McCarthy's Musings: Five Questions Answered by the MLS SuperDraft

By Kyle McCarthy

SOMEWHERE IN THE AIRSPACE BETWEEN CHICAGO AND HARTFORD – The MLS SuperDraft promised excitement and movement and delivered something far less than that.

For a number of reasons, the SuperDraft didn't involve the trading anyone expected at the top of the first round. Without any big draft day trades and no veterans switching addresses for unproven young talent, Greg Lalas's live commentary might have been the most intriguing part of the day.

The relative calm doesn't mean there weren't stories worth telling and there weren't questions that need answering as the SuperDraft post-mortem process begins. Those draft grades I promised yesterday will appear in the Monday MLS Breakdown after a weekend of reflection. Instead, the Friday Five delves into a few interesting questions resulting from yesterday's SuperDraft.

1. Why didn't Seattle end up moving down from number one to accumulate more draft picks?

Sounders FC coach Sigi Schmid had a couple of players in mind – Steve Zakuani, Sam Cronin and Kevin Alston – at the top of the draft and wanted to make sure he would stay in position to select one of them. Because Seattle wanted to ensure grabbing one of those three players, the team made the decision to avoid sliding too far down the pecking order.

“We would have liked to have picked up another draft choice at the end of the first round,” Schmid explained. “At the end of the day, what ended up happening was that we didn't want to drop out of the top four. The offers we had would have dropped us out of the top four and we didn't want to do that.”

Once Seattle decided to keep the top overall pick, Schmid and the Sounders FC front office felt the price to move into the back end of the first round was too high considering the team's other needs.

“The other offers were so that we would have had to spend allocation money to get it,” Schmid said. “There are a few players we're trying to get signed of the international variety. Our decision at the end of the day was rather than spending that money to get another draft pick, let's save that money and make sure we lock up those other two guys.”

2. Why did MLS teams load up on players from Wake Forest and Maryland?

Six Wake Forest and five Maryland players went in yesterday's SuperDraft. For those counting, 18 percent of the total draft pool came from those two schools.

Los Angeles head coach Bruce Arena lauded Wake head coach Jay Vidovich and Maryland head coach Sasho Cirovski and how those two programs in particular develop players for MLS.

“Those are the kind of kids that have had the right kind of training to take on this kind of challenge,” Arena said after taking Maryland defenders Omar Gonzalez and A.J. Delagarza with his first two picks. “Often we see the college kids aren't prepared to take the challenge of professional soccer. If you get them out of the right programs, they're going to be a step ahead of everybody. I think that's the case with players out of Maryland and Wake Forest. Not that there aren't other schools that don't do it as well.”

3. How does a foreign coach with no SuperDraft experience approach the process?

“It's been an intriguing affair for me,” Colorado head coach Gary Smith said. “It's been a lot of homework and a lot of investigating going into these players. I give a lot of credit to Brian Crookham and Brett Jacobs. They've done a lot of homework on these players. To add to that the expertise and the quality of [new Rapids technical director] Paul Bravo gave us a fabulous opportunity.”

4. Who was the most appreciative first-round pick?

That honor goes to Peri Marosevic, who went to FC Dallas with the fifth pick in the draft.

“This day has been unbelievable,” Marosevic said. “This whole experience at the Combine and the draft and being the fifth pick is unbelievable. I can't say enough about how much this means to me. As a little child, I have always wanted to pursue my life as a professional soccer player. Today is a new beginning. It's a beginning that I'm looking forward to and I will never forget.”

5. Which player did the best job of sucking up to his new coach?

New Sounders FC striker Steve Zakuani glowed about his new home in Seattle and the prospect of playing under Schmid.

“I met him in Florida at the Combine,” Zakuani said. “He just told me that he'd been to a few of my games when he was coaching in Ohio and said that he liked the way I played. It was good meeting him. He confirmed everything I had heard about him. He's a great guy.”

Not feeling content with that particular bit of adulation, Zakuani then offered this response to a question about whether he had seen Columbus play.

“They play a great brand of soccer,” Zakuani said. “Mostly, it comes from the coach.”

BONUS: So, Kyle, how did you end up doing on that mock draft?

Not quite as badly as I anticipated. Readers who flip back to Wednesday's pre-draft prognostications will notice how little faith I had in the accuracy of my predictions. The totals: four completely correct picks (the top three and Chris Pontius to D.C. United at number seven), two players to the correct team in different spots (O'Brian White and Stefan Frei to Toronto FC) and twelve out of fifteen players chosen in the first round. I'd like a mulligan on Danny Cruz (third-round pick to Houston) and Kyle Patterson (fourth-round pick to Los Angeles), though.

Kyle McCarthy writes the Monday MLS Breakdown and frequently writes opinion pieces during the week for Goal.com. Contact him with your questions or comments at kylemccarthy@gmail.com.