The New England Revolution won a two-team MLS Weighted Lottery for American forward Tony Taylor. The other team in the lottery were the Portland Timbers and the Revs had over a 70% chance to claim the rights of the former U-20 and U-23 youth international. Taylor will be added to the roster pending the team receiving his International Transfer Certificate.
The 25-year old Taylor who was born in Long Beach, CA and resides in Jacksonville, FL has played overseas following a collegiate career with South Florida and Jacksonville. He began his international career in Portugal with G.D. Estoril Praia and also had a loan spell with Atletico Clube Portugal during the 2011-12 season before returning to Estoril to see them promoted to Portugal's top flight. His last professional season was with Cypriot club Omonia Nikosa where he featured in the clubs 2013-14 Europa Leauge second round qualifiers. The young striker has scored 14 goals in 68 appearances in all competitions during his professional career.
Taylor also appeared for the United States youth international teams, making 11 appearances (all starts) at the U-20 level including four starts at the 2009 U-20 World Cup. He also made one appearance for the U-23 team during the 2012 CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
Taylor is a pure attacker it seems, and with the Revs ever growing list of young, capable attackers, he'll have to earn his minutes against regular substitutes like Steve Neumann and starters Diego Fagundez and Teal Bunbury on the wings and Charlie Davies and Patrick Mullins up top. Clearly, Revs GM Mike Burns has no problem adding more young talent to the team.
"Tony is a younger player who will come in and add to the competition already on our team," Revolution general manager Michael Burns said. "He has some speed and is versatile in that he can play up top or out wide on the right. We'll look forward to get him in as soon as possible and integrated into the team."
At a minimum, Taylor can be another versatile weapon off the bench for head coach Jay Heaps and a best case scenario would be to see if Taylor can give some consistency to the Revs lone striker position. Both Mullins and Davies have had good streaks, including the one Davies is on right now, but neither has been able to maintain their starting role. Fagundez and Bunbury appear to have the starting wing roles locked up, so it will be Taylor fighting with Neumann off the bench for minutes or to make the game day squad.