Conditional Picks

I've been reading reports from the MLS Combine, scanning websites for assessments of incoming players and mock drafts, and I've come to one conclusion. I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen this Friday at 2:30 central time. As a corollary to that, I'm starting to think that conventional wisdom is for sissies.

With the tenuous assumption that the draft order stays as it is, mostly everyone in the universe is predicting that DC United, with the first pick, will take UVA standout Alecko Eskandarian. I'm not so sure. United recently tore the heart out of their defense with Eddie Pope shipping off to pastures not green so much as swamp-colored in exchange for Mike Petke. Maybe I'm showing my ignorance of Ray Hudson's strategy here, but I only count three defenders on that roster. Some help should be coming from Bulgarian Galin Ivanov, but even then, the backline looks much thinner than the front, so wouldn't DC be more likely to take David Stokes or Shavar Thomas? Or Ricardo Clark to beef up the defensive midfield spot? Clark has been earmarked for Metro by a bunch of people, but if Eskandarian is available, Bob Bradley will take him in a heartbeat, as he's only got Clint Mathis and Jaime Moreno up top at the moment, and still has Richie Williams to fall back on as a d-mid.

Then there's the Fire with the third pick. Soccer fans on the Internet already seem to be cutting and pasting the new Puma uniforms onto Magee's 5'9" frame, but while the team's pursuit of the youngster has been well-documented, there are two big questions lingering. First, does he represent Chicago's most pressing need? Second, does he warrant such a high pick? As might be expected, the answers are maybe and maybe.

As mentioned last week, the Fire badly need an attacking midfielder to fill the still-gaping void left by the Peter Nowak trade. They could also use a small, quick forward. While Magee could be both, it's unclear whether he could be the former soon enough to be worthy of such a high pick. Diego Walsh from SMU seems like a better bet there, and Walsh almost certainly wouldn't be available with Chicago's next pick, at #18. But then the question becomes, who will be available at #18 that would make losing Walsh more palatable? It's possible that the Fire could take Magee as a forward, then look for someone like Sherif El Bialy from Rutgers or combine standout Hayden Woodworth to address the midfield concern.

And in the short-term, that concern may be entirely unfounded, as Coach Sarachan hinted that he might move World Cup veteran DaMarcus Beasley to the center of the field, which makes a lot more sense than throwing mostly untested first- or second-year players into that pressure cooker. The problem there being that Beasley is once again rumored to have an offer either on the table or coming from Middlesborough of the English Premier League, so the short-term might be very short.

Finally, there's the lingering issue of the never-quite-killed trade with DC United for current old man of the squad, Hristo Stoitchkov. United also has picks at #5, #11 and #14, any of which would be a bit more rationally spent on Magee. Except that the trade likely won't go through before the draft, so there's that chance DC will nominally end up with him for the time being.

Right now, the only thing I feel comfortable predicting is that the Fire will have somewhere between 4 and 7 new names attached to the organization after tomorrow. Since this represents the first non-salary cap moves from Sarachan, we should at least get some insight into where he thinks this team is going in 2003, but that's a column for another time. And another site, but more on that later.