US Soccer - MLS draft, US national team

Welcome back. State of the States is shaking off the long winter slumber and limbering up for the return of MLS and A-level international action next month. With one eye on the clouds and the other scanning furiously for our shadow, let's take a moment to consider the month gone by...

Draft Season Draws to a Close

January saw the final set of MLS drafts logged in the books. On the back of the Expansion Draft in November and the introduction of the Reentry Draft in December, which shuffled the league's deck of experienced players, the SuperDraft and reborn Supplemental Draft supplied MLS rosters with some fresh young blood. In a someone surprising move, the Vancouver Whitecaps took the "young" part literally and used their top pick on 17-year old Omar Salgado.

But the more intriguing story-lines were coming out of youth infusions from a different source. More and more MLS clubs are turning to their academies to bypass the draft process, either signing players directly from their own youth production lines or exercising options on collegiate players who had been brought up in their systems. Of course, that's not saying the college pipeline is going to dry up anytime soon. The National Champion Akron Zips provided a new record for players picked with seven players and an astonishing five of the first eight picks hailing from that program.

Chilean Draw

Moving on to inexperience of a different sort...Bob Bradley used his annual January camp for MLS and out-of-season European-based players to run the rule over a group that had only a handful of caps among them. An uneven, frantic game between two young sides was a predictable result, and the US performance was largely forgettable, though the likes of McCarty, Ream, and young Agudelo all staked claims for their inclusion in the full senior squad.

The game also saw Bradley continue to toy with systems that get the most out the deepest area of the team (midfield) while relying less upon some of the weakest (forward depth). Bradley's US sides have historically favored counterattacking 4-4-2 formations reliant upon two central holding midfielders and two creative wing midfielders pushed higher up the pitch in support of the forwards. In this match, he tested the sort of 4-2-3-1 that is becoming something of a standard in international play. It will be interesting to see if he chooses to field it against Argentina and Paraguay in the friendlies at the end of March.

Transfer Central

Continuing on with the national team, the winter transfer window saw a fair amount of movement for key and fringe members of the senior squad. Findley and Buddle, forwards on the edge of that core eighteen-man team, both sealed moves from MLS to second-division clubs in big European Leagues, while another fringe forward, Eddie Johnson, stepped a level down the English league ladder in search of playing time on loan. Guzan and Lihaj of Aston Villa, also probably in or pushing to be in the eighteen, both made similar short term loan moves to get minutes as well.

But there were bigger headlines concerning key members of the squad as well. Central midfield starters Bradley and Jones both secured loan moves away from the Bundesliga to the English Premier League, Onyewu left Milan in search of playing time in Holland, and Altidore headed east to ply his trade for a few months in Turkey.

And then, last but not least, there's Charlie Davies. The former US breakout forward has fought back from career-threatening injuries but still can't find time outside of the reserves for his club team in France. In search of first-team minutes, he's going to give MLS a try. Will such a move work out for Charlie as well as it did for Landon Donovan? Will the short-term move turn into something longer? Time will tell.

Looking Ahead

And while we'll have a big chunk of our attention focused on if Davies lands in MLS and how he fares, there are plenty of other items to keep our eyes on for the month ahead.

• With the Egypt friendly understandably cancelled, it falls to European league action to see how various national team players are faring. Will a change of scenery benefit some key members of the squad?
• MLS training camps get into full swing and the roster shuffle will intensify as trades and transfers and roster reductions continue.
• Speaking of rosters, MLS introduced the 2011 roster rules with expanded, 30-man squads. Now we'll need to see what league, conference, and playoff formats MLS HQ decides upon.
• The CONCACAF Champions' League gets back into action with the Crew and RSL playing each other in the quarterfinals, guaranteeing a semifinalist from MLS. Who will it be and how far can they go?

Stay tuned next month for another installment of State of the States. Thanks for reading.

Michael S. Hund is the creator of the Fullback Files, a blog covering DC United, the US National Team, and Major League Soccer.