LA Galaxy could lose player in Austin FC expansion draft

There’s an MLS expansion draft on Tuesday, and it will be for 2021 entrant Austin FC. They get to pick five players, and that means it’s possible a player from the LA Galaxy could be taken.

The Galaxy was one of 16 teams that had to submit lists of protected players who cannot be selected in the expansion draft by Austin FC. Ahead of Tuesday’s draft, the list of players who are eligible for selection was revealed, and here’s who could be taken from the Galaxy:

• David Bingham
• Joe Corona
• Emil Cuello
• Rolf Feltscher
• Yony Gonzalez
• Giancarlo Gonzalez
• Emiliano Insua
• Perry Kitchen
• Jurgen Skjelvik
• Justin Vom Steeg
• Gordon Wild

I think this is a pretty good list for the Galaxy, who appear to have strategized right. I could see a case for Austin selecting Bingham, which would alleviate the Galaxy’s need to decide between him and Jonathan Klinsmann this offseason, but most of the other players are either deep bench guys who barely played (Cuello, Vom Steeg, Wild) or extremely expensive and/or old (everyone else). Remember Jurgen Skjelvik? Technically still part of the Galaxy! I doubt Austin will take him.

But even so, in addition to the 10 teams exempt from the draft altogether because they had a player taken in last year’s draft by Nashville SC or Inter Miami, I expect several or all teams who made trades with Austin FC on Sunday (there were five trades with the club) have handshake deals with Austin not to have another team picked. So if that cuts out five more teams, that means there are 11 teams left, and so the Galaxy would have a little under a 50 percent chance of having a player taken.

So we’ll see what happens. Maybe a player is taken, maybe not, and if there is movement, we’ll let you know.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.