Sweeney: Somi's departure a good thing - for both player and team

The Revolution announced Friday afternoon they have parted ways with defender Gabriel Somi, as the Original Ten outfit and the Syrian international have mutually agreed to terminate his contract effectively immediately.

Somi had arrived in Foxborough in January 2018 following six professional seasons in the Allsvensken, Sweden’s top flight.

While with the Revolution, Somi made 14 appearances, all of which coming last season, including 12 starts; he registered two early-season assists, his last coming on April 6, 2018, a 4-0 win over Montreal. However, as the season evolved, Somi — signed as a left back — fell out of favor with then-manager Brad Friedel, and made his last start and appearance on July 18, a 2-1 loss to Minnesota United, coming off in the 67th minute.

He made one additional squad in 2018, on August 4 at Orlando City.

Outside of an appearance during the recent friendly match with Chelsea FC five weeks ago, Somi had not appeared in a regular match and only had made one squad — at Columbus on April 6 — in 2019.

Somi’s departure brings the Revolution roster to 25 players, and also frees up an international roster spot headed into the Secondary Transfer Window next month.

BSJ Analysis

For both sides, this needed to be done. Desperately needed to be done.

For Somi, yes, without a doubt: when you haven’t played in anything but internationals and not really getting onto the field — and to be fair, Friedel had hinted to me last September that there were reasons why Somi wasn’t getting out there — you want to free yourself of a situation and put yourself in a position to play more minutes. For Somi’s sake, you have to hope he finds a place where he can play and continue to develop as a footballer. We wish him well.

But this also needed to be done for the Revolution. When you have $425,000 wasting away, the player watching the matches in the club seats and not really earning that paycheck — and the fact that Somi is an international roster player, of which you’re only allowed eight a season — it made no sense for the club to keep onto him for this long.

It also made no sense to give an unproven player at the MLS level or above — and no, the Swedish league isn’t necessarily great, nor better than MLS — a guaranteed contract, but that’s another argument.

We said it before the season started that we doubted Somi would play a minute moving forward, not including the Chelsea friendly, and that was true, as it turned out. The fact that he didn’t see the pitch even after Friedel’s sacking — former interim coach Mike Lapper said that it was a fresh start for everyone — means the 27-year-old wasn’t in Bruce Arena’s plans, either, which led to Friday’s announcement.

There was also that fact that he was signed as a left back while he was more of a left wing was more of a head scratcher than anything. He had only scored a handful of goals in Sweden, so he wasn’t going to add to the goal-scoring totals. He just didn’t get the opportunity.

Now, the main question is … is this addition by subtraction? In a way, yes. You’re freeing up that roster spot — the place on the senior roster as well as the international spot — but you’re also taking a bit of depth out of that back line. It feels as though rookie DeJuan Jones and second-year pro Brandon Bye have entrenched themselves in the back — Bye having taken over for Somi at one point last season — and there wasn’t a need for him moving forward. They are still missing Michael Mancienne in the back line, and who knows when he will be returning.

And who will the club pick up to take Somi’s place on the roster? The window is approaching, and Arena told in-house writer Jeff Lemieux earlier Friday that he hopes to bring in no more than two players during it. They now have two free international slots, so we'll see what happens next month now, won't we?