We are one week away from the 2015 MLS SuperDraft in Philadelphia as Real Salt Lake is slated to pick 16th in the first round. This week, the RSL technical staff heads to Florida for the MLS Combine where they will have a chance to evaluate some of the top players available in this year’s SuperDraft.
We sat down with Real Salt Lake Technical Director Craig Waibel to talk about the upcoming draft, the Combine and the impressions he has of three players from the University of Washington, where he was an assistant coach in the 2012 and 2013 seasons.
Q: What kind of things do you expect to see and what do you hope to see at the MLS Combine this week?
Waibel: We are going down there with the intent of bringing in players that can now be developed over the course of time. With the Monarchs system coming in, it gives us the ability to evaluate players not solely based on if they can contribute to the first team right away, but based on our vision of what we can help those players achieve on the field as well as off the field and become contributing members to the first team.
Q: How do you approach your first draft as Technical Director? Do you look at specific positions or the best player available?
Waibel: We do have specific positions in mind, but those won’t override the best available options. We’ve done a ton of scouting and we’ll use the next five days to solidify those opinions. We have specific players we are interested in. With regard to how the draft is going to go for us, a lot of it is based on the picks that go in front of you and the evaluation and re-evaluation of the board as it gets to you.
Q: RSL has been toward the bottom of the draft. How much more difficult can the draft be when you are that far down on the board?
Waibel: It can be difficult. But the way our staff is structured and work that has been put in by all the coaches throughout the season and collegiate season, the homework’s been done. So the evaluation of players right now is really putting them in the right order and prioritizing our needs. With regard to discovering a player at the Combine, hopefully that can happen. However, if it doesn’t we’re very comfortable with the knowledge we have of the college game and the draft. It could have been harder, but I think we’ve done a lot of work leading up to it to really know what we are looking at.
Q: You had your own Combine. You had Andy Williams at the Caribbean Combine. You had others at the InfoSport Combine. How much do those Combines help you paint a picture of what the draft class might look like and what were you able to pull from them?
Waibel: It’s a huge benefit to be at those Combines and to have that exposure. We’re getting a good look at a huge talent pool. When you see a player and evaluate them as someone you’d like, the Combine presents another opportunity to evaluate players against their peers and it gives you a second or third chance to see them and really see if your first impression was the right one.
Q: How do you view this draft heading into the Combine?
Waibel: I think this draft has a good number of defensive players that can contribute. Some are first-year contributors in MLS but there is a handful of players that with a year in the USL, with 30 more games, with good training sessions will be contributors in MLS and have potential to have long careers. The way I have this draft evaluated and the way our staff sees it, it’s probably a little bit stronger on the defensive side of the ball. But there are still some very unique and special attacking players out there.
Q: You were coaching at the college level 13 months ago. With seeing those players week-in and week-out, both with your own team and in scouting your opponents, what kind of things can you pull from that experience that could help you at the SuperDraft?
Waibel: The real strength of that is the contacts. The ability to have the numbers of coaches to call and get a true evaluation of personalities. The one thing you don’t know about a player when you watch them in soccer games is what are they like off the field? What are their habits and what do they enjoy doing? Those things that matter and make a professional player. It’s a lot of intangibles that make a pro player. It’s not what they do on Saturday. It’s generally what they do the other six that make them good or bad. As players, you evaluate what you can see. As people, that’s hard to know.
Q: Andy Thoma … Cristian Roldan … Spencer Richey …
Waibel: I’ll take ‘em all. Anyone that went to UW. Those are unique players from a really good school. But it all comes down to how we prioritize them on our board. I’d love to say that just being a Husky makes a difference, but my loyalty to this club will always have priority.
