Mauro Rosales out 2-4 Weeks, $100M to join MLS, and Crandall/Chaves: Smolderings for September 20, 2011

The biggest news of the day came in the form of a tweet from the Seattle Sounders:

An MRI has revealed a small tear of Mauro Rosales' right MCL with no additional damage. Mauro is expected to miss 2-4 weeks.

With that, Seattle Sounders' MVP and MLS MVP candidate Rosales will likely be out for the U.S. Open Cup Final against the Chicago Fire. Perhaps almost equally important, Seattle loses a player who can simply take minutes over the next two weeks.  The Sounders battle Costa Rican club Herediano tonight at 9:00 PM CST on Fox Soccer Channel in CONCACAF Champions League play.  The game will be Seattle's 4th in 11 days and the stretch continues for the Sounders with games on September 24, September 27, and October 1 before ultimately reaching the October 4 final. 

MLS Commissioner Don Garber had some interesting comments on expansion with the hat tip going to Steve Davis over at Daily Soccer Fix:

"We have put a $100 million price tag on a New York team. We haven't sold it to anybody yet ... but I don't believe the fact that we haven't closed a deal has anything to do with price."

There's some other good quotes from Garber and thoughts from Davis that make it a great read but that gets one thinking. Would you pay $100M for every MLS team?  Why not just ask to buy one of the weaker MLS teams and move it?  

Finally, Fire team writer Jeff Crandall had an excellent piece on Diego Chaves' return to providing productive stats.  Chaves entered Saturday's game as a late sub and picked up the second assist on Dominic Oduro's game-winning goal.