Team officials had known for months that they did not want to let forward Alvaro Saborio get away when his loan deal from FC Sion in Switzerland expired today. But it wasn't until midsummer that they finally started thinking they could avoid it.

That's about the time that president Bill Manning recalled starting to entertain the idea that RSL could afford Saborio as a designated player. The team was buoyed by strong crowds and successful concerts at Rio Tinto Stadium that gave it more and more financial confidence, and Manning remembers broaching the topic in a July meeting with co-owner Dave Checketts.

“Sabo's too good to lose,” Manning said.

Gradually, Manning worked on convincing Checketts and fellow owner Dell Loy Hansen that buying Saborio would be a solid investment, and “at the end of the day, Dave and Dell Loy want to win.”

Good thing, too, because general manager Garth Lagerwey said that if the owners had not “stepped up” to pay for the six-figure buyout straightaway, the team would have had to trade perhaps two players to make the deal work. Instead, investing in the buyout allowed the team to use its valuable allocation money toward other players on the roster, rather than having to burn it on Saborio.

“We started at 'there's no chance we can do this,' and it wound up as, 'we have to do this for our fans,'” Lagerwey said. Added Manning: “I think it was a massive statement to this community” that RSL is committed to getting better.