they stocked the team full of Italians, including Allesandro Nesta and Marco Di Vaio, and by most accounts they're responsible for killing Jesse Marsch as coach because they (and now this is my personal interpretation...) didn't like him because he's American. Nesta also ran the GK Donovan Ricketts out of town -- Ricketts showed up in Portland saying what a major relief it was to be out of Montreal -- on what I'm pretty comfortable saying might be some of that under-the-radar Italian racism kinda bubbling through (scuttlebutt is Nesta began refusing to ever backpass to Ricketts (cuz his feet are sloppy, but still...) and he took over set piece organization from Ricketts cuz Nesta didn't trust him on that either).

so anyway -- I'd be kinda *dying* to know what your boy's experience is with interacting with that team. from afar it seems they're being run by proxy by an Italy-based agent (they have three different former Serie A players as DPs on the squad and Marsch was canned to get a coach with European pedigree, too, most reports saying at the Italians' behest...)

but once you're in camp, you're in camp. if you catch the eye of scouts in preseason games there's a chance another team will give you a call even if you get cut. and now there's the USL Pro league working with MLS, so if it doesn't work for him at MLS he could probably land on a USL roster and it's been proven on a number of different occasions now if you hustle in USL it can result in landing a roster spot in MLS, the new relationship between the two leagues should only increase that opportunity for the lower level players.

so yeah -- huge opportunity for your boy even if it isn't a guaranteed paycheck from the league at this point.