With all of their offseason acquisitions, it was becoming less and less likely that Toronto FC would be able to keep hold of their Argentine midfield DP Matias Laba.
Whitecaps fans said early doors what a good fit he would be in Vancouver if their Canadian rivals wanted to ship him off to the Western Conference.
Today, those wishes came true and Laba is heading to Vancouver on loan for the season and he won't be the only other new face joining the Whitecaps before the new season gets underway.
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Things have moved quickly. We originally tweeted out the news that the deal was close to being done just before 5pm, with more information coming out just over an hour later, whilst Greg Anderson and Bobby Lenarduzzi have been busy on their phones at training in Portland.
Nothing has yet been confirmed by the Whitecaps and no terms of the loan deal are currently known, but, on paper at least, the addition of Laba seems like another great bit of business by Carl Robinson, who has been building up a strong starting line up quietly the last few weeks.
He also seems to have a taste for Latin and South Americans, with a further Designated Player set to be added shortly in the shape of a Latino attacking midfielder who is currently plying his trade over in Europe.
As we revealed on our latest podcast. the Caps were looking at adding two DPs. One, we were told, was to be a young box to box midfielder who would qualify for the young DP tag. Laba is now confirmed as that man.
Laba came to Toronto in April last year after four seasons with Argentine side Argentinos Junior. He went on to make 16 appearances in Major League Soccer last season, all of them starts, grabbing one goal and playing mostly a defensive midfielder role.
Laba only had a guaranteed salary of $200,000 last season (the maximum cap hit for young DPs) and as we mentioned, no details are known yet as to who is picking up what amount of the tab this year and what that tab will even be. It is also unknown if he will be allowed to play against Toronto in the Voyageurs Cup games, but you would have to feel that normal footballing practice will apply and he won't be allowed to.
The acquisition packs an already congested defensive midfield area and the midfield in general. Nigel Reo-Coker has been playing there and looking okay, but not making the surging runs of last season as he looks to be struggling to get fully fit.
Russell Teibert has played a little bit as a holding midfielder and central midfield workhorse and looked to be the best of the bunch, whilst Bryce Alderson has impressed in training and preseason action but Laba's addition is likely to eat into some of the minutes he could have got.
Laba's addition and the performances of others is likely to make it even harder for Gershon Koffie to get back into the starting line up. The Ghanaian has been inconsistent for the past two seasons and not had a good preseason camp.
Whilst highly thought of by many in Vancouver, we have argued for a while that there is some merit in trading him and cashing in on his perceived high value stock.
Other midfielders like Matt Watson are now very much on the periphery looking in.
Laba will join up with the Whitecaps in Portland in the next day or so and may see some gametime before the Rose City Invitational is finished on Saturday.
More on this story to come as we get it....
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