United has options in draft

Club has highest pick (No. 5) since selecting No. 2 in its first season.

Atlanta United has the fifth pick in today’s MLS Superdraft, and no possibilities are being ruled out, Vice President Carlos Bocanegra said.

Theclub could keep the pick and take a player at a position of need or take the best available player. It could trade down and try to do the same things. It must also take into account which players are Generation Adidas and which are seniors because they will impact the roster differently. In addition to the fifth pick, the club will have the 32nd pick (second round) and the 59th pick (third round).

“Trying to take all those factors into account for building roster now and for the future,” Bocanegra said.

The team is in an odd position. It hasn’t had a selection this high since its first draft in 2017, when it selected second. That pick was Miles Robinson. Second, like most

teams in MLS, Atlanta United doesn’t have the best success rate with its picks. Robinson and Julian Gressel, who was selected eighth by the club that year, and Jon Gallagher, selected in the first round in 2018, are the only selections of 12 from the past four drafts who are still in the league. Robinson and Philip Goodrum, selected 75th in last year’s draft, are the only two picks still with the club.

The remaining picks, a group that includes Anderson Asiedu, Gordon Wild, Oliver Shannon and Andrew Wheeler-omiunu, are either in the USL or scattered.

Adding to the challenge is because of COVID-19, the ACC was the only major college conference to play soccer last fall. MLS teams are left to rely on last year’s scouting reports, combined with projections, on most of the eligible draft picks.

In another COVID-19 effect, the league didn’t hold a full combine for possible draft picks, which is something it has done in the past either in Florida or California so teams could come and scout the players in controlled scrimmages. The league did hold a much smaller combine in Kansas City just after the regular season that allowed teams to meet players.

Lastly, some players are being tagged as Homegrowns by clubs, which takes them out of the draft and reduces the talent pool. Atlanta United, for example, on Tuesday signed Machop Chol as a Homegrown. Chol was a member of Atlanta United’s academy before matriculating at Wake Forest. Had he not signed with Atlanta United, he likely would have been selected in the first round today. Signing him, in effect, gave the team two first-round draft picks, Bocanegra said.

“It definitely was more challenging,” Bocanegra said of preparing for the draft.

CONTRIBUTED United had four picks in its first MLS Superdraft in 2017. Julian Gressel (second from left) was selected at No. 8 and is now with D.C. United. Miles Robinson (second from right), was the second overall pick and remains with team.