The Revs signed fourth round pick Joshua Smith today. He's a very low-profile Germerican and one of those guys who washed out of an academy (Karlsruhe), played semi-pro in the Regionalliga, and eventually decided to play NCAA soccer. So he's old as dirt for a draft pick, just short of his 25th birthday. He's a big CB who supposedly looked good in camp. We do need the depth, even if Smith is rather unlikely to be a world-beater.
The Revs have seven open roster spots, but Mike Burns has said they are done for now. I think this team should be a little better than last year, but I think there are a lot of fair questions about whether Heaps can get the most out of the group and the team is pretty screwed if Kouassi gets hurt again or turns out to not be very good post-injury. I'm in the camp that says we need an athletic DM (like Koffie last year) and Caldwell as a shuttler in the diamond across from a more attack-minded player like Fagundez or Rowe. If the diamond consists of Caldwell at the base, Rowe and Fagundez wide, and Nguyen (or even Agudelo, which Heaps has tried) at the tip, I don't think that's enough defense. An injured or ineffective Kouassi means that we have to hope Caldwell can cover a shitload of ground because the only alternatives would be to insert Watson, Kobayashi, or Herivaux at the base, all of whom are not acceptable options.
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Dallas is down in Panama for the quarterfinal second leg against Árabe Unido. Dallas is carrying a 4-0 aggregate lead, so they can afford to rotate the squad a bit ahead of MLS season openers this weekend. It's nice to see an MLS team make life easy for themselves on the road in CONCACAF for once. Unless there is a choke of epic proportions, they will play Pachuca in the semifinal.