Mamadou Diallo and Habib Bellaid on trial with D.C. United from CS Sedan Ardennes

D.C. United announced today the arrival of two new trialists, both from the Ligue 2 team CS Sedan Ardennes: 31 year old Malian international forward Mamadou Diallo and 27 year old Algerian international center back Habib Bellaid. Sedan was just relegated from Ligue 2, so most of their players will be fleeing to try and latch on anywhere else. Diallo is exactly the wrong type of player for MLS teams to be signing, which means he is exactly the kind of player that D.C. United would bring in for a trial. Since 2007, Diallo has spent his time playing in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Ligue 2 in France; he is not the same Mamadou Diallo who played for the Tampa Bay Mutiny, New England Revolution and the MetroStars in the early 2000s.

Habib Bellaid is slightly more interesting and is not worth dismissing just out of hand. He started with RC Strasbourg, who were in Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 while he was there, and then moved on to Eintracht Frankfurt. He never really caught on in Frankfurt and was loaned out to a number of clubs, including Sedan; he signed there permanently in 2012. He was a member of that pesky Algerian World Cup squad in 2010, but did not play in any of the games. He is younger, only 27, and is 6' 2". He has a semi-decent pedigree on paper, so why not bring him over for a trial while waiting for the international transfer window to open?

Remember, the international transfer window does not open back up until July 8, so the only players they can talk to until then are those who are out of contract. There are no real reinforcements that can come until then, especially since the trade value of all of D.C. United's players has crumbled.