Real Salt Lake will be exploring all options during the summer transfer window, and that has included Yura Movsisyan, though that pursuit appears to be dead for now.
During a Tuesday interview on local radio station ESPN700, RSL head coach Jeff Cassar discussed the upcoming transfer window. There have been rumors swirling about the return of Movsisyan to the Wasatch Front, where he played from 2007-09 after a season and half with Kansas City, and although Cassar implied that odds were Movsisyan wouldn’t be returning anytime soon, he didn’t flatly deny the team’s interest, either.
“Yura’s a player we’re very familiar with,” Cassar said on the radio show. “Obviously we won a championship when he was here. He’s gone on to do fantastic things. But we are in contact with him, as well as with a lot of players in their status with their clubs, or if they're a free agent. He's just one player that we're interested in, but at the end of the day, he belongs to another team.”
"Every team in our league is looking to improve, and we're no exception," Cassar went on to say. "We're working hard, we're watching a lot of players, we're watching a lot of different positions to improve our team, make us deeper. We are working our tails off all the time to get better."
Movsisyan’s agent, Patrick McCabe, recently told the Salt Lake Tribune that Dmitry Alenichev, the new head coach of his current club Spartak Moscow, views the Armenian international as “essential to his plans,” throwing a bit of cold water on the rumor.
Wednesday afternoon, RSL fans’ hopes appeared to be dashed once and for all when technical director Craig Waibel gave another interview on ESPN700.
“Yura will not be joining us in this window,” Waibel said. “I had a great conversation with him today. He’s in a really good situation at Spartak. They had a coaching change recently and the new coach that came in has expressed a lot of interest in retaining Yura there and playing him consistently.”
“I’m happy for Yura that he’s got a nice home over there, a place that wants to play him, but unfortunately it wasn’t the answer that I wanted.”
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The summer transfer window is now open, however, and MLS’ recent announcement of the Targeted Allocation Money mechanism could present new opportunities. When asked about the new rule after practice on Wednesday, Cassar expressed his excitement about the possibilities.
“We have to come up with the best strategy on how to use that,” Cassar said. “There are a couple of different ways to use it, and we have to find out what’s best for our team. But an influx of money for us to spend properly is a fantastic thing. It adds quality players. It adds depth, and that’s what we need for this league to keep growing.”
