Don't know how much he might play when RSL opens its season at Seattle on Saturday night, but coaches and team officials are hoping that striker Luis Miguel Escalada ultimately can provide a strong complement to Yura Movsisyan and Robbie Findley up top.

And in a way, he'd better hurry.

The native Argentine is officially on trial with RSL as part of a loan agreement with LDU Quito in Ecuador, general manager Garth Lagerwey said, with an option in his contract for a salary hike due on April 15. It's significant enough that Lagerwey and coach Jason Kreis weren't willing to commit to it when they traveled to Ecuador to try to sign Escalada in January, so they agreed to the loan arrangement so they could get a look at the player before committing a higher salary to him.

“After 10 weeks,” they figured, “we'll know.”

The reason RSL wasn't willing to commit at the outset was because Escalada hardly played last year, in large part because of another team's failed attempt to sign him. Lagerwey said RSL tried to sign him last summer, but was outbid by Newell's Old Boys of Argentina. However, Newell's defaulted on the deal by failing to pass for his player pass — the transfer fee, effectively -- leaving Escalada ineligible and his pass still in the hands of LDU Quito.

However, LDU Quito had signed a replacement during the time that Escalada had moved to Newell's under the impression that he would be playing for them. So by the time Newell's defaulted, Quito had effectively moved on, and Escalada had nowhere to go. “Kid's been in limbo for six months,” Lagerwey said.

So now, Escalada has to prove to RSL he's worth the extra money, and the team certainly believes he can do it. Lagerwey noted that Escalada scored 45 goals in 78 games for teams in the Ecuadorian Serie A the past few years, and sold for $1.8 million to LDU Quito just 18 months ago. He has lost some weight and worked hard, Lagerwey said, and “won championships and stuff like that. We really think that he's somebody who could really develop for us.”