Immediately following the Montreal Impact's expansion draft, MLS conducted its waiver draft, and only one selection was made.
The Philadelphia Union used their spot in the order to nab former Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder Nizar Khalfan. An energetic, athletic winger, the Tanzanian international scored a goal and assisted on four others this past season with Vancouver.
Khalfan had been waived earlier in the day. The other players waived on Wednesday (including New York's John Rooney) that are now free to sign anywhere after not being selected were:
COLUMBUS
Santiago Prim, Dejan Rusmir
DALLAS
Edson Edward
HOUSTON
Francisco Navas Cobo, Evan Newton
NEW YORK
Alex Horwath, Mychel Jones, Tyler Lassiter, Marcos Paullo, John Rooney, Theodore Schneider
NEW ENGLAND
Alan Koger, Otto Loewy, Andrew Sousa
PHILADELPHIA
Juan Diego Gonzalez, Thorne Holder
SALT LAKE
Tim Melia
SPORTING KANSAS CITY
Jeferson (a Designated Player who was on loan from Vasco de Gama through the 2011 season), Scott Lorenz, Craig Rocastle, Milos Stojcev
TORONTO
Kyle Davies, Matthew Gold, Leandre Griffit, Javier Martina, Demitirius Omphroy, Eddy Viator, Eddy Zavarise
VANCOUVER
Bilal Duckett, Alexandre Morfaw
The Philadelphia Union used their spot in the order to nab former Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder Nizar Khalfan.
the Tanzanian international scored a goal and assisted on four others this past season with Vancouver.
Not that Duckett is awful, but Mitchell and Boxall have way more upside
Martina would look good in Sporting blue
As a Caps fan I can say without hesitation that Duckett is completely useless. He may be able to jump high and run quickly, but he is absolutely worthless as a soccer player.
An energetic, athletic winger, the Tanzanian international scored a goal and assisted on four others this past season with Vancouver.
Is he the first homegrown player to get cut?
Mapp sucks. Glad there will be more time for Michael Farfan, Keon Daniel, Roger Torres, and Freddy.
Somebody should look at picking up Stojcev, Martina, Rocastle, and Prim. They can all provide depth for a squad.
Tyler Lassiter and Bilal Duckett would be nice, cheap additions to any team. Both did well at the combine and were both borderline 1st round picks last year. Wouldn’t mind seeing one of them get a chance at DCU(particularly Lassiter).
Nizar Khalfan = Wiz Khalifa?
Very good addition for the Union. Bad loss for the Whitecaps. In virtually every game that he played he made a positive impact. Was an excellent substitute who changed games for the better for the Caps. Failure to use him more effectively and this release (amongst other things) have left me with no confidence in Soehn.
He was released to free up an international spot. Can play anywhere in the midfield and as striker. Not afraid to shoot but needs to be more accurate. Nizar is a good guy and its sad to see him go. Great spark off the bench.
Cobo had a screamer of a goal against Dallas in preseason and hit a few nice crosses also. I always felt that Dixon (goal that beat RSL) and he got a raw deal under Kinnear’s pro-veteran approach. He can justify what he did because we made the final but when it came down to it I thought we had better than Ashe and Cruz around to play wing.
nevermind, just saw that Montreal nabbed Mapp. CRAP.
hmmm. Nowak says he wants to get help on defense and another striker, but picks up this guy? sounds like he’s collecting trade fodder….
Well… did you see a press release from NYRB stating they just got Rooney as a favor to mls? No? Of course not, it would have stayed under wraps if not for the media spilling the beans… which I don’t fault as that is their job, but still..
Interesting to see that Navas Cobo, a homegrown player, was dropped. Although it would be hard to analyze quantitatively, I would be curious to see how many homegrown players vs college-groomed players become successful professionals
i agree
I think DC should pick him up, maybe he’ll light up the scoring charts and become New York’s second worst nightmare.
Well I never really saw him play, because they never played him in a real match except for maybe a couple minutes. I’m just saying you don’t tell people the only reason they got picked up was because of their big brother.
And he wasn’t even a bad player imo, i think that kinda stuff if true should just stay behind closed doors, thats really messed up to say. I hope he makes it big so he can slap soler with a stack of hundreds.
So was the plan to impress Wayne by making NY pick up his brother. If I’m Wayne i’m insulted and would never play in the league. Nothing worse in my opinion than making someone believe they have it when they don’t.
I think someone’s bound to take Francisco Navas Cobo into pre season camp for a trial.
a favor to mls……..and what does new york get for that? I dont think john was that bad of a player though…..the more shocking is seeing tyler lassiter go who was supposed to be further along than ream, interesting. marcos paullo shockingly made almost 90 g a year so i saw that coming. Interesting to see what soler and hans due with their get out of jail free card.
Is there any indication why Khalfan was waived? Happy to have a player of his skill set and resume in Philly: 23 yrs old, 60K salary, 1g and 4a this season in 1066 minutes, and years of professional experience. Only objectively identifiable downside is the international slot. ?