Alecko Eskandarian was traded to the new Toronto FC club late last week for a partial allocation. I would’ve posted this sooner, but I’ve been busy vacationing.
Busy United Makes Another Move, Trades Eskandarian – Steven Goff [washingtonpost.com]
So the fire sale continues over at DC United… I’m a little surprised by the move, but I can understand it. Esky is a real hot & cold striker and you can see the HOT if you look back to 2004. He pressured all over the field, stayed high, kept the defense from collapsing, and most importantly scored goals. 2005 was lost due to several concussions, and 2006 saw him play really crappy along with several nagging injuries that kept him out of the lineup. He started to play outside of himself, trying to take on defenders far away from goal and dribble past them. Definitely not his strength, and actually hurt the team without anyone to play high.
As long as the new talent they bring in is better than Esky, then I think we’ll be good. They defeinitely have alot of money to throw around
From the Washington Post article linked above:
“For Eskandarian, United received a partial allocation valued at $150,000. The club also acquired $275,000 in allocation money from Real Salt Lake as part of the Adu deal and $200,000 from trades with Los Angeles and New York earlier this year, Kasper said.”
On another front the vaunted rumor mill over at BigSoccer has identified one of the new Brazilians coming in. His name is “Ruy” (those crazy brazilians only have one name) and he comes from Botafogo. Apparently he’s a right fullback who likes to get forward into the attack (similar to Roberto Carlos or Cafu, who knows if he’s that good tho). He’s 28 years old, so he should still have several good years left in the tank. Links to his info at Wikipedia and at Stellar Football.
This brings up the very interesting question of whether or not we move to a 442 (I love how this keeps coming up). Ruy is (supposedly) a natural right-back. So you could assume that he slides into the role, the ever flexible Namoff goes over to the left side and Boswell and Erpen hold down the center. This has many advantages, the most obvious of which is Erpen in the middle. In a 352 Erpen has alot of ground to cover and his “risky” style is more exposed. BUT put him in the center with the much calmer Boswell to watch his back and I think we’ve got the best young tandem of central defenders for the next decade (assuming they don’t go overseas first).
The flip side to that coin is that Ruy comes in and plays the right wing in a 352. He would likely have enough offense to get forward, but know enough defensively to be able to get back. He’s not a big guy at 5’9″ and around 140lbs, so he better be fast if he’s going to cover the whole wing.
Now all we need is a striker and we’re all set. Per the Post article, they want to have everybody in before they start a training camp on the 24th of January. Looks like a busy new year…
-EDIT-
Additional comments about this from
Dan Steinberg (DC Sports Bog) – DC United Rips out my Heart
Screaming Eagles Blog – Esky Traded to Toronto, and More on the Esky Trade