Major League Soccer Transfer Rumors 2011-2012: David Bentley Possibly Seeking MLS Loan

For more on the potential signing, be sure to check out Red Bulls blog Once a Metro.

“This is something that is really interesting for David, as it will also get him fit through the summer,” Bentley’s agent, Rob Segal, told MLSsoccer.com. “He would like to go there on loan as soon as possible.”

Bentley was the next big thing in English soccer when he debuted for England in 2007 and the hype only grew when he became the most expensive transfer in Tottenham Hotspur history in 2008, but the midfielder has struggled to find a place with Spurs. He ended up on the outs just months after signing with Tottenham and appeared just twice for the club in the fall of 2010 before being loaned to Birmingham City for the rest of the season. He played there, but Birmingham were relegated and when he sought another loan in the summer, only Championship club West Ham showed genuine interest. An injury cut short his time with the Hammers and now he is desperate just to get a chance somewhere.

According to the translated report, Juninho fell out of favor with Sao Paolo’s coach shortly after signing his new contract. The team then tried to sell him to a French team to no avail.

For more on Juninho’s situation, be sure to check out Galaxy blog LAG Confidential.

For more on the Rodgers’ situation, be sure to check out Red Bulls blog Once a Metro.

Not long after it was announced that Ingogstadt had released Buddle, Alexi Lalas tweeted that Buddle was likely on his way back to the Galaxy. More sources confirmed that they were hearing the same about Buddle’s MLS return, which is not surprising after Ingolstadt allowed Buddle to explore his options in December and the striker struck out after a trial with Everton.

Buddle spent four years with the Galaxy and he scored 44 goals for the club. His best season came in 2010, when he scored 19 goals en route to MLS Best XI honors. That fantastic season also helped him earn a spot on the United States’ World Cup squad and offers from overseas. Because he left the Galaxy on a free transfer and the club did not receive any compensation for him, they retain his MLS rights, making a return to LA very likely if Buddle returns to MLS.

Making Le Toux the odd man out in that situation would seem to be an odd choice, being as he’s excelled as a forward. During two seasons with the Union, Le Toux has scored 25 goals and registered 20 assists, most of which have come while playing up top.

While there seems to be some details still to be worked out, the story indicates that this is essentially a done deal. Of course, the Union also told Philly Soccer Page on Sunday that there had been no contact between the team and Deportivo Cali. These would seem to be mutually exclusive versions of the story, so clearly someone is not being entirely honest. For the sake of this conversation, though, let’s assume Mondragon’s quotes are not completely fabricated.

The other option would be going out and finding another goalkeeper. The MLS transfer window remains open until mid-April, so the Union have plenty of time, but they’d basically be looking at acquiring someone from Europe who’s basically out of contract or trading within MLS. Neither is exactly ideal, but could definitely yield a useful player.

The former Germany captain returned to Leverkusen in 2010 after a disappointing stint at Chelsea, but things have been rocky at the Bay Arena as he has struggled to stay healthy. With the club down to sixth in the Bundesliga and Ballack benched, things have got tenuous. The player met with sporting director Rudi Voeller, although the meeting was not a success and while the club has said publicly that the decision to bring Ballack back into the club turned out poorly, Ballack’s agent has accused the club of making his client a scapegoat.

Ballack’s contract with Leverkusen ends after the season and nobody expects him to return to the club, however now that he and the club are feuding, some believed that he could leave the club as soon as this April. With Ballack on the outs and him being the highest paid player at the club, it wouldn’t be a shock to see the club let him leave earlier than the summer and his former coach Klaus Topmöller says that a move to MLS is a possibility.

“The Swedish guy” would be 6-foot-3 Markus Holgersson. Combined with the 6-foot-2 Conde, the Red Bulls would have one of the bigger centerback pairings in the league.

Conde’s MLS rights are still controlled by the Fire, who tried to re-sign him before he left for Atlas of the Mexican Primera. The Red Bulls would have to compensate the Fire in some way for Conde’s rights, most likely with allocation dollars or a draft pick. That’s likely more of a formality, though, as the league tends to help facilitate these kinds of moves.

The Dynamo now will have to go back to the drawing board to find a seasoned scorer. That’s a void Boyd could have surely filled, as he’s scored at just about every stop he’s made. Without Boyd, the Dynamo are without a clear No. 1 goal scorer, as no one currently on their roster has ever scored more than six goals during a MLS season.

Check out Dynamo Theory for more news and analysis.

Once joining the Union, though, his career really took off. In two seasons with the Union, Le Toux has scored 25 goals and registered 20 assists. A big part of that success, was his move back to forward, the position at which he excelled in USL.

At Bolton, Le Toux would likely be able to compete for playing time, but probably only as a third forward. Kevin Davies and Ivan Klasnic are old and neither has played well this season. Tuncay Sanli is on loan. David N’Gog is young. Klasnic is bad enough that Le Toux could be the third striker option, but Davies is the captain and N’Gog will be ahead of him as well.

The biggest hangup on the deal appears to be Ream’s ability to gain a work permit. Ream has not come close to appearing in 75 percent of the United States national team’s competitive matches over the past two years, but Bolton is apparently confident they can secure the permit on appeal.

For more on this move, be sure to check out Bolton blog Lion of Vienna Suite and Red Bulls blog Once a Metro.

Rogers’ play dipped last year and with it went his playing time, making it a foregone conclusion that he would look to move elsewhere, a move the Crew were happy to give him. He spent much of the winter on trial abroad, including at Leeds, who appear to have seen something they like. Rogers won’t be walking into an easy situation though, with Tottenham Hotspur’s Andros Townsend on loan and playing well on one wing, Robert Snodgrass on the other wing, Ramon Nunez a wide option and captain Jonny Howson also an attacking player, albeit more centrally. Even with Snodgross and Howson injured, there doesn’t appear to be much of an opportunity for Rogers to play unless there are further injuries.

Exactly how Rogers plans on getting a work permit remains a mystery. He certainly doesn’t qualify under the work permit rules that require a player to play 75% of his country’s national team matches, meaning he will have to appeal for one, but he could argue that he has been a bigger part of the national team under Jurgen Klinsmann. If Klinsmann helps out and pledges to the appeals board to make Rogers a fixture in the squad going forward, maybe Rogers will have a chance, but it appears to be a stretch considering he still had just five caps in 2011.

Boyd is a player well known to observers of European soccer. As recently as 2009-10, he scored 23 Scottish Premier League goals with Rangers. A year before that, he scored 27. In 143 league matches with the Glasgow giants, he found the back of the net 101 times. During five seasons with Kilmarnock, a much smaller SPL team, he scored 63 times in 153 matches. He’s also scored seven goals in 18 senior team caps with Scotland.

The reason Boyd is even available, though, does raise some questions. Boyd is currently unemployed after he reportedly had his contract terminated with Turkey’s Eskişehirspor. Boyd claimed to have never been paid by the club and has now started legal proceedings against them.

What remains to be seen is if Ream could actually get a work permit to play in England. Generally speaking, a player must have appeared in 75 percent of his national team’s matches in order to be granted a permit or they must appeal for one. Ream is well short of that benchmark, almost no matter how you measure it. He played in 6 of 17 games during 2011 and has only played in two games since Jurgen Klinsmann took over. He also only played in 2 of 6 games during the CONCACAF Gold Cup.

For the latest MLS transfer rumors, be sure to follow this StoryStream. For more on Ream’s situation, be sure to check out Red Bulls blog Once a Metro.

Mirosevic most recently played his club soccer at Al-Ain of the United Arab Emirates. He had previously played for Universidad Catolica, a team in Chile’s first division, where he scored 46 goals in 108 appearances. Mirosevic could play anywhere in the midfield and could provide some scoring punch, something the Crew have lacked in recent years. As recently as the 2009-10 season, Mirosevic was a prolific scorer as he netted 19 goals in 32 league matches.

For the latest MLS transfer rumors, be sure to follow this StoryStream. For more on the Crew, check out Massive Report.

Assuming this report is true, this would seem to be a positive move for a team that has gained a reputation as one of the more physical in the league under the guidance of former head coach Gary Smith. Pareja is a product of South American soccer, having played professionally in Colombia and for the Colombian national team. At the same time, he’s much more of a MLS insider than Smith, logging more than 170 MLS appearances from 1998-2005 and working with Dallas’ academy.

The Rapids, who have undergone a rather significant amount of change this offseason, reportedly interviewed Dennis Hamlett, Tom Soehn and Richie Williams in recent weeks. Like Pareja, and unlike Smith, all of these candidates had significant MLS experience.

Holgersson’s Swedish team Helsinborg is coming off a season in which they won their league title. Holgersson started in 26 of 30 games and earned his first national team call-up for Sweden’s friendly against Qatar later this month.

For the latest MLS transfer rumors, be sure to follow this StoryStream. For more on the potential signing, check out Red Bulls blog Once a Metro.

Former German international Gerald Asamoah has apparently told the the website GhanaWeb that he is preparing for a move to Major League Soccer. Asamoah was mum on which team he would be joining, but depending on his price any number of teams could be interested in the 33-year-old forward/midfielder who has spent most of his professional career in the Bundesliga and made 43 appearances with the German national team.

Asamoah most recently played for St. Pauli, but does not appear to have made the move with them after being relegated back in May. Presumably, Asamoah is a free, so there would be no transfer fee in order to bring him to MLS.

Assuming this deal could get done, though, it would be an absolute coup for MLS. Eto’o is one of the top strikers in the world and is still just 30. He has scored eight goals in 11 league games this year and is coming off a season in which he scored 37 goals across all competitions for Inter.

For the latest MLS transfer rumors, be sure to follow this StoryStream.

Sivebaek has been a starter at Midtjylland, helping lead the team to top six finishes in each of the past three years, but this year appears to have fallen out of favor. A couple of injuries may have contributed to his playing in just 3 of 18 league matches this season.

The Sounders would most likely be looking at Sivebaek as more of an insurance policy at several positions. While their starting XI seems pretty set, Sivebaek could find himself in competition for minutes in the midfield and on defense.

“It’s really fantastic,” Johansson was quoted as saying in the Post (via Google translate). “I knew very little about the American league, but I talked to several people familiar with before I decided and finally felt like this as the right choice.”

Johansson most recently played for Swedish power IFK Goteburg where he was starter when healthy during his seven seasons there. Although he scored just one goal in that time, he’s thought to have good technical ability and should help meet one of the Sounders’ biggest offseason goals: better possession from their fullbacks.

The most recent -- and highest profile -- gut-wrenching saga played out on Tuesday when for a few hours, at least, it seemed that Beckham had signed with Paris Saint-Germain. Two of Paris’ biggest newspapers had front-page stories with lead headlines proclaiming that Beckham had inked an enormous contract with the newest toy of the Qatari Investment Fund.

Those reports were rubbished just a a little later when Beckham’s agency, 19 Entertainment, issued this statement to the Associated Press: “No agreement has been reached with any club yet -- talks of a deal are premature. David has yet to make a final decision on his future.”

The report did not say whether or not Bravo would definitely leave MLS, but did seem to suggest that a return to Mexico would be his most likely destination. Bravo scored more than 100 goals during 10 seasons in the Mexican Primera, most of them with Chivas de Guadalajara. During his one season with Sporting, Bravo scored nine goals, but did seem to struggle at times with the physical nature of the league and battled several injuries.

For more on Bravo’s future, be sure to check out Sporting KC blog The Daily Wiz.