Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Argentinian Rumors and Superdraft Preview

As I sit here watching the Dakar Rally in (partially) Argentina I figured now as a good time to mention the rumors of two Argentinian players being linked to the Rapids.
  • Lucas Pittinari, a 23 year old deep-lying/defensive midfielder.  The rumor is that Pittinari would come on loan (actually the rumor is that the deal is done) for 2015 with a $1.5 million option to buy after the season.  He is currently with Belgrano in the Argentine Primera Division where he's appeared 67 times since 2009.  He also played with Belgrano's youth team since he was 15.
  • Juan Edgardo Ramirez, a 21 year old attacking midfielder.  He currently plays for Argentinos Juniors in the Primera B Nacional (the second division) where he's made 50 appearances over the last 3 seasons.  Last year he played alongside Riquelme, so hopefully he picked up some things from the creative playmaker.
Neither of these guys jump off the page as the missing piece but neither of them scream mistake either.  If accurate I don't love that price to buy Pittinari, that's a lot to spend on a pretty unknown defensive midfielder.

Another source for new players hits on Thursday with the annual Superdraft.  You figure without lousy finish we'd have a pretty good draft position.  That would be wrong.  In a stunningly poor move we traded our first round pick to Portland.  for Danny Mwanga.  He of the 19 appearances, 1 assist, and 0 goals in two seasons before he was cut and now signed by Orlando City.  We do have Dallas' worst first round pick from their "Don't accuse us of the tampering we committed when signing Pareja" payoff which means we're back in the first round...at pick 19.  Its a big fall from 5 to 19, especially in a draft that's looking weaker than some past seasons.  We also have our natural 5th pick in the 2nd round.

So barring trades we can expect to add two players on Thursday and possibly two Argentinian players in the near future.  We still need to make some big impact signings and with camp opening in the enar future, they need to be sooner rather than later.

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