Last year the Chicago Fire made three trades in the first round and this year is off to a similar start.
The Fire traded the No. 3 pick in Friday's Major League Soccer SuperDraft to New York City FC. In return the Fire received $250,000 in allocation money.
The league will be announcing the amount of allocation money in trades going forward and this trade was the first to have the dollar amount announced.
Minnesota opened the draft by taking Abu Danladi out of UCLA and Atlanta followed by taking Syracuse’s Miles Robinson. NYCFC took Jonathan Lewis out of Akron with the No. 3 pick received from the Fire.
General manager Nelson Rodriguez said on a video before the draft released by the club saying the Fire received “five concrete offers from different clubs from both our first round picks,” but the Fire held onto the No. 3 pick. The Fire also have the No. 11 pick in the first round.
"We had explored trying to purchase another pick in the top 10 so we would have No. 3 and one other selection," Rodriguez said after the draft. "We had explored trading down from three, swapping spots and adding resources. We had also discussed making a selection. In the end we feel that the money we were able to secure via general allocation puts us in a better position to try to close one of these targets that we have had for several weeks.”
General allocation money can be used in a number of different ways to give the Fire more cap space.
Chicago Fire
"We can use it to acquire players within the league or we can use it to buy down salary against a team’s salary budget," Rodriguez said. "In the end we’re hopeful now that this will enable us to close the final gap and finalize some things.”