Folks who had been complaining about D.C. United failing to select a forward in the 2011 MLS Draft finally had their voices heard. You just had to wait an extra week. In today's Supplemental Draft, United selected forward Blake Brettschneider out of the University of South Carolina.
Brettschneider, who will also occasionally be known as Brett Blakeschneider on this blog whenever I'm writing too fast, was a four-year starter at USC and was named the 2010 Conference USA Co-MVP for his 7 goals and 10 assists last season. He'll get the chance to compete for a roster spot as training camp kicks off this month.
United selected Brettschneider with their second round Supplemental Draft pick, and chose to pass on selecting a player with their third round pick.
Some very knowledgeable and well-respected fans/writers don't like the Brettschneider pick, and especially don't like the PASS, but have wrongfully concluded that today's events mean that the United organization has no direction.
Not true. Shambles? I don't think so.
As we've been saying here all along, United is building a young hard-working team in Ben Olsen's image that will compete for multiple Cups in a few years. They've started the process by building quite the kick-ass midfield. The forwards added so far have just been... well... supplementary. I don't claim to know nearly as much about Brettschneider as Joe Mauceri does, but I'd also reckon that there's a possibility that different scouts can have different opinions on players. Pretty sure Kasper didn't just pick a name out of a hat containing the remaining Combine forwards.
I also don't get too worked up about the team passing with the third round pick of the Supplemental draft. I guess if any of the 13 players taken after United (and two other clubs) passed turns into the next Chris Wondolowski, we could be kind of upset. But we should also keep in mind that United has the opportunity to invite any players not drafted to their training camp. Just like they did last year with Barry Rice. Personally, I don't think its a big deal. I don't think we're really missing out on much. Agree or disagree?
I'm actually much more interested in seeing the future of Daniel Keat, the player selected by the LA Galaxy with the first round Supplementary pick that they acquired from United as we moved up to take goalkeeper Joe Willis last week. Keat also happens to be the player that I recommended taking in the second round of the SuperDraft during SB Nation's MLS mock draft.