This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Real Salt Lake, like 17 other Major League Soccer clubs, passed in Stage 1 of the 2015 Re-Entry Draft Friday afternoon. Owners of the fifth pick in the Re-Entry Draft, RSL passed on the 48 available players during the first portion of the Re-Entry process.

FC Dallas acquired the No. 1 pick in the draft in a deal with Chicago Fire hours before the draft, selecting Argentine striker Maximiliano Urruti from the newly-crowned MLS Cup champion Portland Timbers.

Before the draft started, Kyle McCarthy of FOX Sports, reported the Colorado Rapids had acquired Guatemalan winger Marco Pappa from the Seattle Sounders. The Denver Post later confirmed the deal. The only other player taken in the Re-Entry Draft aside from Urruti was former Chicago goalkeeper, Alec Kann, whom Sporting Kansas City took with the No. 11 pick.

RSL's lone Re-Entry Draft-eligible player, center back Chris Schuler, was not selected. Those not selected in Friday's Stage 1 draft are eligible for now the second draft on Thursday, Dec. 17, at 1 p.m. Clubs now have until Wednesday, Dec. 16, at 9 a.m. to negotiate contracts or trade deals regarding Re-Entry available players. A player may also choose to opt out of the Re-Entry process prior to Stage 2.

General manager Craig Waibel said he and Schuler spoke Thursday. Waibel said the two came to the consensus that due to the 28-year-old's current status — out-of-contract and recovering from foot surgery in September — going the Re-Entry Draft route was the best for both sides.

"He is happy in Salt Lake, but from my perspective, from my seat versus his seat, I have to watch out for the club and he has to watch out for him," Waibel told the Tribune. "His history in Salt Lake makes it difficult right now for us to come to the right financial agreements. If he gets selected, there will be no hard feelings harbored."

Since Schuler wasn't selected, Waibel said the next round of conversations would ensue within the next few days.

"You never want to lose a player that really, genuinely can be one of the best in the league," Waibel said when asked of the prospect of losing Schuler. "But, there is a salary cap. It's not an open market and it's not just throwing darts everywhere. From where I sit today, unfortunately, it's a little bit of a risk."

Amid the global search • Two weeks after Waibel and RSL coach Jeff Cassar traveled to Argentina on a scouting trip, Waibel said the club is in "middle-to-late stage negotiations" with multiple players. Cassar recently traveled to Central American this week to further scout himself.

"We've offered contracts to a couple of players that we're in negotiation with," Waibel said. "Hopefully we'll find a financial agreement with them."

Waibel said one of the players he's in negotiations with is Argentinean, while the other is Colombian.

A quick update on the Yura Movsisyan situation. Earlier this week, a report out of Russia stated that Movsisyan's club, Spartak Moscow, denied a loan request for the 28-year-old former RSL striker. The report continued, saying Spartak solely has interest in selling Movsisyan, not loaning him out to RSL.

"We are in continued talks with Spartak," Waibel said Friday. "Both sides are talking. It's not just one side posturing during negotiation."

More TAM for everyone • On Wednesday, MLS announced it will invest nearly $37 million to league-wide player compensation over the next two seasons. More specifically, each club will receive $1.6 million in targeted allocation money (TAM) in 2016 and 2017.

"It certainly adds to the workload of identifying a higher-tiered player than most clubs have probably been used to identifying," said Waibel when asked to weigh in on the development. "The idea of the TAM money is, the $800,000 they're infusing is really meant to be spread across two players or multiple players as opposed to just all spent on one. In the world we've existed prior to TAM, it's been like, 'OK, you fit the salary cap or you're just an exponentially-paid player.'"

Waibel said with the newly-infused TAM initiative, there will be an available price of range of players around $450,000 to $750,000 that previously didn't exist prior.

"If you can go get two of those and use the TAM money accordingly, you can make your roster considerably better if you get the players right," he said.

Tigres steamrolling • RSL's CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal opponent, Tigres UANL, dominated the first leg of the LigaMX Apertura final against Pumas Thursday night 3-0. Tigres seem all but set to win the league title.

"They look good," Waibel said. "I don't know what else to say."

Tigers will host RSL in the first leg of the Champions League series on Wednesday, Feb. 24, at Estadio Universario in Monterrey. The second leg will be played at Rio Tinto Stadium on Wednesday, March 2 in Sandy. Waibel said he and the staff have been tuning in for each Tigres game to scout and study the nuances of Mexico's hottest club.

"They've actually been a lot of fun to watch — unfortunately," he said.

Waibel did provide a pinch of reality. During his trip to Argentina, he watched River Plate host C.A. Huracán. In the two weeks since he watched that game, River Plate has transferred five players. Waibel said with how fluid the transfer market is in LigaMX and with RSL in the midst of its offseason, he expects a variety of new faces to be on each roster when Feb. 24 rolls around.

"After January," he said, "we'll figure out what team we're going to be playing."

-Chris Kamrani

Twitter: @chriskamrani