Real Salt Lake notes: No more reserve league as MLS season nears

SANDY — When Real Salt Lake's players report for the start of training camp this Thursday, there will be a subtle yet significant difference for the club and the rest of Major League Soccer.

At the MLS Board of Governors meeting last November, the league's owners voted to disband the MLS reserve league. The league is no longer in the business of developing players; it's about the product on the field right now. With no reserve league, there's no need for a 28-man roster, and thus roster sizes were slashed to 24 and the secondary MLS Supplemental Draft was done away with.

RSL coach Jason Kreis was a big proponent of developing young players and wasn't thrilled with the decision. Now, he and the rest of the league's coaches must change the way they operate this year.

Beginning with training camp this week, instead of having seven or eight rookies in camp vying for four or five rosters spots, that number is drastically reduced for RSL, with only three rookies vying for likely two spots.

"It's going to be tight on roster spots. The good news is we're going to go into camp for two months, and the best players are going to survive and they're going to make our team," said RSL general manager Garth Lagerwey.

The biggest uncertainty with disbanding the reserve league is on the rookies who do make the team, along with second-year players like David Horst and Alex Nimo.

Without 12 guaranteed reserve league games, how will those players gain experience? Horst and Nimo didn't play a single minute with the senior squad last year, and with RSL's established core of veteran players heading into 2009, playing time could be just as tough to come by this year.

One way around that could be short-term and long-term loans. RSL's youngsters could easily be loaned out to USL teams on a consistent basis throughout the summer, perhaps even to BYU and the Ogden Outlaws. RSL will likely have to change the way it practices as well, with more split-squad sessions and additionally more technical practices for the younger players.

Lagerwey stressed, however, that just because the league opted to funnel its resources to other areas besides player development, RSL isn't abandoning the area. With a roster that might include about 10 players under age 23 this year, he admits that would be foolish.