MLS Draft Rules...

Each year MLS fans around the country look at the college SuperDraft and get excited to see who is joining their team through this annual event. However, each year training camp comes and not all of the drafted players are with their team. Some have gone to Europe, some have gone to the A-League, some have just dropped off the face of the planet. The MLS SuperDraft is an imperfect process that needs improvement. Soccer America has a great blog post about it today and I thought I would call some attention to it.

MLS needs to learn how to increase the talent pool in the league both with international players and domestic players. Many good soccer players are playing in American colleges and MLS still has not found the best recipe for how to bring them into the league and help them grow. Top underclassmen are woowed with Generation Adidas contracts but then top seniors are asked to play for next to nothing. MLS seems to be saying finishing your college education is a bad thing.

I don't need to go off on a huge rant about this. The net net is that MLS hurt itself by removing the reserve league this off-season. The 2009 draft is going to have a lot of talented players who are going to be competing with guys who have already been in the league a couple years for fewer slots on teams. That is going to force more quality young players into the USL or abroad. Read SA's article for more.