You only had to look around the New York Red Bulls locker room on Sunday night to see how much of a shock it was that Lloyd Sam had been suddenly traded to D.C. United.
As the news broke last Thursday, Sam himself had gone from tweeting that he was in tears to making all the right noises about looking forward to playing with his new team, within the space of a few hours. After a frustrating 0-0 draw against the Portland Timbers on Sunday, in which the Red Bulls attacking unit had looked off-key all night, it was clear his former colleagues were still struggling to adjust to the gap in the locker room and the reasons for it appearing.
Even those players paying lip service to faith in the managerial brain trust had fairly skeptical looks on their faces as they spoke wait-and-see platitudes. Even talk of a new designated player coming in could not quite dispel another elephant in the room, which was that last summer's DP arrival, Gonzalo Veron, has been underwhelming.
Much of that is down to acclimatizing, then some rotten luck with injuries, but if the case could be made that Sam's movement had become a little more predictable for MLS defenses to deal with this season, it's also possible to make the case that the Red Bulls midfielders are having real trouble predicting the movements of Veron in front of them. In a period when the Red Bulls have been showing signs of struggling, there has been an instant subtraction in quality without an instant suggestion of an upgrade.
And of course, feelings around the trade were heightened by the fact that Sam had not just gone to another team, but gone to D.C. United: the Red Bulls' historical rivals. Trades between MLS rivals have not necessarily been the fraught point of contention they can be in other countries, but the players who have played for both teams, even those who have not moved directly between the two, have played their fair share of keeping this rivalry on the bubble. Sam might yet come back to hurt the Red Bulls this year.
Fabian Espindola to D.C. United
Fabian Espindola's partnership with Alvaro Saborio was a cornerstone of Jason Kreis' successful Real Salt Lake teams -- teams that were often publicly admired by Thierry Henry during his time in New York. The French striker was usually making a pointed comment about his own team's lack of collective ethos compared to RSL, but Espindola felt little of that sense of collective when he was abruptly traded to New York as the Salt Lake team began to break up at the end of the 2012 season.
Espindola had just bought a house in Utah for his young family and now had to start rebuilding his life in the New York area -- in a rather less forgiving housing market, for one thing. It's perhaps little wonder he never seemed to quite settle in New York, even though he scored nine goals in the season the Red Bulls won the Supporters' Shield, their first piece of silverware.
After being discarded by New York just one season later, and being picked up by D.C., Espindola seems to take special relish proving a point against the Red Bulls. However, his most memorable moment in the rivalry was being ejected from their 2014 playoff game for confronting the referee after the final whistle, receiving a lengthy ban for his troubles.
Dwayne De Rosario to D.C., Dax McCarty to the Red Bulls
This was a deal whose merits transformed as time passed. Dwayne De Rosario had been with the Red Bulls for only a few months and 13 appearances in 2011 when it became apparent that he just did not fit in a New York side built around Henry. Having already lost two players -- including a young Tony Tchani -- and a first-round SuperDraft pick to Toronto to acquire De Rosario, the Red Bulls exchanged him for Dax McCarty in 2011, himself only a few months into his time with D.C.
New York fans were initially unimpressed. From seeming like a promising international, McCarty's career had stalled at Dallas, and now D.C. was prepared to go from talking about him as a potential captain for years to come to selling him to its rivals. And when De Rosario began to thrive at D.C. in a way he hadn't in New York, it seemed like insult added to injury.
But as great an MLS player as he had been, De Rosario's powers were on the wane, and evidence of diminishing returns began to follow over the next year. Meanwhile, almost by surprise, New York fans found themselves talking about first an improving McCarty, and then about McCarty as one of the best defensive midfielders in the league, one worthy of much more at international level than the cursory glances given him by Jurgen Klinsmann.
Jaime Moreno, "double agent"
Between 1996 and 2010, Jaime Moreno was synonymous with D.C. United, bar a loan spell to Middlesbrough early in his tenure, and strangely enough, a 2003 stay with the then MetroStars, after he fell out with D.C. coach Ray Hudson. If New York fans thought they were getting the player who'd been a mainstay of the successful United teams of the '90s though, what they got instead was an injury-plagued, distracted Moreno who scored only two goals in 11 games and returned to D.C. at the end of the year.
If New York fans were hoping to console themselves with the belief that at least Moreno's best days were clearly behind him, they had to then watch as Moreno went on to become the then-all-time leading goal scorer in the league by the time of his retirement, as a D.C. player, in 2010. The team he broke the record against? New York, naturally. Such was his relative impact with his team that Red Bulls fans still refer to Moreno as a double agent.
Mike Petke
Moreno was only one player in a multiplayer deal that saw Mike Petke, the Jersey-born MetroStar and three-time MLS All-Star going the other way. Petke would go on to win an MLS Cup with D.C. in 2004, but after a few years with Colorado, he would return to New York in 2008 and see out his career with the team.
Other players have played for both teams, but perhaps no player symbolizes or comprehends the rivalry between the two sides more than the fiery Petke. And when he was controversially fired after winning a Supporters' Shield in 2013 and getting to the Eastern Conference final in 2014, his popular support threatened to derail Jesse Marsch's subsequent reign before it even began.
Faced with a rebellious home crowd in his first home game of 2015, Marsch diverted further crisis by winning 2-0 ... over D.C. United. If Marsch was relieved, imagine the relief of his sporting director and former D.C. United player, Ali Curtis, who had fired Petke.
Curtis was only with D.C. briefly, during the short and unremarkable pro career that followed a stellar college one, but given the strength of feeling between the two sides, who knows how close we were to Moreno-style "double agent" accusations being dusted off again?
They could yet be again if Sam is a hit in the nation's capital.