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D.C. United is taking full advantage of all of the player acquisition mechanisms that have been put at their disposal. Yesterday, they used gobs of allocation money to acquire Eddie Johnson from the Seattle Sounders; today, they used their position at the top of the Re-Entry Draft to take Fabian Espindola, the striker late of the New York Red Bulls. United now has the right to negotiate with Espindola, who made $150,000 last year but who was scheduled to get a raise of at least $200,000 should his option have been taken.
Espindola has scored at least nine goals in each of the past three seasons, one in New York and the other two with Real Salt Lake. He also contributed 12 assists in those three seasons, 7 in his 2012 season when he was paired with Alvaro Saborio. Espindola and Eddie Johnson are an intriguing strike partnership, especially with the former's tendency to float out wide left. That tendency just so happens to free up space for Chris Pontius to cut inside from the left, which is something that he likes to do. Safe to say that D.C. United's offense will be much improved from its historically bad levels last season.
The team also added Nana Attakora, a 24-year-old center back must recently with the San Jose Earthquakes. After starting 56 games for Toronto FC, he dealt with concussion issues in 2013; because of them, he was replaced in a Canadian national team camp by Kyle Porter. He will provide good depth for the team behind Bobby Boswell, Dejan Jakovic, and Ethan White, especially with the fixture congestion that will be coming up in the 2014 season. It does add another question about the place of Conor Shanosky on the D.C. United first team, however.
