By IVES GALARCEP
The 2015 MLS expansion class will come into much better focus today as New York City FC and Orlando City SC take part in the MLS Expansion Draft.
Each new MLS team will select 10 players from a well-stocked pool of talent, and while both teams have already added players who should anchor their respective squads, today’s selections should also go a long way toward determining how these teams fare in 2015.
Today will be a painful day for several teams, particularly the league’s deeper teams, who could see as many as two talented  players lost if selected in today’s draft. New England, Real Salt Lake and Columbus could all see multiple players chosen today.
SBI will be providing live commentary on today’s MLS Expansion Draft, so please feel free to join us today as we provide some insights, predictions and analysis before and during today’s draft.
Enjoy the action (Today’s live commentary is after the jump):
Wow. Ives was wrong about a LOT of these predictions.
Shows how unpredictable these things are. I think the cost of the contracts (which they have to pay at full value, right?) really played into the decision-making.
Nope… drafting teams get to renegotiate contracts.
Orlando actually had a good draft. GK depth is hard to find and Hall is coming off of a knee injury, Ricketts could also be dealt. They also looked to get veterans with Neal, Pearce and Gehrig. Pearce was talking to them last year if you remember. Then you have some upside with Cascio, Anibaba, Mwanga and the other young talents. This could be a good expansion for both teams.
Anibaba is already gone to Sporting Kansas City. Let the games begin.
MLS is appearing like its turning itself into a farm system for the EPL. NYCFC is a Double A or Triple A team for Man City. The colors are similar and the partnership with Manchester City confirms this notion.
I really think that MLS has turned into an extraordinarily weird/odd/strange (pick your adjective) league. Its a profit/revenue driven business, like any other, but I think its just really freakin’ strange, by that I mean it suffers from some serious identity problems and seems to be going in multiple different directions at the same time, without a unified focus. The rebranding efforts are strange as well. Weird logo, attempting to be different and standing out, while missing the point that assimilation and becoming more like the rest of the soccer (football) leagues in the world would do us wonders. We don’t need to be different, just because we might have a different obstacles (time zones, climate changes, etc.).
EVERY league is a farm system for the English, German, French, Spanish and Italian leagues…even North Korea.
For some reason it made me laugh to hear every team immediately disconnect from the conferencing software as soon as the draft ended. One team didn’t even wait for the guy from MLS HQ to finish talking
NYCFC killed it… The experience of Jason Kreis shined through today.
What’s is going, there is big news happening down the border in Mexico and SBI doesn’t have an article on it.
Mexico wants to host World Cup 2026 just like Canada and USA, they sure like to copy the U.S. soccer federation.
They also wants MLS teams to participate in their league cup, wtf. No sense at all. Stay away MLS.
LigaMX will try to adapt a championship game like MLS, just one game for the marbles, like MLS cup championship game.
They also would love to expand to 20 teams, right now they are at 20 and 2 would go down and 2 up.
Rumor has Atlas of Guadalajara wants robinho. I wonder if we will see an MLS vs ligaMX for robinho.
Another big news flash, Mexico’s coach plans to tour all MLS teams academies and front office, to recruit Mexican American talent,starting next year. I wonder if all MLS teams will open their doors to him.
Correction, ligaMX has 18 teams now. Fast typing at work 🙂
Go cosmos
NE announced a trade on Monday that precludes him being chosen by either team.
What would the falllout be if Fagundez was picked by OCSC or NYCFC?
Revs made a deal. NYCFC and Orlando won’t take Fagundez. He’ll stay w/ NE