Real quickly reacquires expansion-pick Kreis

Jason Kreis was the property of Toronto FC for less than an hour Friday.

The expansion MLS team made Kreis one of its 10 selections in Friday's MLS expansion draft, no doubt expecting Real Salt Lake to make an offer to re-acquire him.

That's exactly what happened.

"We knew that Jason was a great asset being unprotected and that we might be faced with this scenario of needing to get him back," said Real general manager Steve Pastorino. "When we left him unprotected, we told him we'd do whatever it took to get him back."

All it took was a partial allocation, and a gentleman's agreement was reached five minutes before Kreis went on stage at the team's Xango jersey press conference on Friday. It happened so quickly, Kreis didn't even know he'd been drafted until he'd been re-acquired.

"When I was first informed of the decision (to be left unprotected), I was certainly disappointed," said Kreis. "But I also understood where the team was coming from. Even though I didn't necessarily agree with their decision, I respected what they had to do. Everyone handled the situation very well, and I would like to publicly thank Dave Checketts for communicating and keeping me informed."

The deal went down in less than an hour. Not wanting to create an awkward situation for Kreis or any of the other unprotected RSL players at the Xango press conference, Pastorino contacted the league about an hour before it released the expansion draft results to see if any of his players had been selected.

Within minutes he was on the phone with Toronto executives asking what it would take to get Kreis back. MLS's 13th team wanted an allocation, RSL owner Dave Checketts and coach John Ellinger agreed, and the deal was done.

"Jason is an individual who embodies the type of organization we want to be. We believe he deserves our loyalty because he's been loyal to us," said Pastorino. "He's been the face of this team on and off the field. He's put his heart and soul into this organization."

Because of that, some wondered why RSL didn't protect MLS's all-time leading scorer in the first place. Part of the reason was Real didn't think he would be selected. But even then, the club figured it wouldn't have a difficult time re-acquiring Kreis.

Prior to the draft, speculation was that Toronto would draft and keep RSL midfielder Andy Williams — who was born in Canada.

Dealing Kreis was one of several trades Toronto made on Friday. Of its 10 selections, it had traded three away within hours after the draft.