VANCOUVER, BC – With Wednesday's Expansion Draft looming large (the event will be streamed live on MLSsoccer.com at 11 a.m. PT), Vancouver Whitecaps FC head coach Carl Robinson admitted he's spent many restless nights deliberating over which 11 players would be on his protected list.
Robinson ran through all the various permutations before finalizing his list on Monday. Should he protect all his assets? Should he leave some of the older and higher-paid players unprotected in the hope that they are less attractive to Orlando City and New York City FC? Did he undervalue or overvalue some of his player's worth to others in MLS?
After weeks of mulling it all over, he'll soon find out if his approach worked.
"All decisions were tough," Robinson told reporters on Monday. "It's like a game of chess trying to predict how the right way to play it is. The reality is, I've not got a clue of the best way to do it."
"Obviously it'll be taken out of our hands now. We feel it's the right decision for our club because we protect assets that we've got, although we do leave some assets unprotected."
New York City FC and Orlando City SC will have nine Vancouver players available to them in Wednesday's draft and Robinson admitted that there are some players on his unprotected list that he is worried about losing and could still figure in Vancouver's plans moving forward.
"There's a number of players that we've declined options on that we want to try and bring back," Robinson said. "It's important that we look after our good players. I don't want to lose [anyone] but unfortunately that's the way of the world, and unfortunately I probably will lose a good player. I'm just lucky that maybe we've got a good eye and I can find another good player."
Seasoned veterans Andy O'Brien, 35, and Mauro Rosales, 33, are two of the players that the 'Caps chose not to protect. As much as Robinson would love to have both of them at the club for the next campaign to continue guiding the development of his younger players, he's chosen to take the gamble that their age and salaries will be a deterent to the two MLS new boys.
But he's fully aware that it's a gamble that may not pay off.
"They're both good players," Robinson admitted. "There's a number of good players who for one reason or another can't get picked up, won't get protected, whether they're out of contract, whether their number's too high."
"They're two players and there's a possibility that I could lose them, which will not be good, but it's something you have to decide on – what the directive of the club and the coaching staff is – so we've made our bed, now we have to lie in it."
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