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Dynamo land Cascio from Rapids via first Intraleague loan

Tony Cascio Colorado Rapids (Colorado Rapids)

By FRANCO PANIZO

The Houston Dynamo and Colorado Rapids have made history, agreeing to the first intraleague loan in MLS.

The Dynamo and Rapids announced Tuesday that they have made a deal that will see Houston send Colorado an international roster spot in exchange for a season-long loan for versatile midfielder Tony Cascio. The move frees up salary cap room for the Rapids as well as a space on their roster this season while giving Cascio a chance at earning more minutes after being seldom used in 2013.

The intraleague loan mechanism – which is only available for players under the age of 25 -was introduced last year in an effort to provide playing time at a high level for younger players, but no teams used it until now. Cascio is 23.

“Acquiring this International roster spot is a move that allows us some roster flexibility, since Tony plays in a position where we are relatively deep,” said Rapids technical director Paul Bravo. “It gives Tony more of an opportunity for playing time, and he’ll be able to gain some great experience with the Dynamo. We will also be able to strengthen other areas of our roster for this season.”

Cascio enjoyed a solid rookie campaign in 2012 with the Rapids, scoring three goals and assisting on three others in 29 games (18 starts). He was not used as often last season, however, making just four starts in 13 appearances and scoring one goal for a Colorado team that reached the postseason.

Cascio now joins a Dynamo team that includes attacking talents like Boniek Garcia, Omar Cummings, Brad Davis, and Will Bruin.

“I watched him in college and his first two years with Colorado and I enjoy the way he approaches the game,” said Dynamo head coach Dominic Kinnear. “He is not afraid to take on players and he has good versatility. I think when he has the ball at his feet he is not afraid to try and be productive, whether it be an assist or a goal. With what we have coming up this year, we think he is going to be a great addition to the team.”

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Happy to see the Dynamo acquire Cascio on loan? Wishing they would have just traded for him outright? Like the intraleague loan mechanism?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Or maybe the rapids should get a USL pro partner like the more enlightened teams in the league. Waiting on a future Colorado Springs team is a bad idea. They are too close, have no leadership structure in place, and we need to expand our potential homegrown pool, not split it. Tony really should have been loaned out last season.

    Who is making these decisions(Bravo), and are they(Bravo) considering the message they send to potential coaching candidates. Any future rapids coach has to be OK with zero roster control, play whatever system Oscar put in place, and have all future players come from, Bravo, or Notre Dame or Derby County because Hinchey says so. The Rapids FO also don’t want you if you don’t want to live in Colorado for 10 years and you must not carry aspirations for a career anywhere bigger than Colorado. Maybe Hinchey will finally come back from Christmas break(while his club slips into crisis) and get around to naming Pablo head puppet before the preseason starts. MLS is going 3.0 while the rapids slip back toward 1.5

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  2. Audios Cascio! it’s not that I don’t like him as a player but after a nice rookie campaign it was evident that he did not necessarily fit the style the Rapids were employing.. He had his moments last season — though few and far between — but can be effective elsewhere. I’m glad to see him head off on loan. It will benefit him. At the same time, it’s going to help the Rapids. There is no point harboring someone who will not help you.

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    • Hmmmm.

      The argument against trading is that it uproots a player (and potentially family) to move them across the country. This is particularly onerous for those whose pay is near the bottom of the pay scale.

      But how is a loan really any different? Colorado and Houston are fairly close as far as MLS goes (unlike say Chivas loaning a player to NE), but he is still going to have to live in Houston for the bulk of a year knowing he will be back in Colorado at the end of the loan (I am assuming he has a contract that extends beyond this season). With loans, it is always possible he doesn’t even spend that long in Houston (say they end up not really having any playing time for him and then Colorado needs him back due to injuries). In some ways that seems worse than a “permanent” trade. Potato/potato, tomato/tomato.

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  3. all parties benefited here:
    – good for a promising young player who needs minutes.
    – good for Houston who can use another forward who is very different than their current group this year.
    – good for Colorado who had a surplus of forwards/wingers and needs all the international spots they can get in order to resign internationals like Rivero, Thomas, Eloundou or sign future international players..
    – even better for Colorado – they get him back after this year.

    +1 “Always cool to see MLS functioning like a normal soccer league.”

    Reply
    • Fabio Borini at Sunderland is on loan from Liverpool.

      My fault it was Stoke that had to make Stephen Ireland a full transfer so that they could sign John Guidetti on loan from Manchester city. They also have Oussama Assaidi on loan from Liverpool and they can only have two on loan players from other EPL clubs.

      http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/25720354

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    • Aren’t most loaned around the world to other leagues? I can’t really remember any intra-EPL loans off the top of my head. Seems pretty unique to me.

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      • Lukaku is owned by Chelsea, plays for Everton; played for West Brom last year. Adebayor was owned Man City when he first went to Tottenham. Robbie Keane was loaned to West Ham from Tottenham in 2011. I’m sure there are others. It may be a relatively recent development within world soccer, but isn’t entirely unique now.

      • Andy Carroll was on loan from Liverpool at West Ham last year (then they bought him outright). Yossi Benayoun played for Arsenal two years ago while on loan from Chlesea. Victor Moises is on loan at Liverpool from Chelsea at the moment. Jack Wilshere of Arsenal spent a year on loan with Bolton when they were still in the EPL.

        it is quite common.

      • Lukaku at Everton from Chelsea is probably the biggest one this season. I think it was Sunderland that just had to make a players transfer permanent so they could get another loaned player from another EPL club. In the EPL each teach can only have 2 players on loan from other EPL clubs,

      • The EPL does enough loans with teams at their level or close enough that the FA Cup comes into play, that they make specific provision for loan players not being used against them.

        Lukaku has been repeatedly loaned out to other teams to my CFC chagrin. He gets goals in bushels while CFC talks about forward depth issues, people moan and groan about Torres, or we use a midfielder up top. Meanwhile Lukaku scores double figures. Doesn’t compute.

        But, as I said below, this is such a modest personnel move that has been usually done by trade and even looks like a trade that it’s odd the loan label was slapped on it. Walks like a duck quacks like one, etc.

    • Except it sounds to me like a half-hearted trade. Cascio to the Dynamo for an international spot. Houston takes on salary and he counts against the cap, and the Dynamo give up a valuable international spot. The player is sufficiently inconsequential where the unwillingness to commit implicit in a loan is kind of laughable. Strange.

      I assume the purpose of the loan is to gap-fill when Boniek and maybe Davis go to Brazil, but Cascio barely played last season — raising doubts about whether he is up to spec as an understudy — and I’d rather have Driver or some quality veteran than this. I gather there is a dispute about bringing Driver back but if we’re missing two wings for weeks then maybe this is not the point in time to press it this far.

      As always with Kinnear, we are nibbling around the real issue, which is we need to sign quality veteran forwards and CBs to address positions where quality and depth have slipped and held the team back. I know we have a potential temporary depth issue in midfield but until the NT camps/tournament we will actually be overstocked. I want to know if he’s looking at his actual roster when he brings in the umpteenth midfielder.

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      • This is a legitimate question: Why are the Dynamo in salary cap trouble having just seen Ching (one of our highest-paid players) retire and having sent Bobby Boswell to DC United? Where did all that money go? I figured we’d have plenty of money to go get a good forward to replace Ching, but we can’t even keep Driver?

        I’m sure I just don’t have the insight into the financials that I would need to fully understand it.

      • Ching cost $50K against the cap (give or take) and BB’s $ went to Sarkodie who graduated from GA. Add in the salary increases and that leaves little $ to fill out 2 more spots in our 18 (currently at 16).

        As for why we have no space…as far as the cap is concerned we have 3 DPs in OBG, Davis and Rico (Alex is a youth DP so doesn’t hit as hard) and I believe we’ve a dozen guys making at least $100K.

        While we’ve a very young roster, many of those players are expensive. Looks like Dom is all in with this group 1 more time before making some serious changes for 2015

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