Colorado's roster ahead of MLS Expansion draft
Commerce City, Colo. – For the seventh year since 2004, the Colorado Rapids and all other MLS teams next week will be bracing for the potential loss of a key player from their roster.
Next Monday, the day after the LA Galaxy and Houston Dynamo meet in MLS Cup 2011, all teams will submit to the League the 11 players they will protect from the expansion Montreal Impact, which will begin building their team by selecting at most one player from 10 other MLS team in the 2011 MLS Expansion Draft on November 23. Eight teams won't have any players selected.
The Rapids current roster is comprised of 30 players, though youngsters Davy Armstrong and Josh Janniere are automatically protected due to their “Home Grown Player” status. Therefore, barring any trades, which can't be officially executed until next Monday, the Rapids can only protect 11 of the following 28 players:
GOALKEEPERS: Matt Pickens, Ian Joyce, Steward Ceus.
DEFENDERS: Drew Moor, Kosuke Kimura, Tyrone Marshall, Eddie Ababio, Mike Holody, Scott Palguta, Marvell Wynne, Anthony Wallace, #Danny Earls, #Miguel Comminges.
MIDFIELDERS: Pablo Mastroeni, Jeff Larentowicz, Brian Mullan, Steven Emory, Wells Thompson, Ross LaBauex, #Jamie Smith, #Joseph Nane.
FORWARDS: Conor Casey, Omar Cummings, Mac Kandji, Sanna Nyassi, Andre Akpan, Quincy Amarikwa, #Caleb Folan.
# - Per the Expansion Draft rules, teams must protect at least three internationals if they have four or more. The Rapids have five: Comminges (Guadeloupe), Folan (Ireland), Smith (Scotland), Earls (Ireland), and Nane (Cameroon).
Of the 23 non-internationals, of which only eight can be protected, 11 appeared in at least 20 of the 34 regular season games: Larentowicz, Kimura, Moor, Pickens, Thompson, Mastroeni, Marshall, Mullan, Wynne, Cummings, and Nyassi.
In addition, three key contributors to the MLS Cup 2010 run missed most of the season with injuries: all-time leading scorer, Conor Casey (Achilles surgery), defender Anthony Wallace (knee surgery), and Mac Kandji (knee surgery).
Going solely off the 14 players listed above, it’s inevitable that some familiar faces will be exposed to Montreal. The question remains, will Montreal choose one of them?
Note1: Of the other foriegn-born players, Cummings (Jamaica), Kimura (Japan), Kandji (Senegal), and Nyassi (The Gambia) all have U.S. Residency status; Marshall (Jamaica), Ababio (Ghana), and Mastroeni (Argentina) are all U.S. citizens, therefore none of these players count as Internationals on MLS rosters.
Note 2: In the previous six Expansion Drafts, in which eight new teams selected players, the Rapids have had four players taken. In late 2004, Chivas USA selected defenders Antonio de la Torre and Jeff Stewart, while Real Salt Lake did not pick a Colorado player. After not losing players to Toronto (2006), San Jose (2007), and Seattle (2008), the Philadelphia Union used their first pick to take defender Jordan Harvey in 2009. Last November, the Portland Timbers selected Rapids defender Anthony Wallace with their 4th pick, though a deal was in place to re-acquire the left back in trade later in the day.