By J Hutcherson - WASHINGTON, DC (Jan 10, 2012) US Soccer Players -- Whatever happens on Thursday at Major League Soccer's SuperDraft (12pm ET - ESPN2), Montreal has already made the biggest player move. That happened in the expansion draft, when they opted against taking a player's wishes into account and used a pick on then-Houston forward Brian Ching.
When Ching was left off of Houston's protected list, he made it clear that retirement was his first option should Montreal pick him. Ching has received substantial media attention in Houston as the face of professional soccer in that city, developing the kind of public sportsman reputation usually associated with players in the bigger team sports. From all appearances, he has a future in that city and the thought from all sides was he'd end his playing career in a Dynamo shirt.
Instead, he became a member - at least on paper - of the Impact, almost immediately letting the public know he informed them prior to the draft that he wouldn't be leaving Houston. With that public pressure in mind, Houston made the choice to leave him unprotected and, matching gamesmanship with gamesmanship, Montreal went ahead and picked him anyway.
At the time, the post-expansion draft scenario seemed obvious. Houston would be giving something up to get their star player back. Ching's value in the market alone had to be worth that. This is Major League Soccer, where market-dependent stars are somewhat of a rarity. Ching worked to get to that point, doing the appearances and making the connections that made him the face of the club to many who probably couldn't recognize anyone else on the Dynamo roster.
For a team undergoing a lengthy transition from a core group of star players to just Ching, how he treated his role was important. Not important enough to negotiate a no trade clause for a senior player or protect him in the expansion draft, but that was a defect that was supposed to never show. Ching's public stance was supposed to be enough to keep him a Dynamo right up until it wasn't.
Montreal's choice wasn't immediately popular across MLS, even as fans and pundits wondered why Houston created a scenario where it was possible. Dueling gamesmanship between an established even if admittedly struggling club and the latest expansion team lacked the entertainment value of rivals trying to one-up each other. For their part, Montreal and their coach Jesse Marsch didn't spike the football. Their comments following the selection were carefully considered, options were left open, and that included what eventually happened.
After a few weeks, and with early retirement the only realistic option, the face of Houston soccer decided to become a member of the Montreal Impact. Is this good for the League? Only if other clubs needed a harsh reminder to protect their stars the next time an expansion draft comes around. Houston is worse off now than they were before the expansion draft to be sure, but they've got the opening of a nice new stadium to carry their story through 2012.
In their first big MLS-era move, Montreal won and somewhat handedly. Not only did they get a player that should be their starter when they play Vancouver in their first MLS game that counts on March 10th, they've got a player that has already shown what he can do to build the sport locally. Ching has been as committed to where he grew up in Hawaii as he's been to Houston where he's said he expects to live when his playing career ends. With that in mind, his skills are transferable as long as the motivation is in place. It's just the kind of person he is.
Ching is in rare company when it comes to building the professional game in his market. Like Ben Olsen in DC, he's the soccer invitation at events where soccer might otherwise have been overlooked. And like Olsen, he's a guy that the local public want to see do well preferably in that same community.
Montreal's rewrite of the Ching story still chafes from a local ambassador perspective. The expectation that Ching does what he does from an outreach perspective in Montreal might be a bit of a stretch. He's all but defined himself as a Houston sports guy in the same way that those other pro sports ambassadors might play the end of their career in another market before returning 'home.'
From a competitive standpoint, it's a move on par with the maneuvering the expansion Chicago Fire did at the expense of the LA Galaxy prior to the 1998 season. Those moves made Chicago competitive over an expansion season, a team that couldn't be taking for granted. Jesse Marsch experienced that firsthand, traded from DC United to that Fire team for a player and a second-round draft pick. With that in mind, Montreal has already shown that they're able to use the MLS system to get an elite player. How they conduct the draft might be the next example that they're set to play a different expansion game than what we saw last season.
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