Few of the Vancouver Whitecaps draft picks have ever found a home with the team, but Brendan McDonough hopes he can beat the odds to be one of the few exceptions after signing a contract for 2020.
Remember Kay Banjo, Thomas Sanner or Santiago Bedoya? Or perhaps Alejandro Sucre, Chris Estridge or Nazeem Bartman?Few would outside of their parents or the most hardcore of Vancouver Whitecaps fans. Those names belonged to a few of the 57 players drafted by the team in its Major League Soccer existence, a process that has unearthed a few diamonds in the rough.
You have to go all the way back to 2011 — the draft year of current Caps’ goalkeeper Zac MacMath — to find a Whitecap who had consistent minutes after being picked so late: Michael Boxall, who was the No. 1 pick in the supplemental draft . Ironically, he was a key member of the Minnesota United defence that beat the Caps 3-2 last Saturday.
McDonough hasn’t stood out from the crop of centrebacks signed by the Caps — and that’s a good thing. Coming from the NCAA ranks, the leap to the professional level means a dizzying jump in speed and comprehension of the game, but he’s adjusted quickly enough that Marc Dos Santos and his staff were willing to keep him around longer. He’ll likely slot in with the newly formed U23 touring team coached by Nick Dasovic.
“A player like that, you need to look at him with more games, more attention. The development squad will allow us to do that for more guys. Myself and Nick will be able to follow his growth and see if he’s able to one day be a first team player or not.” “It’s such a mental grind, the pre-season,” he added. “The biggest thing is to not think that I’ve ‘made it,’ now that I’ve signed. All the hard work I’ve put in these past few weeks, it’s got to be the same.The Atlanta-born McDonough might have come from the NCAA ranks, but his journey to Vancouver wasn’t the typical one.
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