Real Salt Lake releases, protects, and exposes

Down to 24

So part of Garber’s state of the league address last week included a move to a 24 man roster, with just 4 slots for developmental players and the death of the Reserve Division (I think this is a horrible move for the league and development of talent in the US, but more of that tomorrow). In response RSL has released players prior to the announcement of the 11 protected players, gone are Kenny Cutler (RSL original), Nik Besagno (RSL’s 1^st draft pick), Dustin Kirby. Part of this move was the graduation of Nik from Generation Adidas, which if he were still part of the program he wouldn’t have needed to be protected.

Protected

Here is the official list of 11 that were protected by RSL:

• Kyle Beckerman
• Nick Rimando
• Javier Morales
• Jamison Olave
• Will Johnson
• Yura Movsisyan
• Robbie Findley
• Nat Borchers
• Robbie Russell
• Chris Wingert
• Fabian Espindola

RSL still has 3 players on the Generation Adidas program:

1. Chris Seitz
2. Tony Beltran
3. Alex Nimo

That means that RSL is leaving 11 players unprotected and remember we can only lose one player from this list (it doesn’t mean that Seattle will take any from RSL’s roster):

1. Andy Williams
2. Nathan Sturgis
3. Dema Kovalenko
4. Kenny Deuchar
5. Ian Joy
6. Clint Mathis
7. David Horst
8. Brennan Tennelle
9. Kevin Reiman
10. Kyle Reynish
11. Tino Nunez

With the list of exposed players, I think Joy and Kovalenko are probably in real danger of being selected, as is Kyle Reynish as a back up to Seattle’s number one keeper Kasey Keller. This list isn’t far off of my original list, I am a bit surprised that we would leave a talented youngster like Sturgis exposed, but after a year and a half with the team and almost all of that time injured I can understand it. According to what I read on the SL Trib website putting Andy on the unprotected list was a move that in deference to his family situation. I really hope Andy stays and I believe should be allowed to finish his career with RSL.

OFF MY SOAPBOX

This entry was posted on November 24, 2008 at 5:54 pm and is filed under The soapbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.