Adam Cristman is heading west to be with the Galaxy. (Getty Images)

After losing Edson Buddle to a German side yesterday (good for you Edson), the Galaxy are starting to sound like a desperate team here. No knock on this deal today but they have gone out and traded for striker Adam Cristman from D.C. United for a first round supplemental draft pick, or in this year’s case a forth round pick since the forth round of the SuperDraft became the first round of the supplemental draft.

Now this deal will look good only if Cristman returns to his form that we saw from in during his two years in New England. Once he got shipped off to Kansas City and then to D.C. we haven’t seen a lot out of him.

The 26-year-old has 12 goals and six assists in 68 career regular season MLS games. He was a finalist for the MLS Rookie of the Year award in 2007 when he had four goals and four assists in a career-high 28 games with the Revolution.

Injuries kept him from playing a lot in Kansas City while his time in D.C. wasn’t that much better due to the state of the club last year. Bruce Arena now gets a player from his old school the University of Virginia.

I’d say in a way this is a move to make up for the trade of Tristan Bowen to Chivas USA. The club still hopes to sign Juan Pablo Angel but there hasn’t been any news of a deal between the two sides since the Re-Entry draft.

DC United fans are hoping for a return to playoffs in 2010. (Getty Images)

I wasn’t entirely sure I’d get to this offseason look at DC United today but extra time this afternoon came out of no where. So far these last couple weeks we’ve looked at a handfull of teams including Philadelphia, Chicago, Chivas, Colorado and Columbus.

Today is all about the Black-and-Red who have seen a pretty big change this winter. From Curt Onalfo taking over for Tom Soehn to seeing Ben Olsen retiring to not offering Christian Gomez or Luciano Emilio a new contract, this is a whole new United.

Let’s see exactly what they’ve done and what they need to work on before the season starts.

Keepers:

Who they have: Troy Perkins, Milos Kocic, Josh Wicks, Bill Hamid.

Notes: Obviously when they made the deal to get Perkins it was to sure up this area. Wicks was too on and off last year and Kocic and Hamid aren’t quite ready to take over. Perkins gives them stability in between the pipes and will help them win. No need to look elsewhere for any additional keepers right now. I am curious to see Hamid develop though, hopefully he’ll get some PT in some US Open Cup games.

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Defense:

Who they have: Julius James, Marc Burch, Dejan Jakovic, Devon McTavish, Bryan Namoff, Jordan Graye.

Notes: I like certain parts of this group like Burch, McTavish, Namoff and Jakovic but the rest not as much. Injuries are always an issue and right now Namoff is out with some sort of head injury and those can linger long depending on how bad of an injury it is.

If I were Onalfo I’d be worried about this bunch. Perkins will probably have to come up big for them more times then they’d like to admit right now. DC fans may answer this easier than I can at this point but who is the leader in the back out of this group? They have some veteran players but not one that you know right away is going to step up, maybe I am missing something here.

Right now I see them defending like Onalfo’s KC teams, solid for a game with a shutout and then give up two or three in the next.

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Midfield:

Who they have: Floribert N’Galula, John DiRaimondo, Danny Szetela, Christian Castillo, Clyde Simms, Tiyi Shipalane, Rodney Wallace, Brandon Barklage, Santino Quaranta.

Notes: This group will be fine if two things happen, Castillo lives up to the billing surrounding him and if Quaranta can help create some offense on a consistent basis. I do where they are in the back part of this group in terms of defensive midfielders.

Another interesting question will be whether or not N’Galula, the young 22-year old former Manchester United product will do anything of note. If he can be productive in the midfield for Onalfo he could end up being one of the bigger steals of the winter by any club.

With Christian Gomez gone you have to wonder where the offense will come from this group though. I think defensively in the midfield they will be fine and even on the wings they should be good with Castillo and Quaranta. They still however need that go-to guy in the midfield that will help with the attack, a playmaker if you will. Right now I just don’t see that. Maybe one of these young guys will surprise me.

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Forwards:

Who the have: Danny Allsopp, Chris Pontius, Boyzzz Khumalo, Jaime Moreno, and Adam Cristman.

Notes: An interesting group to say the least. One hand they are fairly young with Pontius and Cristman but on the other they aren’t with two 30+ year olds in Moreno and Allsopp.

I like the Cristman move for Onalfo and United though. You know he is familiar with Onalfo and his style of play. Moreno we know is going to get his normal amount of goals, mostly from the penalty spot.

I think the big thing to see is whether or not Pontius continues to develop into a goal scorer and if Allsopp can come in and produce at least six to eight goals. I think if those two things happen DC should be fine in the goal scoring department.

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Overall:

This will be an interesting season for the Black-and-Red. For one they are very young in respect to other teams in the league. Just like Philadelphia they only have three guys right now on their roster over 30 years of age. Finding a leader other than Moreno will be interesting to see. Hopefully someone steps up and leads this team because there will likely be a big drop off in leadership with Ben Olsen retired now.

With Gomez and Emilio out it looks like United aren’t looking for a big name product from South American to step in like they normally do. Its a risky move not to bring in a bunch of signings but as we’ve seen in recent years out of DC it doesn’t always work out. Instead they are now focusing on talent here and adding one or two pieces from outside MLS. I like the move on their part but it may take a while to produce well.

But we’ll see, this is a club that is bound to make a move or two more before the season starts so it will be interesting if they add depth in the back, find a playmaker and most importantly someone to be a leader.

The trade mill is still going today with DC and Kansas City as the trade partners. The Wizards have sent forward Adam Cristman to DC in exchange for an international roster spots.

“We are pleased to have concluded a trade for Adam,” said United General Manager Dave Kasper. “He is a hard working, athletic striker who will provide solid cover for us. We look forward to having him join us in pre-season camp.”

Injuries kept Cristman from seeing the field last year in Kansas City. He only played five games for the Wizards.

Getting an international roster spot for the Wizards mean they are obviously still searching for some answers to fix their roster. Cristman wasn’t a solid enough solution for them at forward but I actually like him in a Black-and-Red kit here. As long as he is healthy he should be a decent player off the bench for Curt Onalfo, who brought him to Kansas City a year ago from New England.

The Kansas City Wizards have traded for New England Revolution forward Adam Cristman in exchange for a 2009 SuperDraft 3rd round draft pick and an allocation.

The Revs needed to dump a little salary from what I’ve heard on their end and it never hurts to get a little allocation money in the process. I think this shows that the Revs are set to make a few moves this off season as they probably will lose a couple key parts (Michael Parkhurst and maybe even Taylor Twellman).

KC on the other hand continues to deal for young and cheap strikers to go along with DP Claudio Lopez, who is reportedly going to return (maybe even on a non-DP contract). Look for the Wizards to continue their dealing too up until the draft. I like where they are going with this, I really do.

More to come folks…more to come..

But before an influx of new talent comes into Major League Soccer I wanted to spend a little time looking back at the homegrown stuff here in the States. More importantly the homegrown talent that comes out of the college ranks and what not through the league’s SuperDraft.

I am mainly looking at old drafts and thought it was worth a mention to take a look back at the last few drafts to see not only how clubs did but the players that have moved on to bigger and better things through the league. Also to talk about the players who were picked high and ended up as duds (there are more than you’d think).

For the most part the MLS SuperDraft finds us about 10 good players and about 30 or so not-so-good players. Some last in the league, others don’t make it, and some head for Europe before the first kick of their rookie season. I think the draft will continue to go on in the future but with fewer rounds before long. Once the homegrown talent from youth academies kick in we will mainly see college players go through this process. And most of those won’t come with a high profile either in my best estimate.

I’m only taking us as far back as the 2005 MLS SuperDraft. I feel like in this now-expansion era of MLS soccer, that’s a solid starting point for discussions like these. Not to mention most of those players by now are either hits or misses.

As always feel free to pipe in your own thoughts about these past drafts below.

2005 MLS SuperDraft:

• I think it is fair to say that the top pick in this draft is still a kid. Nikolas Besagno probably didn’t go to the best club (RSL) to develop his talents but the jury may actually still be out on this kid. But by other people’s standards a top pick that has only seen eight league matches since being draft isn’t a good thing. If he was worth the top pick he would be a steady starter by now, at least.
• Brad Guzan went second to Chivas, I think right now we all know how well that pick turned out to be for both sides.
• I forgot Chad Barrett went at number three to Chicago in this one. Worthy of a top three pick? Maybe not with his inconsistent finishing. Still fairly young though, but I’m sure looking back on this the Fire would have loved to get a better defender out of this draft (Michael Parkhurst or Drew Moor). Though they did end up with a LATE steal in the third round with Gonzalo Segares.
• Speaking of Parkhurst, he was easily the best player in the draft now that we look back on it four years later.
• Rounding out the rest of the first round, lots of role players right now for the most part. Not a lot of big names to speak of. That’s what you get when seven of the first 12 picks are defenders.
• Chicago easily had the best draft…along with Barrett they got two third round gems in Segares and Chris Rolfe. Not many clubs in any sport in America can say they got two steals in a late round like the Fire did. Pretty impressive.

2006 MLS SuperDraft:

• Marvelle Wynne was the top pick with New York, though his time didn’t last long in New York I still believe he is one of the better wingbacks in the league right now. His pace and ability to get down the wings shows us reasons why he was the top pick in 2006.
• Mehdi Ballouchy carried on the tradition of terrible draft picks for RSL in their first couple of seasons. How this guy is not in the USL or somewhere below that is beyond me.
• Then again the jury is almost out of time on guys right after Ballouchy like Jason Garey and Yuri Movsisyan.
• Best draft may have gone to Chivas who nabbed Sasha Kljestan with the 5th pick and then in the forth round with a steal of a pick in Jonanthan Bornstein.
• We all know Jozy Altidore was drafted in the second round and how big that was. Easily a steal by anyone’s account, especially now looking at some of the crap drafted above him.
• Some decent picks here and there in the first round now that we know more about some of these kids. Kai Kamera shows flashes here and there, Dax McCarty is as solid as they come when he is healthy, same could be said about guys like Jed Zayner, Nathan Sturgis, and Patrick Ianni.
• Biggest dud of the draft may have been New England’s pick with Leandro de Oliveria. Yeah I don’t recall the name and couldn’t find a bit on him. Wow, for all the praise we give Steve Nicol and the Revs for finding gems in each draft he came up short on that one. Anyone have a story on that kid?

2007 MLS SuperDraft:

• Its almost like a gulf in class between some of these drafts and this one. I think it may be a product of younger and better talent either not going into college or in the top pick’s case not staying in college very long. Either way this was a pretty solid draft.
• A lot of trades in this draft…and I mean a lot. The Joe Cannon trade, the Ronnie O’Brien trade, the popular Amado Guvara deal. Plus many others that really shaped this draft.
• Of course it is still early to tell with some players still in this draft but we are starting to see some key role players out of this bunch with guys like Wells Thompson, Brad Evans, Anthony Wallace, and Amaechi Igwe.
• Maurice Edu was by far the best player in the draft, may be one of the best number one picks the league has ever seen really.
• I was low on the second pick for a little while but I’ve come around to Chicago’s Bakery Soumare.
• Chris Seitz continues to be talked about as the best keeper in this draft (which he was by and far) but we haven’t seen much of that in league play out of him. Tough to be a young budding keeper when you have a veteran standing in the way. Don’t be shocked if this kid is in Europe in a year or two.
• Steal of the draft by some accounts was New England’s forth round pick in Adam Cristman.
  
• Second round steal goes to New York (again) with Dane Richards.
  
• Some could say Robbie Findley was a steal in the second round as well. Considering some of the players picked above those two (hello, Chicago picking Jerson Monterio or Colorado taking Nico Colaluca).

2008 MLS SuperDraft:

• Yeah okay, I won’t go into this one too much since we are STILL figuring this draft out. Come back next year I suppose. Its anyone’s guess who got the best draft, much less the best player!

As for the weekly award of player of the week and goal of the week. The choices were fairly clear in this week. As always, lets begin with the player of the week award, for this past week.

Your choices were DC’s Luciano Emilio, Houston’s Brian Ching and Dwayne De Rosario, San Jose’s Ronnie O’Brien, and possibly to some extent New York’s Juan Pablo Angel.

For me it was really down to two players. Ching and Emilio. Ching netted two strikes in Houston’s 3-1 over Toronto yesterday evening. As good as his two goal performance was, some will say it was at home against a not-so-good road side Toronto. I get that, and others will pass Ching up because the game was Sunday evening during the US – Argentina friendly. Yeah, who scheduled that one?! Hmm..

Anyways, for me it was Emilio. His late goal was easily enough to lift his name to the top of the list this week best performance. His play has really picked up in recent weeks and I am willing to bet that most will see this and give him the nod as well this week. Not only did his help out in getting DC back into the game in Chicago but his late goal proved to be the difference maker.

So week 11 goes to Luciano Emilio of DC United. It may be safe to say that he is finally back to the Emilio we saw last year.

The goal of the week is a little different this week. Not a lot of great goals. Lots of headers and thing of that nature. A couple strikes caught my eye, including one of those headers. I thought Jeff Cunningham’s nice run and strike was sweet to watch, in fact it was his 99th career MLS goal. Not bad.

But the one strike that caught my eye the most was the early goal scored by New England’s Adam Cristman. A diving header always looks good and Cristman’s was simply beautiful.