Revs trade Krisztian Nemeth to SKC - Could an international deal be in the offing?

The Revolution have made quite possibly their biggest move of the Secondary Transfer Window — and it’s a player leaving the club, to boot.

A mere 362 days after acquiring him, New England has sent Hungarian striker Krisztian Nemeth to Sporting Kansas City in exchange for $250,000 in Targeted Allocation Money, $100,000 in General Allocation Money, as well as SKC’s natural first-round selection in the 2020 Major League Soccer SuperDraft.

The kicker in all of this? The Revolution free up one of the two international roster slots the 29-year-old Nemeth held for ’18.

Nemeth, who came to Foxborough following a transfer with Columbus, which sent one of the Revs’ international roster spots for this season to Ohio, scored only one goal — against Montreal in the ’17 season finale — and registered three assists for The Boys In Blue, two coming this season.

Nemeth played for SKC in 2015, his first year in MLS. During his first stint with the Wizards, the Hungarian scored 10 goals and added six assists in just over 2,000 minutes.

Suffice it to say, that was the type of player the Revolution fandom hoped would grace their presence when New England acquired him on Aug. 9, 2017.

BSJ Analysis

You have to give Michael Burns credit for this little piece of wheeling and dealing. He gets rid of the highest salaried individual on the roster (we hear the club is responsible for half of the remaining salary), gets $350,000 and a draft pick in exchange … and not only that, he frees up a precious international slot practically on the eve of the Secondary Transfer Window’s closing. He can now turn around and use that slot on another player in the next 48 hours or so.

If he does that by Wednesday night and brings in a quality replacement…

(I’m going to just leave this open-ended. Revs fans have been burned many times in hoping for replacements — did someone mention AJ Soares? Jermaine Jones? Hello? Someone pick up the red courtesy phone, please.)

Let’s face facts: Nemeth wasn’t the player we thought we were getting when New England acquired him a year ago. He is a very nice young man who, I think, just didn’t fit into either Jay Heaps’ or Brad Friedel’s systems. He was a pass-first type of player, and yes, being unselfish is fantastic.

But when you’re paid upward of a million simoleons, you need to shoot — he was pretty unlucky when he did — and score with more regularity than one goal in 21 appearances.

The X-factor in all this is the draft pick. Draft picks are a dime a dozen.

We’ll just have to see how SKC fares in 2019 before that piece of the deal comes together.