Marcus Hahneman "On His Way To Seattle" Says Red Bulls GM

I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that Marcus Hahnemann will go through allocation. I can understand why Hans Backe doesn’t think he’s getting him, and it makes sense unless they were willing to make a trade, but don’t take Backe’s word that Hahnemann is as good as in Seattle.

I may be too sanguine about what life after Kasey will look like, but at this point I would be a bit leery about bringing in a high-priced keeper as it would inevitably mean making sacrifices in other parts of the team. I think I would rather develop one of our young keepers and see if we can get by with a lot less salary devoted in goal.

Tally Hall for example. Let another team take a risk on an old keeper.

I think that New Your Red Bulls know that it isn’t necessary to pay DP money for a goalkeeper in the MLS. That said they do need to do something in the GK positon.

I don’t think Seattle should take Hahnemann ether, he’s a great GK, but I’d like to see them find a younger player who could stick around with the team for a longer period then 3 to 4 years.

For those unfamiliar with the allocation rule, I’ll start by saying it as nothing to do with allocation money which is special money clubs are “given” to spend on players outside of the salary cap.

The allocation rule however, is a system of distributing current and former US national team players to league teams. Basically, at the start of every season, they create the allocation list based on the previous season’s performance. The worst peforming team is at the top of the list, and the SS winner is last. Any expansion teams are placed at the front of the list. Then, over the season, as US National team players filter into the league, each team still on the list gets an opportunity to take the player or pass and stay on the list for the next one. If they take a player, they are removed from the list (or moved to the end, I can’t remember). The allocation list is how the Sounders were able to get Kasey Keller in our inaugural season (and to-date I believe is the only player we’ve acquired through the allocation process).

My problem with this process is that it’s now become much easier for clubs to persue desirable foreign players than it is players born in the US. This should never be true for a US based league. Basically, the allocation rule gets in the way of US players getting to play for teams or in cities they want to play in. The league is essentially saying to all US players, “we really want you back in our league, but if you come back, you’re going to have to play for the worst clubs in the league, sorry.” I say this because, in practice, only 3-6 US players come to the league each season.

Sometimes you even get the embarrassing debacle that we had with Felihaber where he signed with the league and didn’t know for several days which team he would play for. Chivas and the Union passed on him before the Revs finally took him. Way to make him feel welcome MLS. In a matter of 3 allocation picks, he didn’t know if his new home would be on the west coast or east coast. Do you think he had a preference? Probably, but what he wants doesn’t matter with this rule.

Clearly Hahnemann would prefer to come home to Seattle and finish his career where he grew up, just like Keller did. Unfortunately, the league rules don’t allow for this without Seattle having to give something up in a trade to move up the allocation order. If he were a foreign player, this wouldn’t be necessary. He basically being punished because he’s from the US.

I think they should do away with the whole allocation list process and just mix US players in with foreign players and expand the discovery list. They should also have limits (and maybe they already do) on how long a team can keep players on their discovery list without signing them.

What’s the current allocation order?