Okay, so DC got Troy Perkins back. That’s fine. He’s an upgrade over the pu-pu platter we have back there last season.
Fred is staggeringly overrated so I don’t mind losing him so much. If Fred wasn’t Brazilian, he’d be down in the USL with other players of his ability.
That said, right now DC has one MLS-caliber central midfielder (Simms), one unproven and apparent malcontent (Szetela), and a non-entity known as Brandon Barklage.
DC better have something(s) else up its sleeve or else they’ve collectively lost their minds over there. That first round pick along with Fred and the cash seems like highway robbery to me by Philly.
As of right now, United doesn’t have a pick until the 4th round of the draft. I guess United expects cheap and/or cap-protected talent to simply fall from the sky like meatballs or Drogba going up for a header.
I wasn’t planning on drinking on the bus up to the draft. I may need to rethink that plan.
Fighting Talker 
Don’t worry we will have some drinking going on when you get here in the morning. Have fun on your bus
Can you tell me why Szetela was protected in the draft?
I have to say that, were I DCU, I would have paid Nowak to take the kid, and his salary, off my hands.
What’s the difference, Aaron? When DC gets an early draft pick, it’s not like they do anything smart with it. DC has become the Oakland Raiders of MLS.
Congratulations on winning “Stupidest Comment of the Decade!” It’s a very prestigious honor, but your comment was absolutely unrivaled by any this decade, past, present, or future.
Last year we had the best draft of any team except MAYBE Toronto. Wallace and Pontius aren’t “smart” picks? Oakland Raiders, my dick.
Pardon the rudeness, but I just couldn’t let that one go. Wallace is a Costa Rica and USMNT prospect, and Pontius is in US camp as we speak. Both were candidates for Rookie of the Year. How, exactly, is that not a “smart” draft? Plus, this current draft is one of the deepest ever, so it would be very difficult to waste a pick this year in the first round.
And one minor correction, Aaron: we have a 3rd round pick, whereas the original post says we don’t pick until the 4th.
I thought you said you were going up there as a fan.
Hear that? That’s the sound of Omar Gonzalez and AJ DeLaGarza crying themselves to sleep.
They’re still not over getting caught ball-watching by Findley, in route to disgracing both our clubs?
Szetela has proved a lot about himself in the last 3 years. he is no mystery.
United did just what I, a fan, wanted them to do. They got Perkins and unloaded Fred. It was a great move and now they have lots of money for fresh meat.
But they certainly should not have protected Danny Nutella.
But they have less money than they had before because they also off-loaded allocation money.
I don’t think many people are upset that Troy is back and Fred is gone. I think it’s the whole kit and caboodle that makes it a head-scratcher.
Aaron, increasingly you’re becoming United’s Chicken Little.
DC’s midfield has slightly more than Simms and Szetela. You may have heard of Santino Quaranta? Chris Pontius? Rodney Wallace? Christian Castillo?
While I agree that Fred didn’t play up to expectations, that has more to do with his overabundance of talent. He’s not a USL player. He’s a classy MLS player who has had a bad string of brutal family problems.
One other note is that DC doesn’t have a third-round pick, as kdiff77 suggests. They gave that up to LA in exchange for the now-redundant Josh Wicks.
Are we keeping Wicks as a sideshow attraction? Perhaps he can poke his big head out of the Toureg sunroof behind the goal and let little kids try to hit him.
So DCU is entirely free of both Brazilians and Argentinians now?
I’ve both loved and hated the influence of both over the past few years. All the while wishing that the team could find a different scouting paradigm; like, say, importing some players from El Salvador or something.
I’m a bit anxious about the upcoming season (No Luci? shudder), but I have cautious optimism that a bit of reason has returned to RFK.
I’m with you all on the drinking bit. I’ll knock down a little Sam Adams winterbock this evening.
“But they have less money than they had before because they also off-loaded allocation money.”
Correct, of course, and I realize the devil, to some, was in the details. I meant lots of space under the cap, which they have a ton of, right? They obviously have their eye on a couple decent foreigners.