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On Tuesday morning, Major League Soccer held their expansion draft for incoming, former USL club, FC Cincinnati. Heading into the expansion draft, Vancouver had protected Blondell, Hurtado, Felipe, Reyna, Techera, PC, Levis, Nerwinski, Henry, Waston, and MacMath, while Blair, Baldisimo, Colyn, Crepeau (somehow), Melvin, Norman Jr. Andy Rose, and Teibert were automatically protected. The only players left under contract that were unprotected were de Jong and Juarez.
It was rumored that part of the Spencer Richey deal was that Cincinnati would not select any Whitecaps players; although there wasn’t really any assets available to be selected. In the end, Alan Koch and Cincinnati ended up selecting a Whitecaps player. More on that shortly.
FC Cincinnati began by selecting former Whitecaps forward Darren Mattocks first, followed by Vancouver’s leading scorer in 2018, Kei Kamara. Kamara’s rights were then traded to Colorado, to join his former teammate Nicolas Mezquida. Koch’s final three selections were Roland Lamah (Dallas), Eric Alexander (Houston), and Hassan Ndam (NYRB).
Whether Vancouver and Cincinnati had a handshake agreement in place, the result has to make Vancouver pleased. They were not going to resign Kamara, and in exchange for him being selected, they receive $50,000 in GAM.
Kei Kamara has been selected by @fccincinnati in the @MLS Expansion Draft and will be traded to @ColoradoRapids. As a result, #VWFC will receive $50,000 in General Allocation Money and can have no further players selected.
— Vancouver Whitecaps (@WhitecapsFC) December 11, 2018
One final note about the expansion draft, to close out the show, Alan Koch informed us that they had acquired Greg Garza from Atlanta for $200k in GAM and $250k in TAM. This is a bit surprising, and a good acquisition for Cincinnati, as Garza is one of the best attacking left backs in the league. It also suggests that there was support for the rumors over the weekend that Garza might have been heading to Vancouver. While that did not occur, it appears Garza WAS on the market. Instead, the Whitecaps settled for PC. No disrespect to PC intended, but I am a bit disappointed that the Caps couldn’t land Garza. They certainly have enough TAM and GAM floating around to match Cincinnati’s package. Maybe Garza had no interest in coming to Vancouver (and Canada) or the Caps are being stingy with their abundant amounts of GAM and TAM.
What are your thoughts on the Expansion Draft? Archaic and needs to be put to pasture?
What about the Garza announcement? Disappointed he is not coming to Vancouver?
Greg Garza