Minus Bruce, the Designated Players were fortunate enough to get together, grab some drinks and kick back at Ethan Zohn’s 1st Annual GrassRoots Soccer Charity Event and party thrown at Marquee on Thursday night.

The man making Designated Player money for DC United is finally back in the nations capital after two weeks rehabbing down in Argentina.

Thanks to our boy Kyle over at Behind The Badge -

“I feel a lot better and I hope to finish the season on a positive note… The most important thing was to get rid of the pain I was feeling all the time… I hope to play a few minutes on Saturday, but don’t think I’ll play tomorrow… It was really hard to watch the team go through that [recent losing streak] and not be able to help… It would have been easy for me to sit back and not play the rest of the season, but I want to work to come back and help as much as I can.”

If you’re keeping track, that’s around $1.9 a year as Gallardo’s played in 14 matches with 4 goals and 3 assists.

A lot of people have been asking what the whole Designated Players thing is all about. I leave it to our boy Adam at This Is American Soccer to sum it up and put it in its proper context.

There is a movement taking place within the soccer community that we will be announcing soon. It is a movement where the collective is greater than the sum of its parts. What does this mean exactly? We can’t say yet, but it is going to be something that we as soccer fans, especially American Soccer fans can be proud of. Stay tuned for more details and info.