Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Sporting Win Saad Lottery

Today MLS held a weighted lottery after the league signed Michigan University standout, Soony Saad to a contract. Sporting KC was one of only 4 teams available for the draft that chose to participate. Along with KC, Chicago, Chivas, and Portland participated in the draft. Real Salt Lake, San Jose, Philadelphia, and Columbus were unable to participate due to winning previous lotteries. The other 10 teams chose not to participate in the draft. KC had the third best chance in the draft after Chivas and Chicago.

KC with it's 21.2% chance though ended up winning the lottery for the forward, Saad. And unlike the previous lottery that KC won, for Luis Gil, Saad will actually come to KC and play here. Based off comments from both Peter Vermes and Saad today, both sound extremely encouraged about the results of the lottery. Last season at Michigan, Saad as a freshman started 24 of Michigan's 25 games as the Wolverines made the NCAA College Cup, losing to eventual champion Akron. He set a team record scoring 19 goals in the season. After the season, Saad tried to find a spot abroad, having trials in a few countries before coming back to the United States and signing with MLS.

This is actually a good fit for the Wizards and for Saad. KC is currently deep at the forward position before they even signed Saad. Currently with Omar Bravo, Teal Bunbury, Kei Kamara, CJ Sapong, Milos Stojcev, Graham Zusi, Birahim Diop, and others that can play forward, KC has depth at the position. This means that Saad will not be asked to play immediately. He'll likely get some minutes during the upcoming busy schedule, but he won't be put under immense pressure to produce immediately. Vermes and KC will be able to let Saad develop without that pressure, which in the long run could be better for Saad's development.

3 comments:

eurosnob said...

saad will not be asked to play immediatley, but he will play,this kid has crazy talent a pure finisher, he maybe the wizards top striker one day. If Rob Heienhman trades him like he did Luis Gil, which may go down in MLS history if Luis Gil fullfills his potential and becomes the national teams first #10, which is as he is getting acllimated to the MLS at 18 has a bright furture ahead of him we can olnly hope that Rob uses better judegement. You can never have to many good strikers, with Bunburys struggles,

Mike said...

eurosnob, Gil was never going to play for KC. When he signed for the league he explicitly said that he'd only play for RSL or Seattle. Heineman didn't really have a choice so they tried to get the best deal that they could for Gil. There was no error in judgement in that situation.

Nathan Martin said...

Mike, Peter Vermes said that Soony would be "off-budget" and the move did not hamper any possible future moves. According to your posting in May, SKC didn't appear to have that much space.

My question is whether Ryan Smith's absence (~$170K) or the departure of a player with a guaranteed contract like Stephane Auvary (~$208K) would open up any salary cap space this season or if he would stay on the books like Nick Kounenakis.