Yesterday, Rising came out as 4-1 winners over a Timbers 2 side that managed to miss twice from the spot. A brace from Chris Cortez helped cement Rising’s place near the top of the table, as well as helping his own race for the USL Golden Boot.

There is one point, however, which many fans may not have noticed. It surfaced just an hour before kick-off, with T2 tweeting this out:

On the face of it, there’s nothing unusual about this. The whole point of the MLS 2nd teams playing in USL is to give players competitive game time when they don’t make the first team.

There is one difference here, however: Conechny is already on loan to the Portland Timbers.

On July 17^th, Tomás Conechny signed on a season-long loan deal for Portland Timbers from San Lorenzo (Argentina). The U20 international was described by Timbers head coach Giovanni Savarese as someone that he believes “…has the tools to become a dangerous attacker in [MLS] moving forward.”

However, as he hasn’t seen any game time for the first XI, he found himself on the teamsheet for T2 instead yesterday. Conechny, already on loan, was being loaned out again by the loanee – a bizarre scenario, the likes of which I have never seen before.

To understand the basis on which this is allowed, we need to know if a loan between a parent club and their USL-based 2nd team actually counts as a “loan”, or if it’s more akin to simply dropping a player to the reserves. Unfortunately, USL’s full rules of competition are difficult to publicly source, leaving this question unanswered.

Most references to players moving between an MLS club and their USL affiliate do use the term ‘loan’. Such references are easy to find in the USL’s 2018 Media Guide and the MLS Roster Rules & Regulations.  The term ‘loan’ is also frequently used by the clubs involved. If we take this at face value, and consider Conenchy’s move to be an actual loan, then it casts doubt on his eligibility.

Of course, with the lack of published rules on this front, it’s hard to tell if the MLS 2nd teams count as affiliates or are simply considered part of the same club. The fact that players are often signed to contracts for the USL side, and then have to sign a separate contract when the parent club comes calling, suggests affiliation is a more accurate description. Still, if there’s one thing that soccer leagues in the US have taught us, it’s that logic can go out of the window when competition rules come into play.

Regardless of Conenchy’s eligibility, it doesn’t appear to have impacted on the result. It’s not like a player was ever shown two yellow cards only to stay on the field, right? We’d never see that in USL…oh.

From the Ashes has reached out to the USL office to request clarification over these rules.