MLS Expansion draft: date, time, D.C. United’s protected list, and how to watch

We now know the players that D.C. United might lose to FC Cincinnati in tomorrow’s Expansion Draft. In a strange twist of rules, Major League Soccer is considering this draft as a part of last year’s draft with Los Angeles FC, so the teams that had players taken last year (Seattle Sounders, Sporting Kansas City, San Jose Earthquakes, Columbus Crew, and Toronto FC) will not be eligible to have a player taken. MLS claims that this is because the previous expansion drafts have usually contained two teams, but regardless that leaves D.C. United exposed.

United can have a maximum of one player taken, and if they do they will receive $50K in General Allocation Money. The draft will take place at 2PM Eastern on December 11 and will be streamed live on MLSsoccer.com.

A couple weeks ago we predicted the players that D.C. United would protect, and we were mostly in agreement. The most notable names not on the list are Nick DeLeon and Zoltan Stieber: DeLeon battled injury all year and has a high salary, and Stieber was the odd man out in the midfield.

The protected list is Bill Hamid, Wayne Rooney, Russell Canouse, Steven Birnbaum, Luciano Acosta, Paul Arriola, Yamil Asad, Junior Moreno, Ulises Segura, Oniel Fisher, and Joseph Mora.

The unprotected list is below: