Thursday, January 16, 2014

Crew Pick Sweat, LB Situation

The theme of today's college MLS "superdraft" was that of, well... nothing really. There were a few that said it was a weak draft, others (like the Columbus Crew) were doing most of their business away from the draft.

After a couple trades with New England (to get Parkhurst) and LA (Jimenez) the Crew wound up with the 14th overall pick and the used it to pick up... Ben Sweat.

Sweat qualifies for the draft because he played college ball for the University of South Florida. Looking down his bio it appears he is a durable defender (most apps in school history with 78) and has a good left foot (MLS teams always need left backs).

Another notable note of Sweat is the fact that he won a lot with the Crew Juniors Super-20 side that won the 2011 National Title with Wil Trapp and recently signed Homegrowns Matt Walker and Ross Friedman.

If you want you can check him out playing against MLS level talent during the third round of the US Open Cup just last May HERE. He holds his own here for Reading United. I'll be giving bonus grades to anybody who watches the video (couple good rips with his left later in the first half into the box, NY fielded a good team that day).

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CREW LEFT BACK

There have been many to play the left back role for the Crew in recent history. Here is a quick list:

1. Nemanja Vukovic
2. Agustin Viana
3. Josh Gardner
4. Josh Williams
5. Shaun Francis
6. Tyson Wahl
7. Bernardo Anor
8. Rich Balchan

That's about the order in which I think are the best.

This year Crew fans will likely see a LB spot up for grabs between Agustin Viana, Waylon Francis and now Ben Sweat. Probably in that order, for now. Unless Waylon is extraordinary, I'd expect him to be a one year and out player while Sweat sticks around for a couple years (especially with the Dayton affiliation).

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CREW ROSTER, 30 DUDES

The Crew roster is up to 30 players now. HC Gregg Berhalter will probably bring a handful more into camp but it's looking like the team is pretty much set for now.

Not entirely sure when the first 2014 MLS team registration date is where they have to trim to 30 but I reckon it's sometime around the end of February. So, about a month in a half to finalize this sucker.

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