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MLS sets December date for upcoming expansion draft

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By CARL SETTERLUND

Christmas will come early for Orlando City and New York City FC fans.

MLS has reportedly chosen a date for the upcoming expansion draft that will furnish the rosters of the league’s 20th and 21st franchises.

The draft will take place at 2 p.m. on Dec. 10. The existing teams must turn in their lists of 11 protected players by the same time on Dec. 8, giving two days to assess the options.

The coin flip to decide which team selects first will take place on Sept. 24.

Each team can only lose a maximum of two players to NYCFC and the Lions. Once a player is picked the team he was picked from may add an additional player to its protected list. The expansion draft is only 10 rounds, so not every team will lose two players.

In past, MLS expansion drafts Generation Adidas and Homegrown Players were automatically exempt and do not count against the 11 protected players.

Orlando City announced on Tuesday that they will be keeping at least seven players from their squad this past season (including Kaká, who is on loan at São Paulo), while NYCFC has six players under contract, including Designated Players David Villa and Frank Lampard.

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What are you thoughts on the upcoming expansion draft? What do you think of the time frame? What should each team be focusing on?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

    • We have plenty of Eurosnobs who seemingly want to vomit when they see/hear “MLS”, but you are coming at it from an unusual angle 🙂

      Reply
    • Poor guy spends his weekends in Hempstead, watching minor league soccer with a couple of thousand other folks (if that). I kind of feel bad for him. Maybe that explains his inability to behave in a normal manner.

      Reply
      • Yev,

        First love reading your perspective you add a lot.

        You realize that you are having a conversation with someone that spends his life trying to bring down a big part of US soccer, by means of a soccer blog.

        Think about that for two minutes…it won’t take that long…but take the full two minutes.

      • Hey Whinner?!
        Sup with you?
        Do you Know me? I’m trying to bring down US Soccer???Lol?!?!
        I’m just trying to make a “BETTER SOCCER IN USA”
        Jesus, why do you think that you are so right about US Soccer???
        MLS is just trying to sell you Soccer!!!
        and you are the Whinner who always BUY IT!

  1. If the rumors about a Chivas “year off” and player dispersement are true, just let the 2 teams pick from Chivas’ players and that’s it. Orlando is coming in with a fairly decent side for their division and some of them should be sufficient bench fodder to pad the end of a roster. Especially with 4 draft picks, and some dude named Kaka.

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  2. Yep, way to build depth on rosters.

    Eleven players is way too few. It means every team will have to expose something like 14 players, including some fairly regular starters.

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    • Yup, and that’s just the way it goes. There are plenty of post-draft deals that can be done to get a player back, or for the receiving team to trade a draftee to a different team…

      I’m still sore we (FCD) lost Dax in the expansion draft years ago.

      Reply
      • How about the year Columbus won the Cup, Sigi Schmidt set the players to be protected leaving Brad Evans exposed, switched teams before the draft and then grabbed Evans. I never forgave Sigi for that chicanery.

    • Usually the deal is you protect x amount to start, you can lose max 3, and you can pull people back when others get taken. Often enough, you trade the player back for prospects, picks, allocations, or something else.

      The idea is to make expansion teams halfway competitive where the fans don’t lose interest and momentum the first season. I don’t see how re-shuffling players 12-25 is a threat to the league. For the Dynamo a few years back, I thought Ching to Montreal was going to be a great housecleaning, and then we fought to get him back and got 6 goals in two years, none his last.

      Reply

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