Speaking of hometown discounts, Ricardo Clark responded to a fan's tweet by saying that he has agreed to a new contract. My guess is that it's less than what he's on now.

Seems like Dynamo had their Supporter's Summit. Back in the day, it was essentially just a forum for the front office to talk about the team and for fan's to ask questions, voice concerns, etc. I think it was open to supporter's groups and various season ticket holders.

Anyway, I'm hearing that there were several pieces of information revealed there. This is second hand but I think is mostly accurate.

• Williams and OBG are virtually assured of returning next season
• Davis is still in contract negotiations
• While the exact number was not revealed, the Dynamo say they did not give up much allocation money in the deal with the Union that brought Wenger and Maidana over.
• The team is pursuing 2 "well-known" international players. One holding midfielder and one center back.

Make of that what you will.

I choose to have unrealistically high expectations.

This is a Texas A&M site, after all. Anything else is folly.

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Maidana is guaranteed $212,000 and Wenger is guaranteed $285,000 (!). And we gave them some allocation money (who knows how much). So my guess is that we just tied up at least 700k under the cap. I do no think those players are worth that kind of salary hit.

You could pretty much kiss Brad Davis good bye. Unless he does a Brian Ching hometown discount, he's gone.

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I could live with Miadana's salary hit, I had no idea Wenger was getting that type of money in Philly. No wonder they sucked. Wenger is not worth that type of money based on past performance.

I'm a little less happy with the deal now.

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Maidana is guaranteed $212,000 and Wenger is guaranteed $285,000 (!).

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WOW

I'm so used to the other pro sports numbers. 200k seems like not even a drop in a bucket.

Anyone here work downtown and can go to the Dynamo Luncheon tomorrow at noon?

Would be interested in what they have to say but that's too far a drive for me.

The Dynamo sale went through! Independence!

Let's see how Mr. Brener does. If I'm not mistaken, the new owner was announced on the 10 year anniversary of the announcement that San Jose would move to Houston.

Also, OBG, Rico, and Williams have officially re-signed.

all three are solid signings

Anyone remember what the international player limit is? I want to say 7 but not sure...and of course you can trade those spots so you could theoretically have more or less.

We have 23 players (if you count Miranda) signed for next year with 6 of them taking up international roster spots. Given that the word is we're chasing 2 international players, I'm assuming I'm either wrong about the limit or we've added a spot.

Charly Flores and Christian Lucatero sign with RGV. Let's see how they do in the USL.

I remember it being 8 international spots.

Bradley Bourgeois signed to a HG contract by the Dynamo. He'll be 22 a month into the 2016 season so he's not exactly young but nice to see another HG player signed. Right now, he's probably the 4th CB which means he could stay with the 1st team I guess but wouldn't be shocked to see him sent to RGV especially if a veteran CB is acquired later in the off-season.

Speaking of the USL team I was poking around the Toros website (our USL team) and I noticed they are also starting a development academy in the valley. We will be fielding U-16 and U-14 teams this spring.

I'm a lot more optimistic with some of the comments from Brener and the amount of investment in youth players that in 5 years the Dynamo could build a development structure to be proud of.

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Apparently Bruin was looking at options in Belgium and France. He had discussions with the team and said that if it was going to be a long rebuild, he wanted to leave. I guess they convinced him it wouldn't be so he re-signed.

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Speaking of the USL team I was poking around the Toros website (our USL team) and I noticed they are also starting a development academy in the valley. We will be fielding U-16 and U-14 teams this spring.

I'm a lot more optimistic with some of the comments from Brener and the amount of investment in youth players that in 5 years the Dynamo could build a development structure to be proud of.

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The Dynamo started a South Texas Academy (or something like that) long before RGV but I can't think of a single thing that came from it other than maybe a small amount of Dynamo brand awareness in south Texas. Let's hope these new RGV youth teams will actually produce what I thought/hoped the South Texas Academy would produce.

I didn't know that. It does say on the website that this teams rivals will be teams in the Development Academy. So if that is true it should be a higher quality program because there is an application process to get an academy team accepted into the DA.

Davis to KC confirmed.

2nd and 3rd rounders hardly ever pan out

Is this just a salary dump?

Even with his older age I thought we would get more for Davis.

End of an era for the Dynamo. Brad has been here since the beginning and has been a face of the franchise.

Might have been a good move if we didnt have a group of monkeys rolling dices to make decisions. It frees up salary that they can fill with crap players. I wonder if there is another player named Alex available...

If this happened a year ago, I'd be convince they were trying to make the team crap so they could move it to LA.

Impossible to know if trading Brad was a good move until the season starts. Strictly from an on the field perspective, he's 34 so he's probably about to hit a pretty steep decline ability wise. The move is being labeled as a salary dump that gives the Dynamo flexibility...which is all well and good but given the opaqueness in MLS finances, we have no idea how this money will be used. Did this move simply balance the books after taking on Wenger and Maidana's salary (we also had to send GAM and TAM)? Or is this a move that actually frees up money for adding another player? If so, who will that other player be? Good? Crap? Somewhere in between?

At the end of the day, if the Dynamo are successful next season, this will probably be a good move on the field. Off the field, it will never be received as a good move due to Davis' history with the club and connection with the fans but on the field should trump off the field. If the Dynamo struggle again next season, it's going to be hard to swallow watching a club legend play for one of your biggest rivals while you're farting around the bottom of the conference.

In other news, the Dynamo added Jalil Anibaba to the roster. Signed him as a free agent...one of the first in MLS history. As of now, the 2016 roster looks like this:

GK: Deric, Willis, Brown
D: Anibaba, Beasley, Bourgeois, Horst, Hunter, Rodriguez, Sarkodie, Williams
M: Alex, Clark, OBG, Lovejoy, Lucatero, Maidana, Miranda, Olabiyi, Memo, Steinberger,
F: Barnes, Bruin, Manotas, Torres, Wenger

GK is set. I believe there were rumors Sarkodie could be shipped out as he lost his 1st team time to Williams. Bourgeois and Anibaba add depth but I think the back 4 that ended last season is the sames that starts 2016. Wenger is listed as a forward but he'll probably play as a winger along with Barnes. Maidana clearly will be penciled in as a starter. I don't think Miranda's loan has officially been extended but he's still listed on the roster.

All in all, a lot of additions but ones that seemed to primarily improve depth/options. Other than Maidana (and potentially Wenger) I don't know that any of the additions are clear starters.

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GK: Deric, Willis, Brown
D: Anibaba, Beasley, Bourgeois, Horst, Hunter, Rodriguez, Sarkodie, Williams
M: Alex, Clark, OBG, Lovejoy, Lucatero, Maidana, Miranda, Olabiyi, Memo, Steinberger,
F: Barnes, Bruin, Manotas, Torres, Wenger

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This team looks awful on paper.

It doesn't look significantly better than the below average team that finished outside of the playoffs so...yeah, you're probably right.

So, ESPN is reporting Stu Holden will be at the US Nat's January camp as a non-roster guest.

Hadn't played in a couple of years, but half of the Stu that played his best under Coyle in Bolton would look good running alongside Clark in midfield.

I love Stu but he's 30 and hasn't played in years. Expecting anything from him at this point would be foolish.

Speaking of Stu, this is a great article about him and his future soccer endeavors. He apparently has a standing invitation to join Dynamo training camp.

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/no-one-knows-if-stu-holden-is-still-a-professional-soccer-player-including-stu-holden

And for their pick in the 1st round the Dynamo take Jack Squat.

When did we trade away our 1st spot?

I found it. It was in the Philly trade for Maidana and Wenger.

Dynamo draft defender Ivan Magalhaes in the 2nd round...FWIW. Which probably isn't much.