MLS Week One - Notable Stuff

1) Lots of news on the age records. I've updated the top 25 youngest players, oldest players, and oldest debuts for MLS. I suppose the biggest thing would be Kasey Keller's debut with the Sounders. He now holds the record for the oldest debut in league history (39.30), beating out Lothar Matthaus (39.01). Also, Pat Onstad is now the second oldest player in league history, passing Carlos Valderrama. At this rate, he'll pass Preki for the top spot sometime next season. And of course Tony Sanneh is now the top 25 list of oldest players. 2) How many MLS Cup champions have won their first game? The answer is "a lot." A total of 9/13 future title winners won at the first attempt of the season. Overall, the 13 champions are 9-2-2. The only ones to lose are 1996 DC and 2005 LA. So that's good news for Chicago, Chivas USA, New England, Seattle, and Toronto. RSL still to play their opener. 3) Fredy Montero is the hot name in MLS right now after scoring a brace in the season opener. With Montero and Juan Pablo Angel, there's a pretty good pair of Colombian strikers in the league. But when it comes to non-American goalscoring, Colombia is only second in MLS history. The top foreign country? El Salvador. They've only had six players in the league, but the quality's been good (Cerritos, Cienfuegos, Diaz Arce, Zarco). The reason I wanted to mention this is that Colombia was only 9 goals behind El Salvador entering the season (220-211), and that number is now 7. So it's just a matter of time before we have a new foreign leader. Where's Mexico? 7th, right behind Jamaica. 4) By my count, 29/60 draft picks were on an opening day roster. However, that does include 14 who were listed as senior roster players including several drafted in the later rounds. Last year, only a couple guys were in that position. I know Brian Edwards was one, and I think Shea Salinas and Eric Brunner were too. So it appears that many of the extra senior roster spots are going to rookies. Let's look at the draft positions. The highest drafted player to fail to make a roster was Ryan Maxwell of New England. He was drafted with the last pick of the first round (15th), but his age (25) worked against him. Brad Ring (17th) is injured and out for the year, while Babajide Ogunbiyi (18th) didn't show up for camp and will test his luck in Europe. If you were drafted after the first round, your chances were 15/45 = 33% to make a roster. I believe the only 2009 undrafted rookies on rosters are Yohance Marshall (LA), Zack Simmons (NE), and Alec Dufty (NY).