Another week, another MLS draft. Today saw the four round 2012 Supplemental Draft. No razzamatazz, all done by conference call and with very little publicity beforehand, it appeared.
Following a bigger event is not easy. Just ask the Screen Actors Guild awards following the Golden Globes. The Pro Bowl at least saw sense and made the switch to the gap week before the Superbowl. That wouldn’t quite work for the Supplemental Draft!
It’s easy to be dismissive of the whole thing. Very easy. In fact here at AFTN we’ve renamed it the Suppository Draft, as MLS can stick it up their ass as far as we’re concerned.
But maybe we shouldn’t be so down on it. There can still be some gems to be found in there.
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The Caps Kiwi defender Michael Boxall was a first round Supplemental Draft pick last year, and he went on to have the most minutes and most starts of any of the five draftees that remained on Vancouver’s MLS squad in 2011.
Boxall’s selection would be the equivalent of the second round of today’s draft, following the shortening of the SuperDraft from three rounds to two last week.
Quality picks like Boxall are few and far between at this stage. Who, outside of the hardcore, remembers the Caps other two selections from the 2011 Supplemental Draft – Joe Anderson and Santiago Bedoya?
For me, this is the draft that reveals the quality and talent of club’s scouting network. Hours of homework to unearth that overlooked talent can prove to be highly beneficial to teams in years down the road.
Not every player develops as expected. Some highly rated talents flop, and some discarded players rise to the top. Did Jay DeMerit’s <i>”Rise and Shine”</i> documentary teach us nothing?!
Going in to today’s draft, the Whitecaps had four picks, numbers 2, 21, 40 and 59.
Let’s be honest here. If you’re a player still around in the low fifties and sixties, it may be time to dig out the job classifieds.
Last year DC, Houston and New York even passed on their selection in the final round of the draft. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Vancouver had also done that this year, but as it turned out, Real Salt Lake were the only ones to do that this time around.
At the end of it all Gienir Garcia, Greg Klazura, Andrew Fontein and Mark Fetrow are all new Whitecaps, for now at least. Whether any of the four will actually make it past evaluation camp remains to be seen. With Whitecaps MLS squad places at a premium, they’re going to have to show something special pretty much immediately to get a chance here.
The Caps first selection was Mexican international defender Gienir Garcia.
Although considered by many to be one of the best players remaining, the addition of another international can only lead to more speculation as to what will happen with the Whitecaps current ones.
The Caps are already over their quota of international spots if all existing players were to return and no further trades for spots are made. Although there is no guarantee that we will be signing Garcia to a contract, it does make you think that some players will not be in the blue and white next season. Boxall, Jarju, Camilo, Chiumiento. You could find reasons to let all of them go for one reason or another.
More on that later though. Let’s focus the attention on Garcia and the other draftees for now.
Garcia is a 22 year old left back who has come through the Cruz Azul youth system in Mexico and has made seven league appearances and two Champions League appearances for La Maquina over the past two seasons, along with earning five international Caps at U20 level.
His only goal for Cruz Azul came in a Champions League tie against Panamanian club San Francisco in 2010.
Last season, Garcia’s three appearances all came as a second half sub, so it’s hard to really gauge what kind of a player the Caps have acquired. He seems to have pace, likes getting forward and can take a free kick. The question we’re all asking now is will GG be at the races in MLS?
The Caps second selection in the draft was another left back, Greg Klazura from Notre Dame University.
Klazura didn’t see game time for the Irish in his freshman or sophomore years in 2007 and 2008 and made only six appearances during his junior year, five of them as sub. His senior year saw him establish himself in the side and he made 20 appearances, all starts and all as left back, notching one goal and one assist.
He came back to Notre Dame for a fifth year in 2011 to take courses to boost his resume for medical school, turning down an offer last year to go to the MLS combine. I like his character from what I’ve been reading about him. He has spent time volunteering at a health clinic for low income patients. Obviously that means nothing on the football pitch, but it’s nice to see that community involvement all the same.
His fifth year with the Irish saw him one of three team captains and continuing as the starting left back, but he can also play the defensive midfielder role, which could be a position the Caps may want to take a look at him in.
An Illinois lad, he was a member of the Chicago Fire Super-20 team that won the North American National Championship in 2008 and has won a slew of collegiate and high school awards.
Klazura’s stats don’t really scream out MLS material to me, and it will be a big surprise if he is still around after the first spell of pre-season training.
The same is also true of the Caps third selection today, goalkeeper Andrew Fontein from the University of California – Irvine.
With the <a href="http://www.canadiansoccernews.com/content.php?2689-Brad-Knighton-Becomes-Latest-Vancouver-Railhawk" target="_blank"><b>addition of Brad Knighton earlier today</b></a>, this is a slightly puzzling selection. The Caps already have Knighton, Cannon and Sylvestre on their MLS squad. With the promising Callum Irving in the Residency team, it’s hard to see just where Fontein will fit in.
Maybe there are some moves afoot with Sylvestre, so he may have a chance. His stats certainly suggest that he’s worth a look.
In 74 collegiate career games, over four years, Fontein has recorded 29 clean sheets, 249 saves and conceded just 67 goals, for a 0.88 Goals Against Average. He’s used to winning and has only been on the losing side on 14 occasions, four of those coming in final tournament matches.
As we say, it’s worth seeing what he can offer and then who knows where moves may take him or keep him.
The final selection for the Whitecaps today was yet another defender, Mark Fetrow from Penn State University.
Fetrow is a 6 foot 5 central defender who made 81 appearances for the Nittany Lions over four seasons, starting all but eight of those and recording four goals and no assists.
With all these defenders, let’s hope we’re getting more Michael Boxalls and not Bilal Ducketts. It would be very surprising if more than one of the quartet are still around Vancouver come ‘First Kick’.
Vancouver’s pre-season training gets under way on Monday, where we’ll get a chance to see what these guys look like in person on grass and not just on paper and in videos.
Maybe there’s a diamond in there, maybe there’s just lumps of coal. We’ll soon see.
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