Good Friday morning Caps fans, hope your week is wrapping up well and that you all are in good spirits heading into the weekend.
My week was going along and I was genuinely unsure of what the Friday column would be this week. That is, until the Caps surprised a lot of us by taking their transfer strategy in a new and different direction.
If you’re enough of a sicko to be reading this, you probably know that the new roster rules along you to do either three designated players and three U-22 initiative signings or 4 U-22s, 2 DPs and a chunk of allocation money, which an owner can choose to put in.
The Caps presumably didn’t choose to put in the allocation money but everyone still assumed they were taking the 4-2 route (not choosing to spend discretionary funds on the Whitecaps certainly wouldn’t be a new thing for ownership).
Teams must publicly commit to their pathway once the transfer window closes — but the Caps elected to go with the 3-3 route, meaning they could add another DP, even without buying down Andres Cubas.
Well that’s interesting. I can think of only two reasons why they would have done this. The first is that there is some accounting reason for doing this — possibly it allows them to classify someone else as a senior DP in name only to clear some cap room. Given that ownership may not have wanted to spend the discretionary GAM (good only for this season) and that they probably weren’t going to use all of their U-22 spots anyway, maybe this was all about some sleight of hand.
The other, more exciting explanation, is that there is a free agent the team has its eyes on to come in as a DP. Given that there are no shortage of quality attacking options without a club, this is a viable option and would help get around the transfer window weirdness for Canadian sides (and the team’s stubbornness not to spend big on transfer fees).
The fact is, fans have gotten to the point where they never expect the team to take the more ambitious route. And I’m still suspicious that it will mean what we all hope it means — I’ve been burned too many times before.
Best of the Rest
The Whitecaps knocked out Allianza to advance to the group stages of the CONCACAF W Cup — a big opportunity for the side.
It was a busy week for Canadians on the move, with Moise Bombito headed to Nice for a Rapids record outgoing fee.
And Mathieu Choiniere will not be staying in MLS, instead nearing a move to Grasshoppers in Switzerland.
Given these moves, here’s a nice outlook on the stakes for Canadians in Europe this season.
The Chicago Fire have officially cut loose Xherdan Shaqiri. Is he the worst DP signing in history?
even if the Caps do bring in a free agent DP, they still will have to pay most of that player’s salary beyond the MLS limit– that wont happen and we all should know that by now
we have been fooled a hundred times by this Club’s owners- the Admin Staff can only do what the budget allows and the Owners are willing to pay
do some of us always have to be so gullible ??
Could it also be there is pending news on the Davis transfer and thus expectations of cash-in with potential outlays for a DP level player, whether on the pure salary or the transfer fee side of things?