WVHooligan - Soccer Blog

Houston Dynamo has waived young forward Franco Caraccio today. The young striker floundered with the Dynamo, managing two goals and an assist in 10 games for Houston.

The re-signing of Nate Jaqua earlier this week and the Dynamo’s aim to shop for at least one more forward for the second half of the MLS season made Caraccio expendable. Houston head coach Dominic Kinnear made this fairly clear today according to Bernando Fallas of the Houston Chronicle.

“We probably need some help at the forward position as we’re pushing midfielders up there, and with the acquisition of Nate… it became a numbers issue as far as players on the roster and salary cap goes,” Kinnear said. “I don’t enjoy moving players, especially when they fit in pretty well in the locker room and I enjoy them, but in this case a decision had to be made.”

“He played OK,” said Kinnear, adding that Caraccio’s performance against Chivas had little to do with the decision. “I don’t think he had a bad game.”

Caraccio, who was to make $130,500 this year, according to MLS Players Union documents, was signed to a semi-guaranteed contract, the team said, meaning his release effectively opens up salary cap space for the Dynamo.

Expectations were high when Caraccio, a former Argentina under-20 and Arsenal de Sarandi player with unquestioned potential, began the season in the starting lineup as a complement to Brian Ching.

With Jaqua’s return, Caraccio would have fallen to fifth in Kinnear’s pecking order of forwards behind Ching, Jaqua, Dwayne De Rosario and Brian Mullan.

Pretty tough because he is still very young but with high expectations come tough times if you don’t meet those expectations. Caraccio wasn’t all that popular with the Houston fans either, a lot of results I’ve read and head about him were fairly mixed.

Its surprising Houston didn’t release him earlier before contracts became guaranteed back at the end of June.

But it does appear that Caraccio won’t be unemployed too much longer either. The New York Post’s Brian Lewis is hearing that the Red Bulls are interested in Caraccio. Not too shocking to hear that with the lack of forwards that New York has right now and Juan Carlos Osorio’s desire to pick-up trash that other clubs take out (see Andrew Boyens).

What do you all make of Caraccio’s release?