FC Dallas lands another U.S. U-20

• by Ridge Mahoney  @ridgemax, Apr 29, 2009

[MLS] Real Salt Lake has parlayed its five percent chance of landing U-20 midfielder Kyle Davies in a weighted lottery into a future draft pick. Davies, captain of the U.S. U-20 team that will compete for the world championship in Egypt later this year, is now a member of FC Dallas, which traded one of its three second-round picks in the 2010 SuperDraft.

He will fill a senior roster spot on the FCD roster. A broken leg knocked him out of contention for a spot on the 2007 U-20 team, and recurring injuries have plagued his career the past two years with English club Southampton.

"Kyle Davies will be a good addition to our team," said FC Dallas coach Schellas Hyndman, who already has U-20s Anthony Wallace, Brek Shea, Peri Marosevic and Josh Lambo on the roster. "He has good pace, is an aggressive player, who is also a good distributor of the ball and a good ball-winner. Kyle has the ability to play in two places for us. Being left-footed, he can play left back and he's also a center back."

At 5-foot-10, 160 pounds, he may be a bit undersized to play center back, yet he's a tenacious defender who played every minute in the Concacaf U-20 qualifiers during which the Americans reached the final against Costa Rica to earn a spot in Egypt. He converted the decisive penalty kick in a shootout with host nation Trinidad & Tobago to earn that place in the final.

Davies, 20, went to Real Salt Lake on April 16 when the team won his rights in a weighted lottery amid the nine MLS teams that decided to enter. He comes to MLS after two seasons playing for Southampton reserves of the League Championship (second division). He signed with Southampton at age 18 after finishing high school in Northern California.