The Yorkies' Regular Features

Starting 11       The Word       The Matchup       After 90       The South Stand Report

Thursday, January 14, 2010

No Mo-gician at SuperDraft

-------------------------------Hark, it's Herold.

Either Mo Johnston has got a lot of irons in the fire or TFC supporters are seeing piece # 1 in “The All-New and Improved Mo Johnston 10 Year Plan”. Mo, not unsurprisingly, was unable to make any moves to grab a first round pick and had to settle for the lowly 24th and 53rd picks. That in itself is fair enough. If there were no deals to be had you cannot fault Johnston for that. His pick in the 24th slot however creates more questions than it does answers.

Mo opted to draft 17 year old defender Zachary Herold out of the USA under-17 program rather than take an older, more MLS ready prospect. A teenage defender is usually at least two or three years away from being first team ready so this pick is definitely for long term team building and not for the near future. With that being the case, it now falls to Mo Johnston's ability to bring in transfer targets to fill the gaping holes in TFC's 2010 line-up. As we have said before, Mo's player acquisitions have been mediocre overall and many fans will be miffed if come opening day TFC looks like it did on the last day of 2009. With the transfer window now open, we will know soon if he is successful.

The rest of the SuperDraft (how a draft becomes a SuperDraft is a mystery) was an interesting affair. TFC's later pick was 22 year old midfielder Nane Joseph from Old Dominion - that's a college not a former supermarket. We will likely never see Joseph in a match. Local favourite and hopefully future Canadian National Team player Teal Bunbury went to Kansas City while new boys Philadelphia Union used the first overall pick to draft standout forward Danny Mwanga from Oregon State.

Clint Mathis returned to LA Galaxy in a draft day trade with Real Salt Lake and what seemed like hundreds of Wake Forest players were distributed around the league. Kudos to Columbus Crew for upping the comedy value of the first round by drafting Dilly Duka and Bright Dike. Supporters around MLS thank you for future songs and chants. Welcome draft class of 2010 to Major League Soccer - enjoy your lockout.

No comments:

Post a Comment