saragosa is terrible–a card magnet, poor decision making, and now even slower than before at age 30.

    DC risks playing with 10 men whenever he’s on the field.

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  4. Not according to the FO. Rules must have changed for 2012. I’m well aware what the 2011 rules say, but the broadcaster for the team, tweeted that after talking to them, he does not count against the salary cap.

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  5. Yeah. Jake Gleeson is the starting NZ national team keeper and is probably one of the best #2 keepers in the league, and he is like 21 and makes the league minimum. Dike is a guy they want to look at more, had an injury plagued year last year. Sal Zizzo is a good, cheap young player, and James Marcelin would also probably be someone Montreal would have looked at taking. While there isn’t a ton of star power, they are the youth of the team and its hard to replace cheap young guys with alot of upside. I bet RSL would have liked not to have lost Warner. Same kind of situation.

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  6. Doesn’t count against salary cap, DP slot, or international slot, or roster spot. By renegotiating deal to a loan deal, Timbers basically get to keep him on IR all year and not have him count against anything.

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  7. Your not. MP said already, again, that this is a deal is for the expansion draft deal. But picking up another 2 year slot is probably to cover for the fact the last 2 year slot they got last year is now finishing up in Montreal (they got it from LAG last year iirc)

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  8. Basically, if I’m thinking this through correctly, the Timbers don’t need the spot this year because Trencito won’t play, but they do want it for next year. So, they dealt the allocation money to DC to get the spot for 2 years, then tried to get something out of Montreal for a year that the Timbers wouldn’t use the slot.

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  9. You’re missing something. The Timbers got an international slot from DC, for 2 years — then they traded that extra slot for this year to Montreal. Dude is saying the Timbers didn’t get much from the Impact, for that slot.

    It’s fair to say that you can expect a better player with that slot in any given year than you would with a 4th rd pick, but on the other hand, that pick might stick around while that slot is good for just the one year.

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  10. Timbers got shafted in that deal.

    As a neutral, it didn’t seem Portland had any indispensible players outside of the 11 they protected.

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but would any of those left exposed by the Timbers have been taken over the squad Montreal selected?

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  11. So Portland pretty much just bought an international roster spot for the 2013 season and a 4th round pick in the supplemental draft in the 2015.

    Hope it was not much $.

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  12. Merritt already explained it was part of the deal with Montreal to avoid having them take one of our players in the expansion draft

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  13. It could very well have been a trivially small amount of allocation – far less than a player would be worth, but enough for DC to extend a contract or give a slight raise to a guy who might be on the fence. If the Timbers weren’t going to use that money anyways, they just gained something that might be worth value in exchange for something of little to no value – and that’s good business.

    We’ll never know though, as league business is never disclosed directly.

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  14. Limiting international slots by a league is not unusual, many leagues in the world do this. Whether they allow the trading of the slots I do not know, but I would expect that they would.

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  15. Not really-international roster slot limits exist in part to help the USMNT/CMNT-as long as the limit is fixed, the ‘growth of the domestic game’ isn’t affected very much by which team a player is developed on, at least in theory. The other thing is that international roster slot limits are meant as a parity mechanism, but assuming that what one gives up in a trade is fair value for the roster spot, the opportunity cost keeps the parity mechanism in place.

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  16. Strange trade for the Timbers giving up an International spot this year for a 4th round Supplemental Draft pick in 2015?
    Aren’t the International slots WAY more important than a 4th round supplemental pick 2 years out?

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  17. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems ridiculous that teams can trade “international roster slots”

    Aren’t these types of rules mandated by the league? Being able to trade them is a loop hole…really weird.

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