WASHINGTON, D.C. - D.C. United announced today the list of the club's protected and unprotected players in advance of Major League Soccer's 2004 Expansion Draft, which will be held Friday, November 19th at 4:00 p.m. ET and televised live on ESPNEWS. Current MLS teams may protect 12 players on their Senior Roster.
The following are United's 12 protected players:
Forwards: Jaime Moreno, Alecko Eskandarian, Santino Quaranta
Midfielders: Brian Carroll, Josh Gros, Ben Olsen, Dema Kovalenko, Christian Gomez
Defenders: Bryan Namoff, Mike Petke, Brandon Prideaux Goalkeeper: Nick Rimando
The following players were left unprotected by United:
Forward: Thiago Martins
Midfielders: Earnie Stewart, Eliseo Quintanilla, Tim Lawson, Kevin Ara
Defenders: Ryan Nelsen, Ezra Hendrickson
Goalkeeper: Troy Perkins
Project-40 players Freddy Adu, David Stokes, Jason Thompson and Developmental player Nana Kuffour are automatically protected in the 2004 Expansion Draft.
"Creating our protected and unprotected lists was not an easy process for us," said United Technical Director Dave Kasper. "We don't want to lose any of our players from this year's championship team, but this is the reality of expansion that we are faced with."
Current MLS teams can only lose a maximum of three players in the Expansion Draft. Also, once a player has been claimed from a current team's non-protected roster, that same team may move a player from its non-protected roster to its protected roster. The rights to unprotected players who are not selected by Real Salt Lake or CD Chivas USA in the Expansion Draft will be retained by their original clubs.
