Young hopefuls await pro destinations at MLS SuperDraft on Thursday

by Travis Clark

One of the biggest events of the Major League Soccer offseason is nearly here.

The annual MLS SuperDraft, being held in conjunction with the National Soccer Coaches Association of America’s annual convention as usual, is set for Thursday, January 12 at 12 p.m. ET (broadcast live, ESPN2 and ESPN3).

There, all eyes in the soccer landscape will be briefly focused on the selection of the top men’s college soccer stars. Thirty-eight players are going to be selected by MLS clubs in this iteration of the draft, unlike years past, where the SuperDraft has seen three or four rounds. Teams like the expansion Montreal Impact -- who own the overall top pick -- and 2011 strugglers Vancouver Whitecaps and New England Revolution lead the pack among those hoping to choose wisely and help their teams right away.

As the league has grown, changed and evolved, the draft process has as well.  Club academies are racing to groom homegrown youth players and lower-profile international players offer outstanding value in MLS, resulting in an increasingly diverse pool of talent that has muted the centrality of college draftees, as even league commissioner Don Garber himself admitted at the combine.

One of the new elements MLS has introduced to the draft process in the past couple of years is inviting international players from outside the college game, mostly young journeyman. In this year’s combine, guests from Japan, Paraguay, England and Mexico all aimed to impress, although it remains to be seen whether or not they’ll get selected on Thursday.

But MLS accepts the importance of retaining domestic talent and a handful of players who excelled in last year’s college season will make a smooth transition to the pros, be it now or later in their careers.

Speedy Jamaican striker Darren Mattocks (Akron) and Duke’s Andrew Wenger, the supremely versatile winner of the 2011 Hermann Trophy as the top-rated player in NCAA soccer, are the consensus favorites to go first and second in the draft, though it's hard to guess in what order. Intriguingly, history shows that top SuperDraft picks often struggle to establish themselves at the next level, weighed down by expectations while latter selections blossom under less pressure.

For every player under consideration, the road to this point has undoubtedly been a long and arduous one -- a major milestone preceded by countless hours and years of playing the game, traveling around the country in hopes of getting noticed and testing oneself against the best players they can find.

Some of those players have a security blanket, already having signed a coveted Generation adidas contract. High-scoring forward Chandler Hoffman, an Alabama native who starred for UCLA, has come a long way since first landing on the radar of major programs thanks to a few YouTube videos.

Striker Dom Dwyer, a product of London, England, first came to the United States to play soccer at tiny Tyler Junior College in Texas, excelling there before transferring to South Florida last fall. Few stories stand out more than attacking midfielder Enzo Martinez, whose family immigrated to South Carolina from their native Uruguay when he was 10 years old.

Regardless of where they hail from, most are far from a sure thing in MLS. The biggest test of their young playing careers awaits, and Thursday is the day they’ll learn where their pro lives will begin.

[ +Find out more at the official MLS SuperDraft home page ]