Real Salt Lake makes a second round of cuts to their roster
by denz on Feb 16, 2012 3:06 PM MST
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PrintWell as expected RSL announced some more cuts before they head back to Arizona on Monday for the rest of their pre-season schedule. Today's cuts are:
DF Samir Bengelloun, who had been on trial with RSL last year as well.
MF Lewis Neal, who has been playing with Orlando City SC
DF Wes Knight, who played last year with the Vancouver Whitecaps
RSL did bring in a couple of new faces as defenders Kasali Casal and Lance Laing will spend some time with the team.
Kasali Casal is a 24 yr old player who most recently was playing with Vasas SC in Hungary. He is 6'2" and 185 lbs, he spent time with DC United back in 2007 before returning to play in Europe. He holds both UK and Nigerian Citizenship.
Lance Laing is a 23 year old 6'0" defender from Jamaica who most recently has played for USL's Tampa Bay Rowdies, he does have a couple of caps with the Jamaican National Team.
I expect that you will probably see another round of players let go next week just prior to the Desert Diamond Cup tournament kicking off, but RSL is trying to deal with a couple of players who will miss the first few weeks of the season with injuries, while trying to fit their roster into both the restrictions of the MLS salary cap and our 6 international slots.
I still believe that RSL will set their roster on March 1st with 18 Salary Cap Roster players, and 8 Off Budget players, so a lot of competition as well as a lot of considerations for RSL in order to get ready for the season.
After the jump the current RSL pre-season roster:
|
# |
Name |
Pos. |
Status |
|
14 |
MF |
||
|
27 |
FW |
||
|
5 |
MF |
||
|
2 |
DF |
||
|
22 |
FW |
Int'l |
|
|
6 |
DF |
||
|
-- |
Kasali Casal |
DF |
Int'l |
|
33 |
Leone Cruz |
DF |
|
|
3 |
Diogo de Almeida |
DF |
Int'l |
|
7 |
FW |
Int'l |
|
|
1 |
Lalo Fernandez |
GK |
HGP |
|
21 |
MF |
GA |
|
|
20 |
MF |
||
|
8 |
MF |
||
|
-- |
Lance Laing |
DF |
Int'l |
|
19 |
MF |
Int'l/GA |
|
|
11 |
MF |
Int'l |
|
|
16 |
Nico Muniz |
MF |
HGP |
|
4 |
DF |
||
|
23 |
Paulo Jr. |
FW |
Int'l |
|
24 |
GK |
||
|
18 |
GK |
||
|
15 |
Alvaro Saborio |
FW |
Int'l |
|
28 |
DF |
||
|
35 |
Jonny Steele |
MF |
Int'l |
|
53 |
Terukazu Tanaka |
DF |
Int'l |
|
26 |
MF |
||
|
17 |
DF |
OFF MY SOAPBOX
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Comments
A few questions
1. Do you have any idea (or does anybody really) on where the green card applications stand with players like Javi and Fabian? If they were to receive their green cards before the roster deadline (or even after, I suppose) it would make figuring out who will stay a whole lot easier.
2. Assuming we occupy 5 of the 6 slots with the following players (Espy, Javi, Sabo, Paulo Junior, and Enzo) who do you think has the best shot at getting that last slot? Bonfigli? Steele? From what I’ve seen/read, they seem to be the two gaining the most praise – especially Bonfigli’s connection with Espy.
3. Why is RSL so insistent on bringing in players as trialists that would occupy an international slot? I understand bringing some international players in for competition and to get a feel for them in the future, but bringing in pretty much zero domestic talent is a bit strange to me for a squad with it’s hands so tied with international slots.
answers
No, Homeland Security can be very quick or very slow. As I said I believe at least 3-4 of the 11 on the current pre-season roster are at some point of the process. So it will be an interesting week or so, one thing that could happen is that we don’t sign a buy before March 1st but keep in contact with him and sign him as soon as one of our roster players gets a green card.
I really don’t know, I haven’t been to any practices but if I had to pick between Steele, Bonfigli, Velasquez, and de Almeida I would think we would probably keep Steele or Velasquez. We will need more depth in the midfield this year with the losses there being larger in number than or situation at forward.
Because sometimes hose are the players you can sign to some lower price deals, we brought in some domestic guys, we sent them home, now we have brought in international guys, because we could have open slots for them.
Velasquez?
Looks like he was just signed. On your list above, he isn’t listed as an international. In your response to my question, though, you make it sound as though he would count as an international.
Any idea which it would be?
I think they just missed him
On the updated roster list that they sent out. I will check but I believe he is still going to be an international player, until he gets a green card (not sure if he has applied yet or not).
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