More Roster Movement for KC

Along with the acquisition of Luis Gil today, KC has made more roster moves. Two trialists are gone from camp, and two rostered players are also gone as there are less and less players from the 2009 Wizards. First, Kurt Morsink and Kevin Souter are gone from the Wizards. Neither one is much of a surprise as both appeared to be on their way out as KC brought in more players, specifically Souter who takes up an international spot that the Wizards appear to be using fully this season.

Most Wizards fans won't shed a tear for Morsink as many people were not fans of him as a player. Especially after his rookie year when Curt Onalfo started more than many people thought he should have. In his second year, Morsink had some brighter moments, including a 2 assist game against Columbus that led to him winning the Down the Byline player of the month in July. But this past season, Morsink didn't get much playing time at all starting only 2 games, playing in a total of 5 games.

Souter on the other hand seemed to have quite a few more fans. I think it was because of the underdog factor that came along with making the team through the open tryouts. He became a consistent contributor on the field late in the 2008 season. Souter, like Morsink, didn't play much in the 2009 season, missing most of it due to one injury or another. Both are likely to catch on with another team somewhere. Souter could easily make it in the NASL/USL or go back to Scotland. The same for Morsink, just replace Scotland with Costa Rica.

As for the trialists that are no longer in camp, they are Nelson Pizarro and Alex Horwath. Pizarro, another open tryout participant had come back to the Wizards this year and had been impressive at times from what I'd heard, but had not done enough to earn a roster spot. Horwath had trained with the Wizards last year as a member of the Brass. Horwath was likely competing for the back up goalkeeper position, but with the re-signing of Eric Kronberg it seemed unlikely Horwath would be kept much longer.

While four players are out of camp, a new player has been brought in. Added to the Wizards preseason roster was Iranian defender Shahriar Dastan. There isn't much out there on him, although his name appears in this break down for the 2001-2002 Iranian season playing for Peykan Tehran. He's another defender, giving KC 5 players that can play central defense in camp. He's the only new player currently added to the team's preseason roster as they return to Arizona for the second leg of their preseason.

Trialists Coming In

During the draft last week, Robb Heineman mentioned that the Wizards were going to be bringing in a lot of players for trials this preseason, players that the team would have previously signed.

The first trialist was Dan Williams, a goalkeeper at the University of Kentucky who had posted on Facebook before the draft that he was going to have a trial with the Wizards.

The second trialist is another keeper, Alex Horwath, from the University of Wisconsin. Horwath played with the KC Brass last season and also trained with the Wizards for a period of time as well.

The third trialist that is known so far is probably the most high profile, and that is US Under 20 international, Vincenzo Bernardo. Bernardo has been playing with Napoli's primavera squad since he joined the club. He's now apparently too old for the primavera squad and turned down a loan move to Serie C2, Italy's 4th division. He's a favorite player to bring up among Yank's abroad followers, but is also viewed a little skeptically as no one has ever really seen the kid play. He's appeared for both the U-17 and U-20 national team, but did not make the U-20 World Cup team this past year. Bernardo arrived in town yesterday and had his first training session today.