A lot of the Major League Soccer SuperDraft selections go on to less-than-glorious futures. And there’s really no rhyme or reason as to one’s position in the draft as it relates to their success. There is usually great value late, although knowing where that value is takes a divining rod and a few prayers to assorted deities. To that end, it was worth a wonder: exactly how have the Red Bulls – and the Metrostars before them – fared in the draft over the years, and how well could they have fared knowing then what we know now? Here’s a look at the hits, but largely misses, and strange minutiae of the early years of New York Red Bulls drafting history.
Red Bulls Drafting Hits And Misses Through The Years
Tim Hall’s View From 101
1996 Inaugural Draft: Metrostars take Matt Knowles #9.
This was immediately the wrong pick as DC United would take Raul Diaz Arce at ten, and RDA would go on to kill the Metros for the better part of the next decade. NY/NJ would take Peter Vermes two rounds later who went on to be a US Soccer Hall of Famer, but not for his work here. Success elsewhere will be a frequent refrain.
1996 College Draft: Metrostars select Scott Lamphear #11
The Metros actually had the second overall pick but traded that to DC, who in turn took Eddie Pope, who would also be a stalwart for United for years to come and be in the US Soccer Hall of Fame as well. Players further down the list that could have been taken include Ante Razov (who would play in NY in the twilight of his career) and future head coach Jesse Marsch. Lamphear would stay in college through December 1996, join the Metros in 1997, but get cut in preseason.
1997 College Draft: Brian Kelly at #5
Kelly is a step up, which is damning with faint praise. 85 appearances, 10 goals for New York/New Jersey. After five years in MLS, Kelly retired and he’s now a Goldman Sachs banker. Instead of Kelly, we could have landed Steve Jolley or Kevin Hartman, both of whom would turn up for the Metros later in life.
1998 College Draft: Metrostars pick Mike Petke #8
Well, now, there have been better players to come through these parts, but few if any more beloved than Michael Petke. Still the franchise leader in yellow and red cards and third in all-time appearances. Make the case for Pablo Mastroeni or Matt Reis further down the board if you like, or Joe Cannon or Jimmy Conrad who went undrafted, but nobody around here is listening.
1999 College Draft: At #7 John Wolyniec
The Staten Island Ronaldinho, the only Red Bull to score in an MLS Cup final, and currently the coach of the reserve team RBNY II, Wolyniec is another “yeah, but we love the guy” pick. Also, there wasn’t a whole lot of quality later. Andrew Mittendorf went with the next pick and never played in MLS. The following pick was Matt Chulis, 11 games. Tony Soto at number ten played appeared in four games. Wolyniec appeared in 167 matches for Metrostars/Red Bulls alone.
2000 SuperDraft: Metrostars take Steve Shak number one overall
For reasons known only to Major League Soccer, every draft from here on is called the SuperDraft. And boy was it super. Since Metro picked first, of course they got the best player. That also means there’s the whole rest of the draft after that for us to look back in regret.
Shak would play in 36 games in the red-and-black before being traded to Colorado the following year. You could effectively make an all-time MLS Best XI with the players Metrostars could have had instead: Carlos Bocanegra, future Red Bulls keeper Jon Conway, and… John Wolyniec?
Yep, despite all those aforementioned stats with the Metrostars, Wolyniec only played a handful of games in 1999, and so was eligible to be redrafted the following year, and was, when Chicago Fire took him #44 in 2000. Stand by, we’ll come back to Woly in a second.
2001 SuperDraft: Rodrigo Faria, #13
Having lost their first round pick through a number of trades, the Metrostars lead off the second round taking Faria. The Brazilian would win 2001 Rookie of the Year honors, and still ranks top ten on the franchise goals list. But because we can’t have nice things, Faria would be traded in 2002 to acquire the rights to Bob Bradley’s coaching prowess. In lieu of Faria, the Metros could have taken MLS journeymen Brian Ching or Edson Buddle, who, like half the players on this list, would eventually wind up here anyway.
2002 SuperDraft: #3, Brad Davis
Another great selection for everyone else, Davis played well in his one year for Metro, getting some votes as Rookie of the Year, and then got traded for the #4 pick the following year (more on that in a moment). Davis would bounce around before landing in Houston, where he’d make over 250 appearances and become a club legend. Oops. The Davis pick left Shalrie Joseph, Justin Mapp, and Jon Busch on the board, as well as future television commentators Kyle Martino and Alejandro Moreno.|
2003 SuperDraft: Ricardo Clark at #2, Mike Magee at #4
The Metros turned their natural pick into Ricardo Clark, who would go on to a sterling MLS career for Houston (the vaunted Metro to Dynamo pipeline strikes again). The Brad Davis trade turned into Mike Magee, the wunderkind who would go on to score 70 MLS goals across his career and secure a league Most Valuable Player award.
Again, just not here. Todd Dunivant would go at #6 but end up here eventually. NY would also score Eddie Gaven, Tim Regan and Bruce Arena’s son Kenny in this draft, and in the Supplemental Draft would again choose John Wolyniec.
After bouncing from Chicago to the A-League and then to New England Revolution, Wolyniec was cut and then drafted for a third time, this time back to Metrostars where he would start putting up numbers in earnest.roug
When we join you next time, we’ll jump into more modern day dealings of New York’s original MLS franchise. If you think it can only get better from here, boy do you have another thing coming.
Misfiring In The New Century
Tim Hall’s View From 101
It was hit-and-miss at best, and miss-and-miss at worst. But it was a new thing and a new league, so it is possible that the front office types needed a few years to get their legs underneath them, and once they had some reps, they would be firing on all cylinders. Well, no, not so much. As you’ll see as we move into the more modern era and the Red Bull buyout, bad experience tends to lead to bad experiences.
2004: Seth Stammler drafted at #18
Stammler was a nice enough guy and a pug-nosed player, and that’s all well and good. But if we’re thinking of who the team could have picked instead, the glaring choice is actually a player they would take eighteen picks later: Michael Bradley.
Sure, at the time, he was just the coach’s son. Since then all he’s done is captain the US Men’s National Team, play in Europe and win MLS Cup with Toronto. If you’re gonna have nepotism, as was claimed at the time anyway, you might as well go all in.
2005: At number 12, Tim Ward
One season, thirteen games, no goals at left back, and Ward was sent off to Columbus. This particular draft class isn’t so notable for who came after the Metrostars to swoop up an all-world player, but instead for the players that every team swung and missed on.
Undrafted in 2005 were Chris Wondolowski – who has gone on to play for the US in the World Cup and will break the MLS scoring record this season if not next – and Jeff Larentowicz – who has played in over 350 MLS matches and is still going strong. Ward, on the other hand, would appear in 71 matches in eight years for five clubs until 2012 when he bowed out of MLS and apparently professional soccer as a whole.
2006: With the first overall pick, Marvell Wynne
In their last draft, the Metrostars moved up to grab Wynne thinking they would have a speedy wing defender locked down for the next few years. Instead, Wynne was traded to Toronto early the following year.
Further down the board is a veritable who’s who of former Red Bull players and US Men’s National Team stars, and sometimes both at once. #2 that year was the Moroccan Medhi Ballouchy who would have some memorable moments in red. Numbers 5 and 6 that year were Sacha Kljestan and Dax McCarty respectively, who would eventually become teammates for the Red Bulls, with Kljestan succeeding McCarty as captain of the team.
Jozy Altidore was taken at 17 by the Metros, Dominic Oduro went to Dallas at 21 but would end up here eventually. Other members of a stacked class include Yura Movsisyan, Kei Kamara and Johnathan Bornstein.
2007: New York Red Bulls select Dane Richards #19
The Jamaican would also go on to wear #19 in his first of two stints with the Red Bulls. Dane will forever be remembered for his incredible speed, a mindblowing game against Houston to lead New York to their only MLS Cup final to date, and for casually sliding in to the DM’s of female RBNY fans from time to time.
This pick isn’t terrible given what Dane meant to the team, although all the way down at #50, two picks before they closed the draft, went current Red Bulls captain Luis Robles, another one that the team sorta got right in the end.
2008: The 16th pick, Eric Brunner
This pick was compensation from Toronto for the Marvell Wynne trade a year earlier. Wynne has gone on to have a good career around the league, won MLS Cup, but nothing overly sensational.
Eric Brunner, not as much. Brunner was drafted by Metro, who not long after signed New Zealander Andy Boyens to the same centerback spot.
The Red Bulls tried to shift Brunner to a developmental spot, but Brunner refused the cut in pay and left the team without playing a single minute. Brunner bounced around MLS until 2014 when he retired, and, according to his Wikipedia page, now spends his days playing video games under the handle “Broomsweeper”. For all that headache, the Red Bulls could have got the services of versatile USMNT and Stoke City defender Geoff Cameron.
2009: Jeremy Hall, #11
Like the Wynne pick, the Red Bulls went for speed on defense. Like the Wynne pick, Jeremy Hall was here for a little over a season and traded.
A notable later pick for RBNY was Babajide Ogunbiye at eighteen. Jide refused to sign a developmental deal with the Red Bulls (which, given the team’s success rate, one can hardly blame him) and ended up going to Denmark.
Ogunbiye would finally agree to terms with the Metros before the 2012 season, but failed to pass his physical, and was released. Future Red Bulls by Other Means Brandon Barklage and Mike Grella went later in this draft, as did US midfielder Graham Zusi.
2010: Number 2 overall, Tony Tchani
Continuing a theme, Tchani spent two years here and was dealt away, eventually finding a decent career in Columbus. And, to continue another theme, when drafting this high the Metros missed a lot of talent they could have taken instead. Ike Opara went next and is a stalwart for Kansas City.
Same can be said for Teal Bunbury in New England at the four spot. At 18 the Red Bulls took Tim Ream who was so good he’s now at Fulham, so sometimes you can’t even win for trying.
2011: With the lucky 13th pick, Corey Hertzog
Hertzog would get five appearances with the Red Bulls before being loaned out to Wilmington Hammerheads, where he would promptly become one of the league’s top scorers and get Wilmington to the USL final. Seeing how well their young prospect was doing given a chance to play regularly, Hertzog was cut before the 2013 season.
This is also the draft class where the Red Bulls took Wayne Rooney’s brother John, who did about as well for the Metros as Hertzog. This was part of the Red Bulls plan to sign the brothers of famous players, which has only worked once with Shawn Wright-Phillips’ brother Bradley, who is now the Red Bulls’ all-time leading scorer. The team then tried to screw that up by signing Shawn anyway.
It goes on like this, with a slew of busts that the Red Bulls took, and what-might-have-beens that they could have. Nowadays, the team is focused on building the roster organically through the academy, which during the 2018 season accounts for three or four starters per week on a regular basis.
That is important, not only as a sign of improvement to the player pipelines across North America, but also because, as we’ve shown, this franchise is god awful at selecting players from elsewhere.