Now If They Only Had A Coach

Well, the Seattle Sounders now have more than just Kasey Keller and Freddy Ljungberg to call their own*.

Kinda hard to be competitive with just two players, so the Sounders went and pillaged the rosters of the other clubs and cribbed some players. It's okay, it was all above board as the nice folks at MLS actually let them do this for today's expansion draft.

Specifically, the fourteen other MLS teams were allowed to protect 11 players (not positive on that but I'm too lazy to go look it up this close to the end of the shortened week) and the rest were available for the Sounders to choose from, but one per team and from only 10 teams total (There's a complete list of unprotected players here).

I'm not sure I could have written that in a more confusing manner. Anyway, here's the list of players (and their respective clubs) selected today by the Sounders. Follow along after the jump:

Nate Jaqua (Houston)
Brad Evans (Columbus)
Stephen King (Chicago)
Jeff Parke (New York)
James Riley (San Jose)
Khano Smith (New England)
Jarrod Smith (Toronto)
Nathan Sturgis (Salt Lake City)
Peter Vagenas (Los Angeles)
Tyson Wahl (Kansas City)

Jaqua isn't too much of a surprise as the word floating around was that, as part of the deal for his return to Dynamo in the summer, he wanted to be able move back closer to home in the Pacific Northwest (he's from Eugene). But it's still a good pick-up. He's a big, physical guy with a decent touch and good finishing skills by MLS standards.

Other notable names include Jeff Parke from NY and Peter Vagenas from L.A. Notable isn't necessarily good, but we'll refrain from editorializing blatantly. There is also the straight confusing. Jarrod Smith? You sure you picked the right Smith from Toronto (hint: Johan is better)?

*Okay four. They also had Sanna Nyassi and Sebastien Le Toux before today's draft.