Dema to L.A.
Real Salt Lake finalized a trade this morning sending 10-year MLS veteran Dema Kovalenko to the L.A. Galaxy in exchange for a conditional 2011 MLS SuperDraft selection and allocation money. When he arrived from New York last year Dema brought a wealth of experience and leadership to an RSL squad that was looking to make the MLS postseason for the first time in franchise history.
Making 19 starts in 22 appearances, the gritty midfielder contributed 1 goal and 2 assists in the regular season in helping the team to a MLS Cup Playoff berth. He continued his strong play in the postseason starting 2 of RSL’s 3 playoff games while picking up a massive opening goal in the team’s 2-2 draw at Chivas USA that saw the Salt Lake side through to the Western Conference Championship.
Dema’s passion and fire will surely be missed at Rio Tinto this season. Who do you think can step in and fill those shoes?
20 Jan 2009 12:27 pm RSL HQ 17 comments
I don’t understand why this announcement is so late. During the MLS Draft, the graphics showed Dema as already an addition to the LA squad.
Best of luck to Dema in LA. Kovalenko was pure class off the field, and he will be missed.
sorry to see you go mate. You were the toughest man on the pitch.
Cheers!
Also, EVERYONE vote on the Section 26 Logo at
http://rslsection26.blogspot.com/
I am really eager to hear who is coming now that 3 valuable pieces of the team are gone. Is Kaka holding out for an offer from RSL?
The blog needs to get caught up. I read also that both Deuchar and Espindola would be gone. I think it is too bad we lost both Dema and Deuchar, but understandably why. The Deuchar deal drives me a little nuts, just because everybody knew Deuchar was good at scoring…with his head, but other players on the team had some problems getting good crosses in to Deuchar in order to make him a danger.
As for Espy, I will miss him. All throughout last year, when Espy wasn’t hurt, it was possible to see he was by far the most dangerous in front of the net. It is too bad to see him go. I hope that RSL will go out this offseason, and use some of this allocation money and salary cap space, if any after the Morales and Olave deals were completed, and bring in a dangerous striker up front.
I saw that Yura was a TFC target, and I am glad we didn’t give him up. Yura, and Findley, have talent, and I think both can develop into good players. We need to find them an experience goal scorer up front and let the guys lose!
Heffe
Where are you getting your info? Maybe you could start a blog to keep us up to date. Thanks for the heads up.
I’m not really that sad for Dema to be leaving. I like him a lot, but he just cost too much for my taste.
I’m excited about Kenny leaving. He was disappointing. I think we have good crossers, he just missed his chances. I don’t think Kenny was alone in this department. All our strikers were disappointing. Hopefully Yura and Findley will step up to a full year’s worth of scoring and not a couple of months.
I’m excited about Johnson. He showed more striking ability than any of our forwards. I hope I’m wrong this next year; as we could use a forward with better striking ability than a midfielder.
I heard Findley is on trial in Denmark. Any truth to this?
John,
You can get all kinds of info from various blogs such as Soccer by Ives, or Big Soccer. both have links on this site.
It a little sad that this site is more concerned with team merchandise sales and the Presidential inaguration. I for one would like to see more team news from this site. We have just lost 3 players from last years team and it would be nice to get some info from Kreis and Company on what they are looking to do over the next few months.
I have to agree with georg. This should be THE site to go to for RSL info but instead, if they post it at all, it is normally the last place the info is posted and then several days later. I could understand if we were in mid season and the staff was busy but it is offseason.
georg,
Why would they want to let people know what/who they are planning to do? Realize that this is a secretive business, deal with facts, not rumors.
Loved Dema! Will miss him but I can totally understand why he wanted out of RSL. Lack of playing time and an opportunity to play with his old coach Bruce Arena and David Beckham probably had a lot to do with it. Plus LA will probably give him more money than us.
Thanks Dema, our fondest memory of you will be the time you came over to our table unsolicited at Baxters and got the entire RSL team that was there to sign a ball that my 8 yr old nephew was holding and was naturally too embarassed to ask any of the RSL players to sign. It was his first soccer game and that just made his day.
Glad we got rid of Deuchar, he was too costly for our salary cap and didnt turn into the goal scorer that we wanted too. Kind of miffed about losing Espy, I am pretty sure that his parent club wanted too much money for him. Hope that Garth and Coach Kreis will use the $250,000+ in lcap money for losing Espy, Deuchar, and Dema to good use and get a target striker that will knock in about 10+ goals for us next year. I hope that they have been combing South America looking for one….
Best of luck to Deuchar, Kovalenko and Espindola. I am especially sad about losing Espindola. I think it is sad I heard about all of those from sites other than the official RSL blog.
Kenny D. is now with Hamilton of the SPL (scottish permier league), Robbie is training with FC Brondby in Denmark but will be back when the preseason starts next week.
Dema was a rock in the midfield and while his price is high, LA which has very little cap room thought him enough of a value to pick up. I believe pace and price are what caused RSL to trade him.
I will be working on the first of my preseason preview posts for my blog this week. There are lots of moves that have been made and I know RSL is looking for a big time striker.
Kenny has proven he can score, adjusting to MLS often takes a year or more for most players.
John, if you think our team crosses well, point to 4 goals all season scored off of corner kicks or balls crossed high into the box? Actually if you could point to 6 balls played into the box well all season from corner kicks or anytime that were played to Kenny’s head I would be impressed.
Wingert can’t cross the ball to save his life, but he does other things very well. Kyle never tried to cross the ball when he was playing wide, he took shots and early in the season that worked. Andy doesn’t cross the ball often, Clint tried a couple but they were bad. Javi did OK but most of the time he was going for goal. RSL struggles to get quality chances off of corners and set pieces, and I am willing to bet that will be a huge focus of preseason training.
I had a similar experiance as Juice Box’s; Dema would always take the time to visit fan’s tables at Baxters. I will miss that experiance. For that matter, I already miss Baxters; they had fantastic food.
USAHammerFan, Over on Keepin’ It Real they have reported that Findley is training with Brøndby in Denmark, but that he is only training, not on trial. I would suggest anyone looking for “up to date” RSL news check out that site in addition to this one. There is a link on the side bar above. But I also agree with georg, this site should be the fan’s first stop for RSL news.
thanks Dema. total class.
I will miss Kenny the most this guy is amazing if you can get him the ball from a cross and if you let him play physical watch every game and count howmany times he ended up up on his knees or back and there was no call or a call on him! we will hear from him in a few months when he has scored his 10th goal in a short time!!! Thanks for everything Kenny go make all of the doubters look like the idiot they are!!!