CHICAGO(Nov. 16, 2019) – The Chicago Fire today announced its list of protected players in advance of the 2019 MLS Expansion Draft. Scheduled to take place on Tuesday, Nov. 19 at 4:30 p.m. CT, the Expansion Draft will provide Inter Miami CF and Nashville SC with an opportunity to select up to five players each in preparation for their inaugural MLS campaign in 2020. Once one player has been selected from a team’s unprotected roster, that team may not lose any further players.
The following Chicago Fire players are exempt from selection in the Expansion Draft:
Protected Players (11): Micheal Azira, Jonathan Bornstein, Brandt Bronico, Francisco Calvo, Raheem Edwards, Przemysław Frankowski, Fabian Herbers, Johan Kappelhof, Aleksandar Katai, Kenneth Kronholm, CJ Sapong
Automatically Protected (4): Jeremiah Gutjahr (Homegrown Player), Djordje Mihailović (Homegrown Player), Andre Reynolds II (Homegrown Player), Gabriel Slonina (Homegrown Player)
The following players are available for selection:
Unprotected Players (11): Diego Campos, Stefan Cleveland, Elliot Collier, Marcelo, Nicolás Gaitán, Cristian Martínez, Amando Moreno, Nemanja Nikolić, David Ousted, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Richard Sánchez
The Expansion Draft eligible player list includes players from 19 MLS clubs. D.C. United, FC Dallas, Houston Dynamo, New York Red Bulls, and Vancouver Whitecaps FC are exempt, having had a player selected in the 2018 MLS Expansion Draft.
All 19 remaining clubs had the opportunity to protect up to 12 players from their roster. MLS Homegrown Players ages 25 and under (those born during or after 1994), as well as Generation adidas players that did not graduate from the program following the 2019 season are automatically protected, therefore clubs did not need to use one of their 12 selections to protect them.
Complete rules for the 2019 MLS Expansion Draft are available here.
