BURSTNCAA soccer’s best and brightest were in the spotlight during Friday’s MLS SuperDraft, highlighted by midfielder Manu Duah from the University of California at Santa Barbara being selected No. 1 overall by expansion club San Diego FC.
Approximately 477 players from 150 schools were eligible for selection during the three-round draft. And while CF Montreal, Vancouver Whitecaps FC and Toronto FC didn’t have top 10 picks, they all appeared to make very shrewd first-round selections.
Sitting on the 13th overall pick, Montreal decided to bolster its attack by drafting Michael Adedokun from Ohio State.
Adedokun is coming off a sensational senior year in which he scored a team-high 11 goals and tallied 11 assists. He was a big reason why the Buckeyes won the Big 10 tournament, and reached the semifinals of the College Cup this past fall in only their second appearance in school history. The native of Nigeria proved his versatility on the pitch by not only playing in his natural position on the left wing, but also in central midfield where he served as his team’s chief playmaker.
“He’s just so dangerous. He attracts so much attention. He’ll draw two or even three defenders on him. Then, he gets his head up and finds his teammate. He’s been at a different level this year,” Ohio State coach Brian Maisonneuve told the Columbus Dispatch newspaper earlier this month.
Adedokun’s efforts didn’t go unnoticed outside of his school. He was unanimously voted the Big Ten midfielder of the year and was named to the All-Big Ten first team. He is also one of three finalists for the 2024 MAC Hermann Trophy, awarded to U.S. college soccer’s best player. The winner of the award will be announced on Jan. 3.
The diminutive Nigerian doesn’t have a lot of size, as he only stands five-foot-eight and weighs 160 pounds, so it’ll be interesting to see how he fares in a physical league such as MLS. But Montreal clearly has enough faith that he can have an immediate impact next year.
Vancouver pulled off a bit of a coup by selecting freshman left fullback Tate Johnson from the University of North Carolina. Johnson was one of a select few prospects in this year’s draft class who are “Generation adidas” players, a special designation given to underclassmen who have decided to turn pro in MLS next season.
Generation adidas players are especially attractive draft options because they don’t count against the league’s salary cap. They also earn a much higher salary than the league minimum, so there is extra incentive for non-seniors to leave school early in order to pursue pro careers in MLS.
There were only four Generation adidas players available in this year’s draft, and three of them went in the top four. Johnson was surprisingly still available at No. 15 by the time the Whitecaps had a chance to use their first-round pick and they scooped him up. Given his status as a Generation adidas player, Johnson will likely see a lot of minutes next season for the Whitecaps.
A Florida native, Johnson proved to be a tenacious and hard-working fullback in his freshman campaign, while also showing off his technical abilities as an attacker when deployed as a wingback by the Tar Heels. In 2024, Johnson started all 16 contests that he appeared in, going the full 90 minutes on 13 occasions.
“He’s putting in a big shift every night for us, especially as a freshman, which is massive. You don’t see that too often anymore,” senior midfielder Andrew Czech told The Daily Tar Heel newspaper in October.
Soccer runs in the family as his father Brian was a former first-round draft pick (seventh overall in 1997) who played five seasons in MLS, and was part of the Kansas City Wizards side that won the 2000 MLS Cup under current coach Peter Vermes.
Toronto originally had a first-round pick at No. 9, but ended up trading it to expansion club San Diego FC last week as part of the deal for Brazilian winger Thiago Andrade.
After making that trade, TFC general manager Jason Hernandez admitted he didn’t see much value in the ninth-overall pick, saying it “wasn’t something that was incredibly relevant for us with our understanding of the player pool this year.”
But during Friday’s first round, TFC traded with D.C. United to get the 23rd overall pick, using it to select sophomore defender Reid Fisher from San Diego State. The six-foot-three 180-pounder was named to the All-WAC (Western Athletic Conference) team this year.
Fisher, a California native, is centre back who scored one goal and tallied two assists in 17 appearances (all starts) for San Diego in 2024. In his freshman season in 2023, he had one goal in 18 appearances (all starts) when he led the Aztecs in minutes (1,592), and was a Freshman All-American.
Toronto gave up $50,000 in 2025 general allocation money (salary cap space), with another $50,000 in conditional GAM, to get the No. 23 pick from D.C. United.
Fisher just completed his second season at San Diego State and has two more years of NCAA eligibility, so this is a move for the future, rather than something that can help TFC right away. Should Fisher go back to college or remain unsigned, his MLS rights will still be held by Toronto for two years. If he returns to school, he will not be draft-eligible in the future.
One would expect that Fisher will go back to San Diego State before signing with TFC 2 (Toronto’s reserve team) so that he can cut his teeth in the lower-league MLS NEXT Pro, although the fact the Reds made this trade suggests they expect him to play for the first team at some point.
Editor’s note
John Molinaro is one of the leading soccer journalists in Canada, having covered the game for over 25 years for several media outlets, including Sportsnet, CBC Sports and Sun Media. He is currently the editor-in-chief of TFC Republic, a website dedicated to in-depth coverage of Toronto FC and Canadian soccer.
