Castillo hands down. It’s like Kasper only watched the Youtube vids and signed him off that alone.

I still maintain that Donnet’s problem was that he joined a team thriving in a 3412. In a 442, he’d have been a quality player. He was a predecessor of sorts for Nick Addlery, who is thriving in Puerto Rico’s hyper-direct style of play but struggled with the more Latin style United was using while he was here.

Anyway, going back to the topic at hand, I think Castillo should definitely take the award. In fact, I’d even say it should be renamed for Castillo after this season.

I disagree with Bald Pollack about the scouting Kasper was able to do here. Remember, Castillo was starting for El Salvador on the left wing in their more-successful-than-expected qualifying campaign. Not only was he starting, but he was, along with Julio Martinez (who also flopped in MLS with Chicago, and under the same coach for both teams to boot), their most regular threat going forward. Frankie Hejduk struggled mightily with him in San Salvador, and if you can trouble a guy like Hejduk it makes sense that you’d do fairly well in MLS.

Instead, Castillo seemed less amped up for games in a DC shirt than he was for El Salvador. That’s understandable to a certain extent, but the gap was enormous. He also never figured out how to deal with MLS’s physically aggressive method of defending on the wings, nor did he come to terms with the hectic style of play. While I feel a little sympathy for him given the terrible team he was stuck on (wingers are often the hardest-hit by being on poor teams, which makes Andy Najar’s play all the more impressive), but ultimately Castillo was our worst starter during the worst spell in club history.

I always thought he looked pretty good and wondered why he didn’t stick around. Same for Fillomeno.
And at this point I’d take Adderly (and Boyzz) over Allsop. Castillo— I spent a game watching him closely and he didn’t move much off the ball, flapped his arms a lot, got pissy when it didn’t come to him, dove at the whisper of the wind and tried to beat everyone off the ball. And Najar ate his lunch. Still I really wish it had worked out both for the team and the Salvadoran community.
Agree that Castillo looked good at the time he was scouted and its hard to assign too much blame but this team really needs a scouting win and soon. Although with the quality the academy is putting out, who knows, maybe we can be the first team to ride the academy to greatness. (stretching I know but its the only thing heartening me right now.)