Give credit to the Montreal Impact for taking a shot on Louisville's Paolo DelPiccolo in the second round of last Thursday's MLS SuperDraft, because it turns out they could have landed a Bundesliga talent.
DelPiccolo, a box-to-box central midfielder for the Cardinals the past four years, officially put pen to paper with Eintracht Frankfurt of the Bundesliga on Tuesday, as reported on the club's website. DelPiccolo had been on trial for nearly two weeks, and will begin his journey with the U-23 side.
"I'm extremely excited to be starting my career at Eintracht Frankfurt," DelPiccolo, who's played for the US U-20 and U-18 teams, told MLSsoccer.com via his agent. "There is a good environment here, and I feel like people believe in me. I can't wait to get started."
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Frankfurth currently sit fourth in the Bundesliga.
The Impact gambit with DelPiccolo mirrors that of the Houston Dynamo in the 2009 SuperDraft, when they took Hermann Trophy winner Marcus Tracy with a late pick despite Tracy signing with Aalborg in Denmark. Tracy would likely have gone as high as No. 2 in that draft.
Houston held his rights for two years, and when Tracy eventually came to MLS last summer, he landed in San Jose via weighted lottery. The Impact will hold DelPiccolo's rights for two years as well. Should he return to MLS after then without having established himself as a US national team member, he would go into the lottery as well.
