With the fourth pick in the 2015 MLS SuperDraft, the San Jose Earthquakes might have put a couple of their incumbent midfielders on the clock.
Unable to pull off their bid for an ambitious draft double, the Quakes were satisfied to come home from Philadelphia with Michigan State midfielder Fatai Alashe, whom coach Dominic Kinnear likened to “a young Ricardo Clark.”
“We thought at that particular time that he was the definitely best available player for us,” Kinnear told Bay Area reporters on a conference call.
Clark was a mainstay for Kinnear in two stints with the Houston Dynamo, but before that, he made an instant splash as an MLS rookie with the MetroStars in 2003, earning a team-high 2,590 minutes as the New York club fought its way back above .500 and into the playoffs.
If Alashe is to have a similar impact in his first season for the last-place Quakes, it likely would come through minutes that previously went to either Sam Cronin or Jean-Baptiste Pierazzi, who both featured in a holding role for former coach Mark Watson last season.
Although Kinnear said that he sees Alashe as a box-to-box midfielder who could play in the middle of a 4-4-2 or even a 4-3-3 formation, Alashe described his game as similar to Columbus’ Tony Tchani -- except where Tchani moves forward with the Crew’s attack, “I hold in the midfield and shield the back line a little more.” And after being pelted with a league-high 546 shots last season -- 54 more than the second-worst team, FC Dallas -- there’s little doubt that San Jose’s backline could use some more protection.
“I’ve always been a pretty physical player,” said Alashe, who is listed at 6-feet and 170 pounds. “I think I have a lot of growing to do coming into the league; everyone’s bigger, stronger, more physical, stuff like that. But I definitely think I can hold my own. We’ll see how it goes at the start of preseason. I’ll get a good feel for it, and I’m a pretty quick learner and good at adapting to different playing styles. So I think I’ll be alright.”
Alashe was unable to compete in the MLS Draft Combine due to a groin injury incurred on the first day, but wowed San Jose’s brass nevertheless by acing his interview. Kinnear was especially impressed by the 21-year-old’s response to the question of where he sees himself in five years.
“He goes, ‘I see myself as an MLS All-Star,’” Kinnear told panelists on MLS’ live draft coverage. “He doesn’t have his sights on something else. He wants to come in and play right away, and that had a good impression on us.”
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Alashe sounded confident about his chances of making a quick transition from the Big Ten -- where he started for four seasons with the Spartans, scoring eight goals and assisting on eight more in 85 matches -- to MLS.
“I definitely think that there’s a chance I can make an impact [as a rookie],” Alashe said. “It’ll obviously depend how I mesh with the coaching staff and other players on the team, but I’m going to work towards that.”
A successful rookie season would certainly do nothing to dampen the comparisons to Clark, who helped the Dynamo -- and Kinnear -- lock up back-to-back MLS Cup titles in 2006 and ’07.
“I think it’s a comparison that obviously I haven’t done anything to live up to yet,” Alashe said. “That’s something that may be [true] in a few years, because Ricardo is obviously a great player. He’s one of the best players in MLS. That’s something we can look at down the line.”
