Two Weeks To Go

At this time two weeks from now we'll be in the second half of our road CCL game in Guatemala.  (Hopefully, Comunicaciones just announced their next league game will be behind closed doors due to COVID).  As part pf preseason prep we played two 75 minute scrimmages against Seattle on Tuesday, drawing 1-1 in the one with mainly first team players and winning 2-0 in the one with backups and youth players.  In fact the starting XI of that first match looks a lot like what we might see in Guatemala:

Yarbrough

Rosenberry - Abubakar - Wilson - Trusty - Esteves

Price - Warner

Barrios ----------------------------Lewis

Rubio

Through 3 scrimmages this preseason the following signed players have gotten 0 minutes

Max - Still in Brazil

Bryan Acosta - Honduran National Team (and now COVID)

Marc-Anthony Kaye - Canada National Team

Aboubacar Keita

Braian Galvan

Matt Hundley

Nicolas Mezquida - Left camp to return to Uruguay, almost certainly as part of the green card process

Abe Rodriguez - 3rd keeper may not have many chances with only 4/5 scrimmages

Andre Shinyashiki

#9 Striker signing

Galvan and Shinyashiki could theoretically be getting green cards processed and travelling for that (I believe the process requires a trip back to their home country if possible, and with COVID protocols it may not be a fast trip).  Other than that the only reason I see them not playing is injury.  Not sure why Matt Hundley hasn't gotten time.  Its concerning we haven't seen Keita yet, there's no reason other than injury or an extremely long move from Columbus to Denver that he shouldn't be playing.

Needless to say the likes of Max and any #9 we're going to sign not yet being in camp is a significant issue at this point.  We've got a scrimmage on Saturday that they're likely to get 0 time in at this point (if we eve sign a striker by then), which leaves only the closed-door (but streamed) scrimmage in Orlando for any of our new players to get integrated into the team.  And that match is a week from tomorrow, which means the window for signing a 9 and getting him into camp by then is closing quickly.

The reality of things at this point is that we'll be going to Guatemala essentially with the roster that succeeded in 2021, except without Kellyn Acosta and Cole Bassett.  I'm somewhat confident that Bryan Acosta can integrate fairly quickly, assuming he passes COVID protocols, given that he'll be fit thanks to his time with Honduras and his familiarity with the league.  Unless Max shows up this weekend I don't see how he'll be available for anything other than a few minutes off the bench.

Hard to believe the talk about hw we're taking the CCL "seriously" when we can't even get our new players in camp in time for them to be available for the first game...