When you’re the reigning Western Conference champions and come off the most successful season in franchise history like FC Dallas, picking near the bottom of the first round in the MLS Super Draft is not a bad thing.
FCD is slated to pick No. 17 overall, a spot where head coach Schellas Hyndman knows there is still plenty of talent to be found.
“It’s not only, do you take the best player available?” Hyndman said. “You make the decision to take the best player available or the best player that’s going to help your team.”
There is a good chance that Hyndman won’t be at this year’s draft because of a death in the family, which will send him to Ohio instead of Baltimore. He’ll still be in close contact with FCD technical director Barry Gorman as well as assistant coaches John Ellinger, Marco Ferruzzi and Drew Keeshan, who will all make the trip along with club Bobby Hammond.
“I leave it in very good circumstances with the coaches. This has been a process that we have worked throughout the year,” Hyndman said. “Hopefully I will have an opportunity to stay in contact with them during the draft. I’ll at least be on the phone, texting and so forth.”
Hyndman said that there are some needs for FCD in Thursday’s draft, despite returning the bulk of the roster that reached the MLS Cup in November.
“I think that we can get a very good center back to help our team. That would be one position,” Hyndman said. “I think if we can find a good holding midfielder to help Daniel Hernandez, more of a natural player, that would be a player. Then, if we could find a good forward … that could be another player.”
FCD could also look at drafting another flank midfielder after losing Atiba Harris in November’s Expansion Draft.
“The fact that we lost Atiba hurts us,” Hyndman said. “We’re still in negotiations with [Marvin] Chavez. We’ve also identified some new players that we think we’ve signed and just have to get released from MLS that we’ll also be adding to our team. We’re just trying to make our team as good as it was last year and hopefully a little bit better.”
