What does the 2009 MLS Expansion Draft mean for TFC?

By: Mark | November 24th, 2009

Union Crest

Tomorrow MLS will hold the 2009 Expansion Draft so the new Philadelphia Union can select their team for next season. That means they get to select 10 players from the MLS’s 15 teams. Each team gets to protect 11 players and the rest are fair game for the Union to select. Each team can only lose one player in the draft.

So, who did Toronto GM Mo Johnston and new coach Preki decide were worth protection? Well, they got 2 freebies in Stefan Frei and Fuad Ibrahim because they are part of the Generation Adidas Team. So the other 11 players that are safe from the expansion draft are:

Expansion Draft – Protected players:
Nana Attakora
Chad Barrett
Jim Brennan
Sam Cronin
Julian de Guzman
Dwayne De Rosario
Emmanuel Gomez
Amadou Sanyang
Adrian Serioux
O’Brian White
Marvell Wynne

Holy crap, they’re protecting Chad Barrett. And that means these guys are ripe for the pickins’:

Available for Draft:
Brian Edwards
Lesly Fellinga
Nick Garcia
Ali Gerba
Amado Guevara
Carl Robinson
Pablo Vitti
Gabe Gala

Here are my thoughts. I was a little surprised to see Brian Edwards on this list because his performances while Frei was hurt suggested that he is a competent keeper, but it looks like the guys in charge at TFC tried to keep a potential 11-man team protected here, so only 1 goalkeeper. Some of the players available for the draft are not bad, but I guess you can’t protect them all. They appear to have kept a decent mix of young players and experienced guys.

So if we look at the list of safe players, here’s what a potential starting lineup for next season could look like:

GK: Frei
D: Wynne, Attakora, Serioux, Brennan
M:Cronin, De Guzman, De Rosario, Sanyang/Gomez
F: Barrett, White/Ibrahim

I don’t mind that lineup for the most part, but I would prefer Ali Gerba at forward instead of Barrett. I think he could be a good target man up front. Of the other guys who could be drafted, Robinson, Guevara and Edwards stand out as potential tough losses for Toronto. If Amado Guevara gets selected in the draft however, that might actually free up De Rosario to play more as a central attacking midfielder. Hopefully this would lead to more scoring chances being created, while still giving DeRo plenty of opportunities to shoot. De Guzman would be the holding midfielder, with Cronin and maybe Sanyang or Gomez on the wings. All speculation of course, but it will be interesting to see what Preki comes up with.

Of course, only 1 player on the unprotected list will be selected, so there are lots of other possible lineups, but I think this one is not bad (except for one exception previously noted…). If you head over to the Union Offside Blog, you’ll see that maybe no TFC players will get drafted (based on Andrew’s picks). But maybe Philadelphia will help us out and take Nick Garcia off our hands. A guy can dream at least.

Are there any players you would have preferred to protect? How about players you hope to see gone next season?