- Keith Hickey

When the MLS SuperDraft (formerly the College Draft) rolls around every year, there's a predictable pattern. The players seen as having the highest potential or the ability to contribute immediately are snapped up earliest, leaving those players seen as less likely to have significant pro careers to make up the numbers in later rounds. But those castoffs don't always end up on the reject pile of MLS washouts. Sometimes, they end up being solid contributors to their clubs. And once in a while, you find a true gem in the later rounds. Here's our list of the top "sleeper" picks in MLS Draft history.

Another year, another MLS prospect, fresh out of college and ready to go pro, turning his back on Major League Soccer to sign in that hotbed of European football, Sweden.


That probably not fair, and I don't really mean to disparage Swedish soccer. But I'm just a bit frustrated with the situation; players that MLS should be keenly focused on keeping, desperately needs as more teams enter the league through expansion, and ultimately should be a proving ground/launching pad for, are running as quickly as they can to another league.


Scandinavian leagues have embraced young American talent, that much is clear. The troubling part, at least from an MLS viewpoint, of quality college players like Henderson, Marcus Tracy, and Charlie Davies never playing a minute in America's top flight is that those players are better off in Sweden. It's not only about money, though it's certainly better there than here; it's also about the trail to bigger things and better clubs that Charlie Davies blazed only recently. While not every player can burst onto the National Team scene and find themselves moving up the ladder from Sweden to a place like France as quickly as Davies did, the example is now there and supremely tantalizing.


Sweden is only a stones throw from the riches of France, Germany, England, etc., meaning that playing well in Scandinavia will draw interest from a more glamorous club much more quickly than doing the same in MLS might. That's a function of geography at its simplest, and league reputation/difficulty of negotiation at its more involved. Neither is encouraging for the hopes of stemming the tide of talented players looking to the Nordic countries first and Major League Soccer only as a fallback.


I don't know what it would have taken to keep Craig Henderson in the United States, and perhaps there was little that could have been done. If that's the case, then it's probably an unfortunate byproduct of salary and roster restrictions still necessary to maintaining cost control. But changes can be made that would make it easier to keep Americans here, and the league needs to look for ways to keep players like Henderson here whenever possible. Some kids will always look to Europe, Sweden included, no matter the opportunities or money available to them in the US; but it's supremely frustrating to watch good college players leave while MLS seemingly stands idly by.


Absorbing the loss of players to Scandinavian leagues would be much easier if MLS had some reliable mechanism for obtaining young talent other than the draft. But they don't and don't appear to be close to developing one.


It's not quite an epidemic, at least not yet, but it is a troubling trend.


Seems I've been outed on my lack of college soccer knowledge; the player in question, Craig Henderson, is a Kiwi and not American. Still, he played college soccer and is therefore a prime MLS prospect; the point is the loss of talent, not necessarily the specific nationality of the player himself. Thanks to Drew from WVHooligan for catching my mistake

Photo Credit: The Dartmouth

There seems to be some question these days about what exactly Major League Soccer's responsibility is as a developer of American players for National Team duty.

To be honest, I don't understand why there's a question.

I've never believed that it's the league, ostensibly a money-making enterprise, who is ultimately responsible for developing young American players. Sure, a part of Major League Soccer's original mandate may have been to help improve the Nats, but I would hope that we're past that at this point.

If the U.S. is ever going to be serious footballing nation, we need to stop expecting our domestic league to be a "training ground" for American players just because they're American.

The National Team pool will be deeper and of higher quality when clubs, rather than high school and colleges, take on the burden of developing the next generation of players.

Over time, I've become a staunch opponent of the SuperDraft. Until the safety net of the draft is taken away and MLS clubs are forced to develop their own talent, the development of American players will stagnate. The current situation allows MLS teams to dip into the college ranks for new players every year, rather than scouting for talent the way clubs abroad do.

The draft was (and perhaps still is to a point) a necessity. At the outset of MLS play, American soccer simply didn't have the infrastructure in place to allow for a traditional academy system. Money concerns rule, and I'm willing to allow the league and its clubs some leeway; but we're coming up on fifteen years of competition, and we've yet to see a player rise through the ranks and contribute to the senior club in any significant way. That simply doesn't seem right to me.

American soccer is a hodge-podge of programs, high schools, and club teams. None seem to be able to do the job individually, and even collectively often come up short. By the time college players are ready to contribute (or are ready to be drafted) on a professional level, they're already used up a few years of their prime. It's inefficient and disturbing, if only because those players are already two to three years behind their European, South American, and even Mexican counterparts.

As Americans, we seem to be comfortable with allowing soccer players to follow a time line that handicaps both them and the clubs. Training time in a structured professional environment, without the distractions of college life, is invaluable. The status quo is allowed to pervade because it's the "easy" and cheapest way to do business. Both MLS and its member clubs seem content to let the American college system do the work, then pluck players who may or may not be ready to contribute at an age when they should much more advanced.

MLS teams seem unwilling or unable to properly scout this country. I refuse to believe that American players would be held back, or that the talent pool would be diluted by expansion, if the situation changed and clubs did a better job of finding American talent. Too many American kids are either ignored or missed completely. MLS teams, without incentive to fill up academies with talented local youngsters, go abroad for talent first.

Bottom line? The number of international roster spots is not the issue. In the short term, some American players may lose their jobs and be forced to catch on in USL. But if USSF and MLS move in the right direction and step up the academy system, more American players would be ready to contribute as professional at an earlier age, mitigating the need to look abroad. The Nats pool would deepen and improve, and everyone would be happy. Right?

For the time being, I suppose the foreign player issue could be argued either way. If you put more into the USMNT than you do your club, you may prefer MLS to be the Nats development program, remaining a overwhelmingly American league. If you want a strong league better positioned to compete on an international level, you might prefer more of a foreign presence.

I'm not sure why those two things have to mutually exclusive.

We won't actually know if they are until club academies become the predominant development method for American players. Until then, it's impossible to know if allowing MLS to become more "foreign" (which I don't believe is a foregone conclusion by the way) will be a detriment to our National Team aspirations.

I'm a bit all over the place with this, but I hope I managed to get some of my point across. Share you thoughts, let me know where I'm going wrong, or explain to me why a balance isn't possible.

Here we are, roughly three hours from one of the big events on the MLS calendar, the SuperDraft (I've never understood the "super" part; what makes it super?).

Although I've indicated here that the draft needs to eventually become obsolete if MLS is going make the leap to relevancy, it's currently the best method for teams to acquire young talent. I'm mostly unfamiliar with the players, though I'll be trying to learn as much as possible about those most highly touted, if only because I'll be rooting for them to become stars. MLS is a league lacking for young star power, so the more of these players that fulfill their potential, the better.

I'm looking forward to the day that a young American (or U.S. based) starlet makes their debut in MLS after being groomed in his team's youth system. Until then, happy draft day, and I hope your team gets the guy you want.

I'm looking to put something together in the near future on the upcoming expansion announcement: there has already been plenty of discussion around the web on which cities deserve teams or have the strongest bids, so I'll be focusing on what each city's team would mean in a broader American sports context (if that makes any sense).