Gall Waived, Crew Trim Roster

Doesn't appear that the official MLS account of Columbus Crew SC has announced it yet, but there appears to be a number of roster moves made yesterday. Patrick Guldan over at Massive Report, uh, reported that the outlet cut a few guys.

And here, I had just put together my team budget summary. Goodness. Turns out, now that the dust has settled, the changes don't really impact the overall salary spend.

There is one player that is a bit of a surprise though (at least for me, and perhaps many youth USMNT watchers) - Romain Gall.

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Players Cut:
Romain Gall (1.5 yrs with team)
Sergio Campbell (1 yr with team)
Kyle Parker (2016 draft pick)
Vincent Cicciarelli (2016 draft pick)
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Gall was (is?) a rising star in the US National Team system. When Gregg Berhalter got him in August 2014 through a weighted allocation process (sigh) it was seen as a right place, right time masterstroke. A year on now tho, it's all come apart and I'm not sure how much Gall had to do with it.

Things with Gall reached a boil back in May 2015 when USMNT U20 Head Coach Tab Ramos left him off the roster due to lack of playing time in MLS. At the time, it was seen as a shot lobbed in the direction of Gregg Berhalter and company.

“Now they’re just constantly losing fitness, and when we call them into the U-20 national camp they come in and I feel they can’t handle the training. With the fitness coach, we can’t do double sessions when we come in every day, because if we do double sessions by the third day these guys are dead and won’t be able to play on the weekends.” - Tab Ramos

Not sure how it plays now that Crew SC made it to the MLS Cup final. It does raise a bunch of questions about development of talented players (of which Gall is/was).

Gall scored in three of his last four games with the Austin Aztex (USL) in over half his apps with the U20 Men's national team. Not sure what's next for him. My advice? Get out of MLS.