Watson Gone, More TV News, and Other KC News

Lots of different bits of news out today from the Wizards. First, the Wizards have continued to make over their roster as they have waived midfielder/defender, Lance Watson. Watson was a starter for much of the last season, starting 19 games, mainly at right back. Late in the season, though, Watson lost his place to Jonathan Leathers. It seemed to mainly coincide with Peter Vermes taking over the Wizards. To show how much of a make over the Wizards have had in the past few years, Watson was actually the 4 most tenured player with the Wizards before being waived, and he'd only been with the team since 2006.

Along with Watson's departure, the Wizards have let Alexei Casian and Shahriar Dastan go from the team's preseason roster. Casian had been with the team since the beginning of preseason, the same as his countryman, Igor Kostrov, but apparently didn't impress enough as Kostrov. Dastan, the Iranian defender, had only joined the team on their return to Arizona.

Today the Wizards announced the news that was on TV last night, that the Wizards will have all their games this year in High Definition on KCWE. The team also announced who would be doing the broadcasts in the booth. On play by play will be a member of KC's press staff, Dave Borchardt, on color will be someone familiar to Wizards fans, former Wizard, Sasha Victorine, who returns to KC after spending the last season and a half with Chivas USA.

While today was supposed to be the MLS roster deadline day, and the Wizards did make a roster move, that deadline has been moved. This extension comes as talks between the league and the Players' Union continue to talk about the collective bargaining agreement.

Four Players Gone From Camp

The Wizards thinned out the number of players in camp today, as four players from the camp roster were let go. Rauwshan McKenzie, Ofori Sarkodie, Eric Gehrig, and Kyle Brown were all let go. McKenzie was the only player that was under contract for the Wizards, Sarkodie, Gehrig, and Brown were trying to earn a contract.

McKenzie started 5 league games in his 2 years in KC, all this past season for a total of 437 minutes. In all competitions McKenzie started 9 games, and appeared in 10. He scored one goal for the Wizards, a header in the team's US Open Cup game against Minnesota last year. In all competitions, McKenzie played 827 minutes for the Wizards. He was also named the Down the Byline Player of the month in July this past season.

Sarkodie was the Wizards 4th round draft pick in this past year's MLS draft. Sarkodie had captained the US U-17 national team and played at the U-20 World Cup for the US as well. Unfortunately it appears that Sarkodie's career may have peaked when he was with the US youth teams.

Gehrig was an undrafted college senior out of Loyola Chicago. He had 2 goals 3 assists in his senior campaign for the Ramblers. He also participated in the Wizards invitee tryout before preseason started.

Brown was the most experienced professional player of the 4 players let go. In 3 seasons in MLS playing with New England, Real Salt Lake, and Houston Brown had 24 appearances scoring 2 goals. Last season he appeared 25 times scoring one goal for the Austin Aztex.

Also, the Wizards did have some differentiating information about Saturday's game saying that it was actually trialist Alexei Casian, not Nelson Pizarro that got the Wizards 5th and final goal in the win over the Arizona Sahuaros.

Moldovans in Camp

Along with his mention of the Ryan Smith tonight, Robb Heineman also gave us the names of the two Moldovans that are training with the Wizards right now. While he only gives us last names, with some searching, it appears the players are Alexei Casian and Igor Kostrov. Casian appears to have last played for Dinamo Bender in Moldova. Casian also has a video out on Youtube of some of his play as well (seen below). Kostrov also appears to have played with Bender, but has also spent time in Israel. From what I saw out at practice on Saturday of these two, they're both decent players, we'll see if either or both of them make the team.