By DAN KARELL
The Columbus Crew have decided to bring back most of the squad that led the club to their first MLS Cup playoff appearance since 2011.
On Tuesday, the Crew announced that they picked up the contract options on 16 players to take their total roster number to 23 players. The players who had their options picked up were: goalkeepers Steve Clark, Matt Lampson and Brad Stuver; defenders Chad Barson, Waylon Francis, Ben Sweat, Tyson Wahl and Josh Williams; midfielders Romain Gall, Kevan George, Hector Jimenez, Ben Speas, Tony Tchani and Designated Player Federico Higuain; and forwards Adam Bedell and Aaron Schoenfeld.
“Moving forward to 2015, we are excited to keep the core group of the team together and we look forward to our new additions to make an even stronger group next season,” Head coach Gregg Berhalter said in a statement. “In terms of the players we let go, those are always tough decisions, but we’d like to thank all the players for their contributions throughout the year and we continue to offer help as they pursue their careers in professional soccer.”
Three players, Eric Gehrig, Justin Meram, and Bernardo Anor, are all out of contract, but the Crew are in negotiations with all three to bring them back for next season.
Here are some more stories from around the league:
MAYOR-ELECT PLEDGES TO PASS STADIUM DEAL BEFORE END OF YEAR
Mayor-Elect Muriel Bowser wants to pass the Washington D.C. soccer stadium deal by the end of the year, even if one of the centerpieces of the deal appears to be off the table.
Bowser told the D.C. City Council on Tuesday even that she’s willing to approve the stadium deal, with it’s complicated series of land-swaps, as long as the Reeves Center is not traded to the multiple property owners who own land on Buzzard Point that D.C. United hope to use for their stadium.
“I support building a soccer stadium in the District of Columbia, and, more than that, I support spending public dollars to get it done,” Bowser said.
An independent study commissioned by City Council to study the economic benefits of the project found that the city undervalued the property value of the Reeves Center in what they were offering to Akridge in exchange for their property on Buzzard Point, as well as finding that the actual profits of the project would be very slim over a 32-year period.
UNION HOPE TO BRING BACK EDU
The Philadelphia Union may be losing one of their starters this offseason to Europe, but they’re hoping to be able to convince another player to make a permanent return to the USA.
As the out-of-contract Amobi Okugo considers his options overseas, the Union are reportedly working hard to bring back Maurice Edu on a permanent deal, as well as keep him as one of their starting centerbacks next season. The converted midfielder spent the last season on a season-long loan from Stoke City, where he found playing time nearly impossible to come by.
“Mo’s a soccer player,” Union head coach Jim Curtin told MLSSoccer.com. “He’s willing to play center back, for sure. If you look at his record when we played center back, it was successful. … He’s the kind of guy that, when you talk to owners, can shut down the $5 to $7 million player. David Villa’s coming in, Kaka’s coming in, and Maurice Edu can shut those guys down physically. And, soccer-wise, he can play with those guys. And he doesn’t cost $7 million.”
The Union are reportedly hoping to have a full season of Carlos Valdes partnering Edu in central defense as they build their squad for the 2015 season.
FIRE DECLINE OPTIONS ON 11 PLAYERS
The Chicago Fire will have a new-look squad for next season.
On Tuesday, the Fire announced that they’ve declined the contract extensions of 11 players, including long-time left back Golzalo Segares and centerback Bakary Soumare, let Grant Ward and Benji Joya return to Tottenham and Santos Laguna respectively, after their loan deals expired, and let Victor Pineda leave after his contract expired. The Fire are in negotiations to bring back some of those players on different salary numbers.
The club, which only had seven players under contract for next season, exercised the contract options on six more players, including Homegrown Player Chris Ritter and goal-scoring forward Quincy Amarikwa.
“I believe that we have a good, solid core of returning players for us to build upon as we continue to prepare for the 2015 season,” Fire head coach Frank Yallop said in a statement. “We’re currently working towards new deals for several players who are out of contract or whose options have been declined and look to finalize those in the coming weeks.”
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What do you think of these developments? Glad to see Higuain return for next season with the Crew? Do you feel confident in the D.C. stadium deal passing without the Reeves Center as trade bait?
Share your thoughts below.
“Mayor-Elect Muriel Bowser wants to pass the Washington D.C. soccer stadium deal by the end of the year, even if one of the centerpieces of the deal appears to be off the table.”
weird that she would eliminate a primary incentive for the developers, when she wants to pass the stadium deal so very much. i guess i just don’t understand politics.
It’s DC government, they take the notion of dysfunctional government to a new level.
I know its crazy cold, DC and Revs positive stadium news on back to back days…. I think hell is finally freezing over.
Is this just her wanting to put her own stamp on the deal so she can say its hers and not lame duck Vincent Gray?
my opinion: she doesn’t want it to happen, and she knows that if reeves is off the table, she can outwardly cheer for it while watching it fail. win-win (well, not for dcu).
i’d love to be wrong, but i won’t believe it’s happening until i actually see the finished stadium.
If I didn’t know better, because some SBI trolls informed me otherwise, I would think that we are growing a very good league, very quickly.
I agree!!
Yeh, things are great, MLS does everything right, and any fan who dares to criticize it for anything is an ignorant troll, right? What was Arsene Wenger thinking when he called MLS a retirement league this week? But, then again, what does he know about soccer? And how do all these young pups dare skipping MLS and going directly to European clubs? It must be Klinsmann’s fault. 😉
This is so tiresome. Arsene Wenger did not say “MLS is a retirement league”!!! He said that it is a good league for players to spend their twighlight years. This does not necessarily mean that it is NOT a good league for 25-30 year old Americans. The two are not mutually exclusive!
Wenger was talking about world class players (or players with the potential to become world class), which is the only group that really matters. There is no debate raging about 25-30 year olds with Chris Wondolowski or Steven Lenhart ceiling playing in the MLS. Wenger was talking about players that are capable of playing at the top level: “You have two steps. Being completely at the top finishes when you are 34 at the latest,” Wenger told the Arsenal website. “After that, you have different leagues like the MLS and the Indian league. I encourage players to play as long as possible if they really love it.” It’s just his candid assessment, but imagine the firestorm if Klinsmann rather than Wenger said it.
NOW YOU ARE MAKING SENSE!