The Yorkies' Regular Features

Starting 11       The Word       The Matchup       After 90       The South Stand Report

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

LETTERS FROM CAMP: LuluLaba - Reds' DP off to Vancouver Whitecaps on loan

"Me and this giant ball will take care of your boy"

Of all the options available in the Matias Laba 2014 exit strategy, a loan deal within the league wasn't too bad. The fact that it looks as if he is going to a national rival puts a wee bit of a sting into its tail.


According to The Province tonight, The Reds and The Caps have agreed to a loan deal under the new MLS intraleague loan rule that will see the midfield maestro spend the year at BC Place. Whether or not he would be allowed to play against TFC (especially in Canadian Championship matches) is so far unclear. In most parts of the world, a player on loan rarely faces his parent club... but this is MLS so who the eff knows?

Having Laba come back and bite TFC's asses in 2014 would suck. Seeing The Caps, who TFC have built a nice rivalry with, succeed with Laba would suck. Losing Laba permanently would have sucked so much harder.

Under a loan agreement, Laba will presumably return to TFC in 2015 and no longer fall under the DP category. In other words, a year of seasoning under a pretty good ex-defensive mid in the form of Caps' manager Carl Robinson then back as a part of a midfield that will feature a young core of Michael Bradley, Jonathan Osorio and himself.

It would have been a touch nicer if he could have been loaned to a Chivas or San Jose, deep in the west where we rarely see them, but it is what it is. Between the choice of Laba being sold back to South America, traded within MLS for some crappy draft and allocation stupidity or spending one year sleeping with our yoga pants-wearing neighbour - we'll take it.

See you in a year Matias... pretend you're injured when Vancouver play TFC please.




No comments:

Post a Comment