Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Sporting Add Two More in Draft

Today MLS held the third and fourth rounds of this year's Superdraft via conference call. Sporting Kansas City had two selections in the draft, the 11th pick in both rounds, the 52nd and 72nd picks overall. With Kansas City currently has 29 players under contract for 2016, other players on the way, and only 28 available spots, one could easily assume that any player that KC took here was more likely to be a member of the Swope Park Rangers than Sporting KC.

With the 52nd pick Sporting grabbed Ryan James from Bowling Green University. The Canadian midfielder scored nine goals and had 15 assists in his college career appearing in 79 games for the Falcons, including five goals and four assists in 19 games his senior year. Based on his highlight video it appears that James mainly plays on the right hand side of midfield, which would be the right wing in KC's 4-3-3 system.

With their 72nd pick Kansas City selected Faik Hajderovic, a forward from St. Louis University. The St. Louis native played his first three years of college at Evansville before transferring for his senior year. At Evansville he played in 44 games with 10 goals and 24 assists. In his senior year at SLU, Hajderovic played in 15 games, scoring two goals and adding two assists. Hajderovic seems to have played all over the forward line based on highlights, but with his size one would expect he'd see his time out wide in KC's three man forward line.

With KC's roster size at the moment and the addition of the Rangers, either making an appearance for the first team in 2016 would be a surprise.

No comments: