The Verde Report: Upcoming Expansion Draft Conjures Bad Memories for Austin FC
Charlotte FC takes the "new kid" mantle in the MLS
By Eric Goodman, Fri., Dec. 10, 2021
Were you ever the new kid in school growing up? Do you remember that wonderful day when the next out-of-towner walked through the classroom door for the first time, unknowingly and involuntarily transferring the "new kid" burden off your shoulders and onto theirs?
Austin FC, meet Charlotte FC: Major League Soccer's 28th franchise and the taker of your burden.
On Tuesday, Charlotte FC will begin its expansion offseason just as Austin FC did one year ago: with the MLS Expansion Draft. CFC will select up to five players from a list of unprotected MLS veterans from across the league. If the Queen City club is smart, it will leave with a much better haul than Austin FC managed last December.
As we attempt to understand why Austin FC struggled so mightily in its first season, the autopsy has to begin with the 2020 MLS Expansion Draft. The theoretical goal was simple: Assemble a foundation of veteran talent upon which to build the rest of the inaugural roster. Instead, Austin FC got it all horribly wrong.
With over 150 unprotected players at their disposal, Sporting Director Claudio Reyna, head coach Josh Wolff, and the ATX brain trust drafted striker Danny Hoesen, winger Jared Stroud, goalkeeper Brady Scott, midfielder Joe Corona, and defender Kamal Miller.
Incredibly, only one of those five players, Hoesen, remains under contract with the club heading toward 2022. The high-priced Dutch striker is coming off a disastrous 2021 in which he played just 311 ineffective minutes before a hip injury ended his season in May, but at least he's still here.
As for the other four? It gets ugly. Corona played 30 games in 2021 ... for the Houston Dynamo. Austin FC failed to come to terms with Corona on a contract following the expansion draft and the Dynamo swooped in via the slightly different Re-Entry Draft one week later. Scott spent the season on loan at Memphis 901 of the USL Championship and made just seven starts. Stroud, the only one of the five expansion draftees to make a legitimate impact on the club in 2021, to the tune of one goal and four assists, had his 2022 contract option declined by the club and is now a free agent.
And then there's Miller. This is where it gets tricky. Immediately upon selecting the versatile Canadian defender, Austin FC traded him to CF Montreal for $225,000 in General Allocation Money and the 11th overall pick in the 2021 MLS SuperDraft (which became defender Freddy Kleemann). It's difficult to say how bad of a decision this was without knowing exactly how the GAM was spent, but it surely hurt Verde fans to watch Miller become a regular starter for the red-hot Canadian national team during World Cup Qualification, all while Austin FC struggled desperately for warm bodies at center back in the later half of the season.
We now know Reyna is no fan of the process in general, despite also shepherding NYCFC through an expansion draft in 2014. He recently told The Athletic, "Yeah, I think the allocation money is more valuable [than selecting players]."
This time around, Austin FC is at risk of being on the opposite end of the Expansion Draft. The club can protect up to 12 players (not counting Dani Pereira and Owen Wolff, who are automatically protected as youngsters). Everyone else is fair game, should any Verde players tickle Charlotte FC's fancy.
However, with the assumption that key players Sebastián Driussi, Brad Stuver, Diego Fagundez, Cecilio Domínguez, Zan Kolmani, Moussa Djitté, Alex Ring, Tomás Pochettino, Jhohan Romaña, Julio Cascante, Nick Lima, and (maybe?) Rodney Redes will all be protected, it's tough to imagine Charlotte falling in love with anyone else from El Tree 1.0.
