SBN Mock Draft: Who we got and why we got ‘em

On Sunday, while I was bringing you a wonderful live-tweet of the first game of the 2017 MLS Combine, the rest of SB Nation Soccer was embroiled in a Mock Draft. Not to say that I wasn’t involved, but the Fire only have two picks and both were very high up.

So who’d we get? Two players I discussed at a lesser length here. But here’s the more in-depth explanation:

Pick 3: Brandon Aubrey

Defender, Notre Dame

For full disclosure, I was hoping that Miles Robinson would drop here. GA contracts are way easier to deal with on the salary cap. But I didn’t trust any of the other GAs, so I got my personal favorite defender: this guy! I felt good about it at first, but right afterwards the first thing I saw in the Combine was “this guy” getting scorched by Jorge Gomez Sanchez over and over. He didn’t look very good. But those are only doubts. They are very well placed doubts since one of the first things I saw go wrong for Brandon Vincent last year was the moment Khiry Shelton blazed by him, but only doubts.

The reason why they are just doubts is because I believe that Aubrey is a centerback and that Kappelhoff is a right back. Yes, I’ve said it. And I think that Brandon has the potential to work in the position next to Campbell well enough to not get burned as often as he was in that one game that I saw. As long as he doesn’t have that consistently happen for the next two combine games, I’ll be content with this pick.

Pick 11: David Goldsmith

Forward, Butler

Surprisingly, I had more doubts about this pick than about Aubrey. Not because I don’t love this guy, but because of how many options I saw. So before I get to why Goldsmith is our new perfect attacker, I’d like to eliminate the rest of the field I was looking at. Here were my candidates for the pick (and why not them) from first to go to final showdown:

• Jacori Hayes (He had already gotten picked, so obviously not him)
• Christian Thierjung (I liked Sanchez better)
• Alec Ferrel (didn’t feel safe drafting a GK that early)
• Reagan Dunk (Already got a defender, so I wanted to try to fill something in the attack)

My last guy was Jorge Gomez Sanchez, who I think I should talk about in a bit more of an in-depth way. Though Sanchez fit us in a positional way, when I looked at the stats, I felt that Goldsmith helped us more in a tactical way. While it would be great to pick up someone who can deliver a great service and Sanchez also holds the scoring record for Temple (after just two seasons), I felt that Goldsmith had a different way to help us.

David Goldsmith is what you would call a “Volume Shooter” in basketball. In basketball, that just means they shoot on sight; not exactly that impressive, but they get a lot of points off it sometimes. In soccer, it’s completely different. In this beautiful game you have to create your space and make your shot count in some way. If you can remember correctly, the past few years the Fire have been miserable at making shots count and sometimes even getting shots off at all! Though we’re getting help from new signings like Nikolic and De Leeuw (not “new”, but you know what I mean), this guy can help even more with a 50% hit rate (103/206) and a goal every other game (41/70).

TL;dr: He was too good to pass up on in the first round.

And while Goldsmith has not only impressed in his college career, he just scored a brace on Sunday in the Combine. If you want to follow what’s up with that, first check this article, then tune in to our Twitter during the games to get only the most quality of live-tweets!

Until Friday, everyone!