Sounders and MLS notes for your Monday

As the season rapidly approaches, with roster compliance day coming even quicker (now Wed @5PM EDT) things are getting hectic around the League.

The Fire Waved Jon Busch, while the Sounders have waived Chris Eylander.

Goalkeeper Chris Eylander Waived

RENTON, WASH.- The Seattle Sounders FC waived goalkeeper Chris Eylander, the team announced today.

Eylander, 26, made his first and only appearance in MLS on April 18, 2009, starting in a 2-0 loss to Chivas USA.  He also played in a 4-1 U.S. Open Cup play-in victory over Real Salt Lake. He signed with Seattle on January 6, 2009.

That's a pretty good keeping tandem. There are other waivers going on, most would have happened a few weeks ago, but it will be interesting to see if an MLS quality team could be build from Cox, Busch, Eylander, DiRimando, etc.

 DC United has signed their second academy player in as many years. They may decide to carry 4 keepers on their 24+4 squad though.

Sister site RSLSoapBox has polls going for both the Eastern and Western Conference. Go Vote. Despite both a DC and a New York blog being on the network the Crew lead the East. RSL currently leads the West.

MLS claims to be the most diverse of all US team sports (big 4 plus themselves), and they have their latest map to prove it. Yet, last year as a league they did not use almost 50% of available international slots. There's room to get better MLS.

Here are two quotes from Sigi on how the labor issues will force most teams to seriously evaluate the situation.

(On the resolution to MLS labor dispute . . .)"Knowing that that is behind you, knowing that there’s a five year agreement and we can all move forward. Obviously these next three days are going to be full of a lot of decisions for a lot of teams and a lot of players because obviously the ground rules for guaranteed contracts, et cetera have changed and each team needs to look at their own individual situation and how that affects them. Knowing that it’s behind us, knowing that we have a full season of soccer ahead of us and many more years in a sport that will continue to grow is a great relief."  

(On roster compliance . . .) "I was thinking about activating myself to play but I don’t think I’m fit enough yet. So we will have to wait on that one. I think we are fairly close. Obviously there are some discussions we need to have today with some people but we are pretty close. I think we might be a lot closer than some other people are."

The details are still VERY fuzzy. The salary cap is going up a bit, the floor is going up a lot, and there are conflicting reports concerning the Developmental Slots.

Thursday the Sounders host First Kick and the expansion Union of Philadelphia who Steve Davis projects to be a typical expansion side and finish last. The Fire and Crew are still the class of that Conference and are probably the only two that should compete with the top of the stacked West. Ives had RSL, Houston, Seattle and LA as all being capable of winning the MLS Cup this year.

Lastly, for those of you in the North Sound I was on KRKO today at 5:25 PM. It is likely that it will be a regular thing, as they have already built me an open. The Fish, Jeff Aaron, and I worked together in a former life, and I'll be known as SuperDave, because that was once my nickname. Still working on details with Dick Fain at KJR.