FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Gone are the days when Major League Soccer clubs build the majority of their rosters through the SuperDraft – the emergence of the Homegrown system and increased funds have somewhat altered the league’s path in that regard – but the yearly event remains one of the key mechanisms through which teams acquire young talent.
That’s precisely what the New England Revolution will be looking to do on Friday afternoon during the 2017 MLS SuperDraft presented by adidas (3 p.m. ET), currently holding the 20th, 31st and 75th overall selections in the draft.
Revolution General Manager Michael Burns admits that the Homegrown system “has impacted the draft fairly significantly,” but also points to New England’s recent selection of players like Kelyn Rowe (2012) and Andrew Farrell (2013) to highlight the value that still remains.
“Until and if the draft ever ceases to exist, it’s something that we take seriously,” Burns said. “If you look at the history of our club, including fairly recently, we’ve gotten some impactful players out of the draft. That’s how we approach it and we’ll continue to approach it that way.”
Burns and the Revolution’s coaching staff are currently in Los Angeles scouting the MLS Combine, and while they’re focused on the players that will be available on Friday, their attention is divided as they continue to work on acquiring talent on the international market, as well.
Scouting trips to South America, Europe and the Middle East have yielded targets, and conversations remain ongoing as it’s on that front that the Revs will look to make their most impactful additions ahead of the 2017 season.
“I feel like this week, probably more so than ever – obviously there’s a focus on the draft – but there’s also a real focus on still trying to acquire international players,” Burns said. “There’s a lot going on right now.”
Both Burns and Revolution president Brian Bilello have said the club expects to make “multiple international signings” prior to the start of the season, but a firm timeline on when reinforcements will arrive remains impossible to predict as conversations are active.
New England open preseason camp in less than two weeks (January 23) and ideally the Revs want to give new additions as much time as possible to adjust to the squad, but as has been the case in years past, the majority of signings will likely be made during – not before – preseason.
Last year, New England didn’t make their first addition until January 22 when they acquired Samba, while Xavier Kouassi, Gershon Koffie, Je-Vaughn Watson, Femi Hollinger-Janzen, Jordan McCrary, Michael Gamble and Matt Turner arrived throughout the following seven weeks.
“In a perfect world, you would want to have everyone on board by your first day of preseason,” Burns said. “But realistically, that’s not going to happen.
“You want to try to have as much as you can done before preseason so everyone can have more time to play together on the field and get to know each other off the field, but we’ll add and look to add throughout the preseason.”
