NWSL Expansion: Reign Lose Arianna Romero

The Houston Dash Expansion Draft is complete and Seattle gets out relatively unscathed. Their only loss is Mexican allocated player Arianna Romero, who just graduated from Nebraska and was just assigned to the Reign last week in the re-allocation for the 2014 season. That means they avoid the worse cases of losing exposed US national team player Stephanie Cox or two non-US-subsidized players. And while Romero is a talented, young defender and a star in college, as a pro she almost certainly projects to fullback — where Seattle will be starting Cox and Elli Reed.

Elsewhere, the hardest hit team was probably the Portland Thorns, who lost both Meleana Shim and Becky Edwards — two regular starters on last year's championship team. The Dash ended up picking only one US allocated player — Meghan Klingenberg from Boston — which allowed them to take two players from three teams: Portland, Sky Blue (who lost Danesha Adams and Brittany Bock), and last-place Washington (who lost Tiffany McCarty and Kika Toulouse).

With the expansion draft complete, rosters are unfrozen and teams are once again able to make moves. With recent history as a guide and with a small Seattle roster, I'd expect to see more moves for the team heading into next week's amateur draft.