United trades for Thompson

Faced with a roster crisis, D.C. United became proactive yesterday and traded for a big forward.

United dealt a fourth-round pick in the 2006 Major League Soccer SuperDraft and future considerations to the Dallas Burn for second-year forward Jason Thompson.

It could be a good move for United because Thompson, as a Project-40 player, does not count against the club’s roster or salary cap. If the 6-foot-1, 185-pounder doesn’t work out, D.C. merely will have burned a low-round draft pick in a draft two years from now.

“Jason has a very good pedigree,” United coach Peter Nowak said. “We were looking for a striker who is going to be a project, but physical ability is very important for us. In the long run, I think he can be a very good project — that’s why we decided on him.”

Thompson, 22, originally was selected in the second round (15th overall) by the Burn in last year’s MLS SuperDraft but sat out last season recovering from a torn ACL suffered while training with the U.S. under-23 team in Portugal in September.

“I was with him, and we were doing finishing drills. He just swung across the ball, kicked it and just went down and blew out his knee. It was crazy,” United forward Alecko Eskandarian said.

Nowak did not rule out Thompson starting up top for United (5-6-6) tonight against the Burn (5-6-5) at the Cotton Bowl. With Eskandarian and Dema Kovalenko suspended because of yellow cards and Ben Olsen, Earnie Stewart, Ryan Nelsen and Santino Quaranta not making the trip because of injuries, Nowak has few available bodies.

If Nowak decides to start Thompson, he probably will pair him with Freddy Adu and push forward Jaime Moreno back into a central midfield role.

A more likely scenario has Adu and Moreno up top. Newly signed Nana Kuffour, who scored the club’s only goal off an Adu corner kick in Wednesday’s 2-1 loss to the A-League’s Richmond Kickers in the U.S. Open Cup, then would be at right-flank midfield, with Joshua Gros, Brian Carroll and Bryan Namoff possibly rounding out the midfield in a 4-4-2 alignment. It appears Nowak doesn’t have enough midfielders to play a 3-5-2 tonight.

U.S. Olympic coach Glenn Myernick discovered Thompson two years ago when he was with the Boulder (Colo.) Rapids Reserve of the Premier Development League. That season Thompson scored 15 goals, including Boulder’s only one in a 2-1 loss to the Cape Cod Crusaders, who featured current United starting goalkeeper Troy Perkins, in the 2002 PDL championship game.

“[Thompson] kind of came out of nowhere. None of us had ever heard of him when we were with the national team, and he came in and kind of surprised some of us with his hustle and ability,” Eskandarian said. “He’ll bring that same attitude here to D.C., and he’ll fit right in because that’s the type of players we have on this team and that’s the type of work ethic Peter preaches.”

Thompson has played one minute this season for the Burn. As a freshman at Eastern Illinois in 2000, Thompson led the nation in goals with 21.