We are now 10 games into the MLS Next Pro season (or at least we are at the point I’m writing this) so I thought it was time to check in on how the players are doing. This article will only cover players who have played at least 300 minutes. Judgments will be made based on a mixture of qualitative observations and the American Soccer Analysis’ G+ model.

Nicholas Fleuriau Chateau (22/ST)

  

NFC is young, fast, Canadian, costs nothing, and at least somewhat good. So I would say he has a decent chance of playing first-team games at some point. Stylistically NFC is very much a get-in-behind type of guy. He’s really fast and that has allowed him to get a pretty steady stream of chances despite WFC2 not being that great at creating chances this season. He has also won three penalties in less than 600 minutes. I’m not sure if that will hold up over a bigger sample size but it’s certainly a bonus. He’s not that tall but he has a low centre of gravity and is very scrappy. I doubt he will ever be a star MLS player but he seems a pretty ideal 2nd or 3rd choice striker. So, he’s not the most exciting prospect of all time but being “the Athletic Bilbao of Canada” involves regularly finding guys like this to fill out the bottom of the MLS roster.

Cyprian Kachwele (19/ST)

Kachwele should be fairly familiar to Whitecaps fans, having already made three appearances for the first team. He is fast and has very intelligent off-the-ball movement. But he’s not particularly good on the ball unless he’s running in behind or tapping the ball in from close range. Still, he’s only 19 and adapting to life in North America, having mostly played reserve football in Tanzania previously. So, reasons for optimism all things considered.

Jay Herdman (19/AM)

Jay Herdman has kind of a weird profile. He has skills that don’t normally go together. He is a really effective presser and usually gets on the ball in good areas (his “receiving” is low but I think that’s because he often occupies deeper positions). But he generally doesn’t offer a lot in terms of passing or dribbling (though the former has seen some improvement this season). So, where do you play a player like that? He’s not quite big enough to be a striker, he doesn’t have the play-making to be a #10, and you would need others to pick up the slack in terms of ball progression if he played a deeper role. But, despite all that, it’s hard to watch him and not come away with the impression that he’s pretty good. Clearly, the Whitecaps feel the same way as they have called him up three times and handed him a first-team debut. The question is though, can the Whitecaps find a use of his skills that can provide him a long-term home in MLS?

Jeevan Badwal (18/CM)

I don’t think Badwal’s stated goal of making his first team debut this season is going to happen. But his performances are perfectly fine for a first-year pro who only turned 18 in March. Badwal is a box-to-box midfielder who brings a lot of energy to the game. He’s a good ball-winner (relative to his age) and a good shuttler of the ball. You’re not too likely to see him play a Pedro Morales-esque defence-splitting pass but he progressed the ball fairly well through carrying. I think there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic about his future but he’s a ways away from being in the first team picture yet.

Malcolm Simmons (21/CM)

Malcolm Simmons is a pure ball-winning midfielder and he’s not quite good enough at that to justify first-team minutes. To my eyes, he’s a little better defensively than the stats would suggest but even I have to admit he’s not quite as dominant as you would like. On the ball, he is very reminiscent of Russell Teibert, all backward passes, and the few forward passes tend to be floaty balls to wide areas that don’t do very much to break down the opposing defence. At 21 he is one of the older players on the team so I don’t think it’s that likely he reaches the first team.

Mihail Gherasimencov (19/FB)

Honestly a little disappointing considering how much promise he showed in his first season. Gherasimencov has played more as a pure wing-back this year and this has led to him being caught out of position a bit more often. In 1v1s he’s fine but not unbeatable. He has shown some spark offensively but not quite enough to justify first-team appearances. He’s still a hot prospect but he hasn’t shown the year-on-year improvement I would have hoped for.

Eliot Goldthrop (22/FB/AM)

The Whitecaps have been trying to convert Eliot Goldthrop from a winger who does not get enough box shots into a wing-back (a pretty natural move for a player with that kind of profile). This has worked to a certain degree but I’m not sure he quite has the sauce to make it to MLS. Goldthrop’s deliveries both from set pieces and open play are very impressive. He has probably been WFC2’s best play-maker this season. But the problem is he does not have that much going for him otherwise. His first touch is not very strong, he doesn’t have a very strong passing range other than with crosses, and as you can see from the G+ chart he doesn’t offer very much defensively. Combine this with the fact that he’s 22 and would require an international spot to be signed to the first team and I just don’t see it. He’s not a bad player though. If you’re a scout for a League 2 team trawling MLS fan blogs for potential signings then look into Eliot Goldthrop! If you are a Whitecaps fan hoping to read about players who could make an impact in MLS one day then I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Buster Sjöberg (25/CB)

The oldest player on the team by some distance, Sjöberg was picked in the super-draft by the Whitecaps in 2022 but returned to college after suffering a serious injury. At his age, he had to totally dominate MLSNP to get a first-team deal and he hasn’t quite done that. Not quite mobile enough or good enough at passing for MLS and he would take up an international spot. He’d be a good signing for teams in the second tier of Sweden but I don’t see a future for him with the Whitecaps.

Finn Linder (20/CB)

I was pretty excited for Finn Linder after last season. He demonstrated himself to be very strong in the air and capable on the ball. But he missed a lot of the season due to international call-ups and injury so I wanted to see a little more. This season he has played more on the outside of a back-three and this has revealed some pretty serious weaknesses. Namely, he could not defend 1v1 against a player with pace if his life depended on it. That said, he’s still big and good on the ball so if he can figure that part out I still like his chances of getting into the first team. It just might come a bit later than I would have anticipated.

Immanuel Mathe (18/CB)

WFC2 came into the season with a pretty formidable corp of centre-backs. So it’s pretty impressive that Mathe, who is technically still an un-signed academy player, has played so much. But, for an 18-year-old he has performed very well. He’s a similar player to Mathias Laborda or Javain Brown. He’s not the biggest but he’s quick and strong in 1v1 duels. I do wonder if the reason he hasn’t signed a pro deal is because he is maintaining his NCAA eligibility. But if he’s going to stick around with WFC2 I think he’s shown tremendous potential. He won’t be in the first team picture for another year or two but he’s very much on the right track.

Max Anchor (19/GK)

He’s not going to be displacing Yohei Takaoka anytime soon but this has been a perfectly acceptable season of development for Max Anchor. He doesn’t look like a little kid in the goal anymore. I am fairly sure the model is dinging him significantly for an own goal where a defender absolutely hammered the ball into the goal off Anchor while trying to clear the ball away, but I’m not sure if that would fall under “passing” or “sweeping.” But he’s a well above-average shot-stopper for the league (though as you can see he has a tendency to parry the ball back into danger) and has grown tremendously when it comes to claiming crosses. He’s a little way away from the first team but he’s only 19 and the first-team goalkeeping situation is quite solid at the moment so there is no rush.

Players with not enough minutes:

There have been some fairly prominent players who have hardly played at all this season. This has included 2023 Canadian standouts Antoine Coupland and Joshué Ndakala as well as imports Demobo Saidykhan, Darko Illic, and Malek Mehri (50% of the international players!). Is this because they have been injured? Does Ricardo Clark think they suck? I don’t know! We don’t really get that kind of information for MLSNP. Sometimes players just disappear for a while only to re-appear suddenly for a run of games.

(Image Credit: WFC2)