All for you, Brian

This has been reported earlier in other places, but like most United fans should, I tend not to believe anything I read until I read it here. After five seasons playing for Fulham in the EPL, Brian McBride has announced his intentions of returning home to play in the MLS.

Here's where I'm confused though, and maybe one of my intelligent readers (HA!) can explain this to me... Goff is saying that Toronto is first in line for McHead's rights because they are at the top of the allocation table. Well mlsnet.com's Allocation List link still shows Columbus at the top, but with an expiration date of 5/15/08. But more importantly, on their main Roster Regulations page, you find this: "The allocations will be ranked in reverse order of finish for the 2007 season, taking playoff performance into account. San Jose, as an expansion team, will have the top-ranked allocation at the beginning of 2008."

So I don't quite understand why Toronto and not San Jose has the rights to McBride, but we'll take that as the truth, since "MLS Rules" is pretty much an oxymoron anyway since they don't always seem to matter all that much and can be revised at any time.

What's up with the whole damn allocation system anyway? Is there any other league of any sport in the world with a system like this? Isn't it a bit... um... communist? If more than one team is interested in a player, assuming that each team has enough salary cap space and/or a designated player slot if necessary, then I would think that whoever is willing to pay more for a player should be able to get him. That's capitalism baby! I guess Don Garber didn't learn about dollar votes in ECON-101?

Anyway, regardless of who has the rights to McBride, the word on the street is that he wants to play for Chicago, and that the Fire want him. With him, the Fire instantly become the favorites to win MLS Cup.

But I want him here.

Brian McBride could really be the perfect complement to Marcelo Gallardo where Luciano Emilio has failed. He is a bit more physical, he knows how to position himself well to receive crosses, and he knows how to finish them. He also brings some of the heart that we've all been complaining has been missing this year. But how might DC go about acquiring such a player? We don't have a lot of young talented players to offer, although I wouldn't mind losing Quavas Kirk. I doubt Toronto would be very interested in acquiring a midget, or one of our several crappy goaltenders.

I would trade...

Hold up. I'm about to be really controversial. Ahem.

Fred.

Yes, I dare offer up one of the most popular players on United not named Olsen! Fred has never been quite the best suited for the left wing, and would surely be a better option than Rickets or Robert in Toronto. And others might disagree, but I would say that left wing is actually one of the very few positions on the field where we have a slight bit of depth with Burch and Cordeiro.

The only problem then is what do you do with Emilio? McBride would probably command the Designated Player salary that we've presently delivered to Emilio for unknown reasons. I'm not really ready to deal last year's MVP to another MLS team, because we all know that he can still be very dangerous.

I doubt this is really possible, but a McBride/Emilio/Gallardo combination would be absolutely lethal. Ah well. A man can dream, right?