By ALAN SNEL
The downtown Las Vegas Lights FC soccer team is getting down to the details of signing players as 30 pros were scheduled to arrive in Las Vegas Sunday night with salary negotiations set for this week.
But Lights owner Brett Lashbrook told LVSportsBiz.com said Sunday that just because there are salary talks, it doesn’t mean all the players will be signed. In fact, Lashbrook predicted that perhaps 10 of the players will sign. The number of players on the Lights roster could be in the 23-30 range, Lashbrook noted. The players who are in town could be talking with other pro soccer teams, too, he said.
LVSportsBiz.com caught up with Lashbrook Sunday mid-day when about 75 Las Vegas area players were trying to catch the eye of colorful Lights coach Jose Luis Sanchez Sola (also known as “Chelis”), who stood in the middle of a scrimmage game at the Kellogg Zaher Soccer Complex.
Here’s Lashbrook in his own words about this weekend’s combine, which he hopes will yield at least one signed player. But it will be Chelis, a star soccer coach from Mexico who also coached in the MLS, who will decide the player signings.
The Lights will play three pre-season games at Cashman Field in February and then begin their United Soccer League season in March. They will share Cashman with the Las Vegas 51s baseball team in 2018. But then the soccer club will have the venue to itself in 2019 when the 51s are scheduled to move into a new ballpark in Summerlin next to City National Arena, the NHL Vegas Golden Knights headquarters and practice center.
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