Tyler Freeman

HOW ACQUIRED: Signed as a Homegrown Player through 2022 with an option for 2023 on Oct. 2, 2018.

Freeman became the second-youngest signing in club history and the ninth-youngest MLS player ever at 15 years and 266 days at the time of his signing. He is a young forward that will continue to develop under Peter Vermes.

• SportingKC.com: Freeman's profile

INTERNATIONAL: Freeman earned his first selection to the U.S. U-14 Boys' National Team for a training camp in November 2016. The following June in Zagreb, Croatia, he led the U.S. U-14s with a team-best four goals in friendlies against Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and club team Dinamo Zagreb. Freeman has enjoyed a breakthrough year at the international level. He competed for the U.S. U-16s in April at the prestigious Torneo Delle Nazioni in Italy, contributing to a pair of group stage wins over Macedonia and Croatia before scoring in a 1-1 semifinal draw against Slovenia that the U.S. lost on penalties. He started in the third-place match against Japan and guided the side to a 2-1 victory. Freeman then received his first call to the U.S. U-17 Men's National Team in August for a Costa Rica training camp where he was the youngest player on the 23-man roster. He scored in his U-17 debut on Aug. 7 to help the Americans to a 2-2 draw against hosts Costa Rica.

ACADEMY: Freeman entered the Sporting KC Academy in 2014 at age 11 and has represented his hometown club at the U-12 through U-19 levels. He is also a United States youth international, having competed for the U-14, U-16 and U-17 national teams over the last two years. Freeman made an immediate impact upon joining Sporting KC's youth ranks, leading the U-12s at the 2015 Generation adidas Cup in Frisco, Texas - where he scored a brilliant goal that garnered coverage from ESPN - before winning Kansas State Cup titles in 2015 and 2016 with the U-13s. In August 2016, Freeman propelled the Sporting KC U-13s to a fourth-place finish at the CONCACAF U-13 Champions League in Mexico City, scoring three goals at the marquee club tournament. He spent most of the 2016-17 U.S. Soccer Development Academy season with the Sporting KC U-14s, also playing periodically for a U-16 side that reached the Development Academy quarterfinals for the first time. The 2017-18 campaign saw Freeman score four goals in 19 league appearances for the Sporting KC U-17s, who qualified for the Development Academy playoffs with a third-place finish in the Frontier Division. He has featured for both the U-17s and U-19s in the early stages of the 2018-19 Development Academy season.