The Summer of Loans (Or Mbuta The Pinball)

If you are looking for one sentence that will continuously be written all summer, it will most likely be this:

(RED BULLS PLAYER A) has been loaned out to USL-2 side (TEAM NAME HERE) for a one game loan.

With the dissolution of the reserve league (Ruud Gullit must be rolling on the floor with laughter), teams have found themselves in quite a conundrum; how do you keep your bench players playing and growing? The only hope for them have been reserve games, but without those available, players tend to lose the feel for the live game environment.

Red Bulls solution to this has already been seen two weeks in a row, with Matt Mbuta being the sacrificial lamb. Last week, it was a loan to the Richmond Kickers. This week, he goes back to the team that started him off; Crystal Palace. Joining him will be rookie defender Nick Zimmerman.

Though many were praising the expansion of the MLS rosters to 24 players, few saw the obvious pitfalls of trashing the reserve games. As a consequence, USL2 has become the new breeding grounds for reserve competition. Go figure.

How do you feel about this? Does it put the players in potential danger, perhaps being marked for being MLS loaners? Or is this a win win for all involved?

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