Legion trades Thomas Vancaeyezeele to the Rowdies

The Birmingham Legion today announced that it has traded defender Thomas Vancaeyezeele to the Tampa Bay Rowdies for an international roster slot and an undisclosed fee.

The move is a surprise given that the Legion is thin at center back after the early season injury to Freddy Kleemann. However, the compensation the Legion got for him is meaningful.

The absence of Edi Horvat from the game day roster had been an issue of the team not having enough international roster slots to accommodate him when Anderson Asiedu’s and Bruno Lapa’s green cards were delayed in red tape. The trade of Macky Diop to Detroit City resolved that problem, but the club had already been working the phones in order to trade for or buy an extra international slot. It looks like they never stopped looking for one. It is also unclear if Thomas himself had a green card (I suspect so) but it is possible the team now has two open international slots to fill. Moreover, they have some cash with which to buy a player.

Thus the question of the day is: what are they going to do with the new-found availability? Note also that the timing could be significant: with most leagues around the world now finished or winding up for the season, the summer transfer window is about to open. Officially, it will be open June 10th. That’s still a couple of weeks away, so it is possible that we will not see anything happen from this immediately as the club looks for potential acquisitions from who knows where. The only continent the team has never exploited so far is Australasia (unless I’m forgetting someone), so maybe we’re heading down under?