2007 Player Debuts

Updating last year's post, here's a look at the guys who made their MLS debut this year. There were 113 of them this year, the third highest total ever. That brings the total to 1,119 players who have played a competitive game for an MLS team. Debuts By Year 1996 241 1997 80 1998 93 1999 62 2000 75 2001 63 2002 54 2003 68 2004 63 2005 120 2006 87 2007 113 Total 1,119 No surprise that the three expansion years rank 1-2-3 after the first season, and that post-contraction saw the lowest total of new players. Non-Regular Season Players Of the 1,119, a total of 22 have not played in an MLS regular season game. One of those played in the playoffs (McKinley Tennyson) but almost all the others played in the Open Cup. This list has expanded greatly this eason due to MLS teams sending out more reserves (and playing for it), and fully half of that 22 are from the past year only. For example, the Houston Dynamo sent out five players to play at Charleston who didn't get in another match. Talent Breakdown Which of the new players were foreigners and which were rookies? I'm planning to go back and list both for each season so the foreign talent added can easily be compared. However, it's not that simple. There's also a third category: players who were on MLS rosters the previous year but didn't get playing time. They aren't officially considered rookies. And what about the case of players who come from the USL? Rather than worry about all that, I'm just going to break it down into two categories: Drafted & Outside. This is the new MLS talent for 2007: Drafted 1 Ashe, Corey 2007 SD 2 Banner, Mike 2007 SD 3 Boyens, Andrew 2007 SD 4 Burse, Ray 2006 SD 5 Byrne, Bryan 2007 SD 6 Caccavale, Sal 2007 Supp 7 Chabala, Mike 2006 SD 8 Colaluca, Nico 2007 SD 9 Cristman, Adam 2007 SD 10 Cummings, Omar 2007 SD 11 Cunliffe, John 2007 SD 12 Curtin, Jeff 2006 SD 13 Dello-Russo, Michael 2006 SD 14 Edu, Maurico 2007 SD 15 Evans, Brad 2007 SD 16 Findley, Robbie 2007 SD 17 Flood, Gary 2007 Supp 18 Hamilton, Anthony 2007 Supp 19 Harden, Ty 2007 SD 20 Harrington, Michael 2007 SD 21 Harvey, Jordan 2006 Supp 22 Hashimoto, Duke 2006 SD 23 Hatzke, Nick 2007 Supp 24 Hayden, John Michael 2007 SD 25 Helton, Kyle 2007 SD 26 Hemming, Tyler 2007 Supp 27 Hohlbein, Aaron 2007 Supp 28 Junge, Ryan 2007 Supp 29 Kimura, Kosuke 2007 Supp 30 Kirby, Dustin 2007 Supp 31 Kpene, Guy-Roland 2007 Supp 32 LaBrocca, Nick 2007 SD 33 Loftus, Chris 2007 Supp 34 Moloi, Mpho 2006 Supp 35 Monteiro, Jerson 2007 SD 36 Morsink, Kurt 2007 SD 37 North, Brad 2007 SD 38 Richards, Dane 2007 SD 39 Russolillo, Jordan 2006 SD 40 Seitz, Chris 2007 SD 41 Solorzano, Erasmo 2007 Supp 42 Soumare, Bakary 2007 SD 43 Telesford, Osei 2007 Supp 44 Thompson, Wells 2007 SD 45 Tudela, Josh 2007 SD 46 Ubiparipovic, Sinisa 2007 SD 47 Ustruck, Erik 2007 Supp 48 Wagner, Blake 2006 SD 49 Wallace, Anthony 2007 SD 50 Zayner, Jed 2006 SD So all the 2006 players here aren't considered rookies for this past season. Only 27/52 Superdraft picks played this year, including 11/13 in the first round. Arguez and Igwe were the two that didn't. However, that's a lot better that the Supplemental draft: only 14/52 played. Stephen Keel was signed in 2005 and waited almost two full years to make his debut for the Rapids; that has to be an MLS record. He did play on loan for Seattle, though. Outside 1 Addlery, Nicholas 2 Angel, Juan Pablo 3 Beckham, David 4 Blanco, Cuauhtemoc 5 Braz, Adam 6 Brennan, Jim 7 Brown, Roberto 8 Canizalez, Miguel 9 Casey, Conor 10 Caso, Mike 11 Colombano, Eloy 12 Conde, Wilman 13 Denilson 14 Dichio, Danny 15 Djekanovic, Srdjan 16 Doe, Francis 17 Emilio, Luciano 18 Espindola, Fabian 19 Flores, Jorge (2) 20 Fred 21 Gala, Gabe 22 Galindo, Maykel 23 Harmse, Kevin 24 Keel, Stephen 25 Kipre, Jean-Martial 26 Lancos, Chris 27 Lombardo, Andrea 28 Mansally, Abdoulie 29 Mantilla, Matias 30 Marinelli, Carlos 31 Melo, Joey 32 Menezes, Bruno 33 Merlin, Laurent 34 Moffat, Adam 35 Monsalve, David 36 Morales, Javier 37 Mupier, Mira 38 Nyassi, Sainey 39 Oka, Arsene 40 Oliveira, Willian 41 Osorno, Daniel 42 Pavon, Carlos 43 Peterson, Andrew 44 Pozniak, Chris 45 Randolph, Mike 46 Reda, Marco 47 Reyna, Claudio 48 Reynolds, Sam 49 Ricardinho 50 Ricchetti, Pablo 51 Robinson, Carl 52 Rogers, Robbie 53 Samuel, Collin 54 Schelotto, Guillermo Barros 55 Sesay, Israel 56 Stamatopoulos, Kenny 57 Tejada, Luis 58 Toja, Juan 59 Wanchope, Paulo 60 Waterreus, Ronald 61 Welsh, Andy 62 Xavier, Abel 63 Yinka Casal, Kasali Obviously, all these players aren't foreign, and a couple of them are even rookies. The rookies would include Flores and Sesay, and several of the others, especially the Canadians. Interesting note about Flores: it's the second time in MLS history that the same name has been used by two players. There was a Jorge Flores who played for Dallas from 1996-8. The other name is Chris Brown, the less famous version only played one game for Dallas in 1998 (although he was actually Chris Brown #1). Regarding foreign talent, obviously it's better than ever before. The post contraction years meant only a handful of new talent arrived each year. But this year, I would say the top ten foreigners would beat out any other year except maybe the first. Just imagine if every one had lived up to their potential! 2000 was pretty good too (Stoitchkov, Molnar, Matthaus, Valencia, Diallo), the first year of Garber's reign. Anyway, of these 63 "outsiders," 16 come from South America vs 8 from Europe. There's also 8 from Africa and 20 from CONCACAF, not including 11 Americans. Other than Canada, the biggest nationality was Argentina (7) followed by Brazil (6), after that 3 apiece by Colombia and England.