Photo Credit: Seth Binsted/The Breeze

In today’s MLS Expansion draft, we expected to see Amado Guevara, Frankie Hejduk or Eddie Robinson taken to help coach Peter/Piotr Nowak build the nucleus of what should be a pretty decent team in Philly next year. Instead, we saw a good, scrappy bunch of kids (including RBNY’s Nick Zimmerman) leaving their digs for “greener” pastures in Philadelphia.

There were no superstars taken, no former league MVPs. No players with U.S. national team caps, or players with multiple all-star appearances, or even players with ties to the Philadelphia area. When the final list of players chosen by the Philadelphia Union was announced, we were treated to a group of MLS players who could make up the type of tough and tenacious team that Nowak likes, and Philadelphia fans will want to root for. [SBI]

The fact that Zimmerman was left exposed (eff you Jeff Agoos!) makes me very, very angry. The new sporting director is on his way (believe me, it’s no damn secret who it is!) but we couldn’t find a way to hang on to a kid that had proven that he got it. We didn’t let Sassano or Sinisa go for similar reasons and dammit, I wanted Nick around. Now that $5 thing I bought off that kid in the Giants Stadium parking lot isn’t worth $h!t.

Ugh.

For as much ribbing as I have been taking these last few months for talking up my love for Red Bull New York (aka New York Red Bulls) of Major League soccer, it is pretty clear that the largest media market in the world having a team in the league’s title game is good for exposure.

In this graph here, you can see that as Google Blog Posts relevant to “MLS Cup” increase, the number of sales (Sales Rank at Amazon) increases as well. That’s an encouraging sign for those in the MLS offices as they head into the offseason, and illustrates the league’s need to embrace social media as a whole in order to truly drive awareness.

Source: Trendrr