Trade and Draft
On Thursday the final four MLS teams continued their pursuit for the MLS Cup, while FC Cincinnati must continue its pursuit of finding talent that will be able to contribute numerous minutes on the pitch for the 2019 season. FC Cincinnati will have a few avenues within MLS to acquire some players. The first opportunity is Dec. 9, the day after the MLS Cup, when MLS has a 4-hour trade window.
The trade window is an opportunity that FCC could use to acquire quality players by trading their allocation money (TAM/GAM), draft position, an international roster spot, or allocation order spot. Last year LAFC acquired a starting center back from FC Dallas, Walker Zimmerman, for a large amount of allocation money, and that paid off well for LAFC. Quickly following the trade window is the Expansion Draft, where all teams (except Columbus, Kansas City, Toronto, San Jose and Seattle) must select 11 players to protect (excludes Homegrown and Generation Adidas players, who are automatically protected).
Once the protected rosters are announced, FC Cincinnati will have about 24 hours to decide who to select with their five selections. Teams will make trade offers to FCC for them to select someone on a team and in return, FCC could get allocation money, a player, or even a draft pick, so it is not as straightforward as selecting five players. Club president and general manager Jeff Berding, coach Alan Koch, technical director Luke Sassano and the rest of the scouting department will be very busy analyzing any trade offers that may come their way.
Cincinnati Soccer Talk compiled some player data to help trim down the list of potential players that could be available to draft or trade for. This is guesswork at its finest. However, it provides a look at how teams may trim down their roster selections. Teams may leave players available for numerous reasons — salary, age, position, too much depth, injury or just who they think FC Cincinnati may not want to take. So this list is a crap shoot at best.
Below is a list of players that FC Cincinnati may have available to pick from. The Min Played column is colored to help decipher player status, scroll right to view salaries, positions, and player ages.
Legend:
- RED BOX — Players ineligible to select (Homegrown or on a restricted Team) (On FilterAllPlayers Tab)
- BLUE BOX — Players not offered a contract with their current team
- YELLOW BOX — Players I think may be protected by their team (On FilterAllPlayers Tab). Teams declare their protections the day prior to the draft
- ORANGE BOX — Players loaned to an MLS team, not sure if they’re eligible to be picked up. There are more of these, but I highlighted a couple because they were intriguing
The RANK column is pulled from the WhoScored website. It does not take into account minutes played.
Here is a link to the spreadsheet. You can filter with the FilterAllPlayers tab.
Let us know who you think will be available or who FC Cincinnati should look at.
Stay tuned to our Twitter handle – @CincySoccerTalk, for updated information.
@khoetker for @CincySoccerTalk
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