Schelotto “Trade”: Making Room on Two Fronts

By: Jeff | April 12th, 2007

While the Columbus Crew front office won’t comment on the status of the attempt to bring Boca Juniors midfielder Guillermo Barros Scheletto to Crew Stadium, one outlet in Argentina has declared the deal done. “Done” may not equate with “signed,” so maybe that’s the hold up.

Something in that first link, however, suggests another plausible hold-up: e.g members of the Crew front office are pulling closed-door all-nighters to figure out how to make room for Schelotto. Here’s how the fun breaks down:

“Under MLS rules, the Crew is allowed to have four foreign players who are 25 years or older on its roster. Currently, it has three, but all 18 slots on its senior roster are full. Columbus has two open spots for developmental players who don’t count against its senior roster limit. It could make room for Schelotto through a trade or by demoting a player.”

It’s that last decision - e.g. whether to give one player a 50%+ pay-cut, or whether to part way with one of their surplus midfielders - that I suspect prompts those all-nighters; and I bet the discussion centers on how to break the news. If I were the guy picking through the roster and scratching “X’s” next to names, I’d be a bit more wary of keeping around a guy I just stiffed (sorry, demoted) than of letting someone go outright. As such, my first “X” would go next to Stephani Miglioranzi’s name. Why? Injury, m’boy. Whatever his upside, Miglioranzi played all of three times for the Galaxy last year and he started this season on the injury list as well. As people like to say, it’s nothing personal, kid, just business.

There’s something else in this as well. What happens to a player like Ned “Severus” Grabavoy? The way I saw it, he pulled the strings for the Crew offense last weekend - and drew plenty of happy notices in doing it (check “first impressions” and “Three Stars”) - but I’m guessing he would be cede that role to Schelotto if he arrives. Maybe Grabavoy has better chops as a scrapper than I know - or maybe he’d lose the starting role to Danny O’Rourke. What would come of “our Ned?”

In the end, maybe nothing will happen to Ned. But adding Schelotto to the mix does further complicate the Crew’s midfield mix. As much as I hope the Crew gets their Argentine, I don’t envy Schmid the game-day roster migraines.

UPDATE: Apparently, I didn’t wander long enough around the Web today; a site called Hexagonal Blog offered some thoughts on where Schelotto might fit in the Crew midfield: on the wing. OK. Wait! Then what about Eddie Gaven?