Caught in Possession

As promised, I've got a few extra quotes from United's new player press conferences this week. First off, Monday's Carvallo/Martinez/Niell/Peralta introduction...

GM DAVE KASPER

On how long DCU has been tracking these four players:

In all of the four players’ case, they were all within the last year, certainly not as long as Luciano [Emilio]…We worked hard – on and off the plane – to make sure we got these guys signed quickly.

On the league's growing interest in Latin American players:

I think certainly there’s going to be more MLS teams looking to South America. There are no surprises down there, it’s really where everyone – every club in the world outside of Latin America – looks for players and there’s a lot of talent. We expect that. There were a lot of [MLS] teams down in South America this year, some of whom were there when we were scouting. But that’s our challenge, is to try to stay ahead of the curve, and we do try to identify players not just for the current signing period, but for future signing periods, and that’s something that we’ll continue to do.

HEAD COACH TOM SOEHN

On the character issue:

The amount of research we do when we look at players, not just the type of player they are on the field, but the type of person they are off the field and in the locker room. We do a lot of research to make sure we get the type of guy that we feel fits the organization and the expectations we put on ourselves. Between the four of them, we’re really excited that we feel like we’ve gotten better on the soccer field, but we’re also just as good in the locker room and that’s an important step in how we do business here.

On his squad’s depth:

As we looked at the draft, judging by the quality of players we brought in today, I actually feel like we’re going to be a pretty deep team. We all know that with all the competitions we’re in, you have to be a deep team and utilize your roster well enough to make sure you’re getting guys some experience and getting guys some rest.

Comment posted by Charles Boehm @ 5:34 PM