WVHooligan - Soccer Blog

More information came in today about next week’s expansion draft. It will, indeed, take place on Wednesday. Pending final league approval, San Jose will select 11 players total, which means two current teams will not lose anyone.

MLS will make public each team’s 11-man protected list on Tuesday. The event will take place around 2 p.m. Eastern. So by mid- to late-afternoon we will know the make-up of the club.

We know that teams must protect 11 players from their 28 man rosters. Clubs will only lose one player in the draft. Also clubs can only expose one senior international player, wouldn’t be shocked to see a big name or two out there in this either with that.

I would expect that clubs will be required to protect DPs. No current rule about that but one will probably be in place real soon. I wouldn’t be surprised if the DPs are protected regardless in their contracts from these kinds of drafts. It would only make sense to me that they would be.

Generation Adidas players can be exposed if they have graduated from this program, if not then they are safe.

Rosters are currently frozen until after the draft. So no waiving a player right now for your local club.

Lastly, players who have retired won’t count. So a Chris Armas, or a Josh Gros won’t play part into this draft.

I hope by at least next Monday or Tuesday, if not tomorrow or Friday release my predictions on who I think each club will protect. From that I will try and figure the 11 or so that the Quakes may decide to take.

If it is like last year’s draft with Toronto, trades will happen. I see that going on this year with San Jose since they have a lot of work in front of them and a limited number of SuperDraft picks to work with in the future due to the Yallop deal.

I think it is kinda weird that two clubs will be left out of this draft. Good for them, bad for everyone else. I don’t really see why the MLS decides to protect two clubs from this draft. They won’t publicly say that but they are really. I am sure clubs like Houston and New England are hoping they are those two clubs. But more than likey a Toronto or a Colorado will be fine in this.