CHICAGO - In advance of the 2019 SuperDraft, league executives from Major League Soccer indicated that they were still bullish on 28 to 33 year old Journeyman soccer players who once got game time in Sweden.
“Despite all of these players here,” stated one MLS General Manager as he waived towards the combine, “we are still very much excited about bringing in a 29 year old player who got a few good games in the Allsvenskan two years ago.”
One anonymous source in a league front office stated that he expected at least 50% of the worst performing players during the 2019 season to have some former connection to DIF, AIK, Götheborg, Malmo or Hammarby.
“It’s important for teams in this league to look for a pedigree,” stated one anonymous sources. “So they’d rather give a guy who had a good season for DIF back in 2015 a $225,000 contract than play a 21 year old player who just came out of Stanford.”
With the emphasis on the Swedish league being so prevalent in Major League Soccer, some teams have gone so far as to look at other leagues like the Danish Superliga or the Austrian Bundesliga.
“We found a fullback that had a really decent 2017 with SK Sturm Graz,” stated one anonymous GM. “With that kind of pedigree he is going to be worth that $175,000 contract. As a matter of fact, we are going to send our fullback draft pick down to our USL team to give him some more time before we trade him away next year.”
The Nutmeg News will have more on this as SuperDraft players end up in the USL and NPSL within 5 years as they struggle to get any playing time over the defensively liable 28 year old journeyman player that your team is going to bring in to play 1500 minutes this season regardless of his performance.