YCS On Location: 2009 MLS Draft

YCS was on location in St. Louis at America's Ballroom for the 2009 MLS Draft. Among the highlights included.

Roughly 500-600 fansand traveling supporters attended the first round. Among these were fans who supported Kansas City, Chicago, New York, DC United, Columbus, and a contingent supporting the still-yet-to-exist St. Louis team (St. Louis is vying for one of two expansion teams in 2011 with four other cities) all heckling each other.

A Midwestern geography lesson was unintentionally handed out as the St. Louis supporters all singing to the tune of "He's got the whole world in his hands" belted out, "There's only one city in Missouri....St. Louis is her name" obviously directed at the Kansas City supporters, who responded in turn "Your teeeeeeeam's in Illllllllllinois...." a reference to the St. Louis efforts to build a soccer stadium in nearby Collinsville, IL. The KC fans were apparently oblivious to the fact that since last season, they actually play in Kansas City, Kansas. Should St. Louis get a team, it is quite possible it will be billed as a cross-Missouri rivalry, but with neither team actually IN Missouri.


Steve Zakuani from the University of Akron going to Seattle Sounders FC with the first pick in the draft. No surprises there. Cue cheesy highlight reel.


Seattle Sounders FC head coach Sigi Schmid being EVEN FATTER IN PERSON THAN ON TV.


Meeting up and briefly chatting with MLS Commissioner Don Garber, ESPN Soccer analyst Janus Michalik, MLS Coaches Dominic Kinnear (Houston) and Juan Carlos Osorio (New York), and current and former Fire front office staff (Former GM John Guppy and current Technical Director Frankie Klopas). The conversation with Guppy was especially amusing for this blogger, for various reasons which I will not elaborate here.

Chicago Fire being nice and making us wait less and making a great draft pick to boot. After trading away their first round pick to Toronto FC last summer for Brian McBride (SUCKERS!!!!!!), the Fire were without a scheduled pick untill the 28th pick (late second round). However, they made a trade with Colorado Rapids, swapping second round picks, and with Chicago sending the rights to former keeper Matt "Slim" Pickens to Colorado in exchange for cash.

Here's why this deal is so good. After a breakout one-year-wonder year, Pickens was last seen playing contract hardball with the Fire before announcing he was leaving to ply his trade in Europe. Not knowing how good he had it at Toyota Park, Pickens signed with, failed to crack the first team, and was subsequently released from Queens' Park Rangers. QPR is more or less to England what the LA Clippers are to America. Constantly mismanaged and generally a laughingstock. The Fire used their new 20th pick to draft All-American Baggio Husidic from UIC. The Bosnian-born player is part of a select group of players called "Generation Adidas" who get extra money from Adidas, and as a result, their salaries do not count against the league's criminally low salary cap. Husidic will likely find a role in the Fire's defensive midfield. Long story short, the Fire got just the player they needed in exchange for a player who didn't even play for the Fire last season, was a head case anyway, and the Fire even conned Colorado out of some money in the deal too.

Meeting two of the Fire's four draft picks.

Fourth-round selection Richard Jata, selected with one of the last picks in the draft (was the only player still sitting in the invited players' section) giving perhaps the most frank and honest speech I've ever heard any athlete give. As he got his team scarf, walked to the podium and said more or less "Yea......ummmm.....I want to thank my dad......and Chicago for drafting me......I really don't know what else to say....I didn't think I was going to get drafted.....sooooo.....I won't really waste your time here."

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You Asked For It

Because you asked for it in the comments of this YCS post , you get my commentary on this SI.com article detailing the raw deal that a number of graduating senior NCAA soccer players get upon entering the MLS Draft. On a side note, come visit YCS's token soccer writer as he brings live coverage of the 2009 MLS Draft on January 15th at the Edward Jones Dome/Convention Center in St. Louis, MO. And by "live coverage" I mean I'm skipping my Trial Ad class to drink beer all afternoon and heckle ESPN's lousy soccer commentators, and the players New England and Columbus draft with a Section 8 Chicago traveling contingent.

Basic summary
A select number of outstanding junior players are given a "Generation Adidas" tag. As an incentive to leave college early. These players get roster protection, and their salary does not count towards a team's limited salary cap. They tend to be the most talented junior players (past alums include Tim Howard (now with Everton), DaMarcus Beasley, Maurice Edu (both now with Rangers FC), and Jozy Altidore (now with Villareal). They are highly prized in the draft both for their already-shown talent, their young age and potential, and their inexpense.

Graduating seniors taken in the first round get roster protection, but the rest are usually signed to developmental contracts, usually making roughly the same salary as a minor-league baseball player.

The article says that this gives college players a raw deal, and is driving talented players who could be playing in MLS to comparable leagues overseas, such as Austria, Switzerland, and the Benelux and Scandinavian leagues., and recommends either roster protection, an increase in salary, or some combination of the two to encourage talented college players to enter MLS.

My take
The author seems to imply that a good college career should be a free pass for an MLS signing, but MLS is a league unlike others in the United States. The Draft has great importance for the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB because either 1.) That league is the most prominent, if not the only major league for top players to play in in the world, and/or 2.) the talent pools are drawn primarily from the ranks of college players, due to the sport being played only in one area of the world (North America).

MLS (and other soccer leagues) draw their players from all over the world. As such, NCAA draftees not only must be better players than their peers, but also better than some kid from El Salvador or Argentina or Ghana. While this hypothetical foreign player may not have played in the NCAA, he may have been playing professional soccer with his local club's development academy since he was 15.

MLS has also seen a shift towards ignoring the college game and raising their own talent levels through official team youth academies, where for example, DC United has their senior team, a U-23 team, a U-20 team and a U-18 team, all playing under the DC United badge. Soon, these will become attractive opportunities for young soccer players, which will place even less emphasis on the college game.

These factors of player development, combined with the economy which is already hurting sports leagues (although not MLS yet), combined with MLS's already-developing, but still tenuous financials, make it unlikely that we will see a change in roster-protection status, or increased salary among later-round NCAA draftees.

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