Major League Soccer’s expansion draft concluded earlier today, and each of the new teams, the Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps, selected players with Valley ties.
↵Former Phoenix Shadow Mountain star Robbie Findley went to Portland with the team’s sixth of 10 picks. Findley, a 25-year-old forward, has been apparently considering moving to Europe to play, but there must be some kind of deal in place to allow him to stay in the U.S. and return to Oregon, where he played college soccer.
↵Findley won the MLS Cup with Real Salt Lake in 2009 and spent the past four seasons in Utah, and also played in South Africa for the U.S. World Cup team this year.
↵Vancouver chose Alan Gordon, a forward, with its fifth pick. Gordon spent some of his teenage years in Gilbert and played at Yavapai College before transferring to Oregon State.
↵Gordon, 29, spent most of the past seven MLS seasons in Southern California playing for the L.A. Galaxy and Chivas USA.