We are just past the 1/3rd mark of the MLS Next Pro season, so I think it’s time to start examining how some Vancouver Whitecaps prospects are doing.
How I Evaluate MLS Next Pro Players
The Vancouver Whitecaps’ ascent to serious MLS contenders has come with a surge of interest in the team. A downstream effect of this is that The Third Sub’s daily clicks are up about 43% compared to last year. So I thought it would be a good idea to go over how I look at WFC2 players again.
By most measures, WFC2 are a pretty bad team. I do not care about this one bit. The job of an MLSNP team is to develop players for the first team. If they win some games along the way, that’s great, but their primary orientation should be graduating players into first-team contributors. That might mean making a decision that lowers your probability of winning a game next weekend in order to increase the first team’s probability of winning a game a few years down the line. So, for example, it might be better to play a 16-year-old who is worse right now instead of a 22-year-old who has limited room to grow into an impact player in MLS.
Age is a very important consideration when evaluating players in MLSNP. The average age of the league is only 21 years old, and most lineups feature a lot of players in their teens. So we need to grade players on a curve. A player 21 or older needs to be utterly dominant for first-team consideration. Conversely, a player who is under 18 and goes out there and manages to have some kind of positive impact is very promising.
In addition to the above framework, I use a mixture of data and qualitative observations (due to being over-educated and under-employed, I have actually watched most of these games!). I use American Soccer Analysis’s G+ model, which measures a player’s on-ball contributions in different categories. G+ is very helpful for comparing players to their peers around the league and from past seasons.
Lastly, it’s also worth noting that some of these players have played a pretty small sample size. I have limited the reports to players who have played at least 300 minutes, but that isn’t a huge amount. So, this is very much a mid-term report card rather than a final grade.
Deylan Vellios/FB/23
Deylan Vellios, a graduate of the Whitecaps’ academy, went undrafted after his college career and returned to Vancouver. He has played on both the left and right side but is left-footed. In his first couple of games, he looked woefully unprepared for professional football, getting bypassed at will by opposing wingers. He has stabilized quite a bit since then and offers quite a bit of value with his progressive passing. But this isn’t nearly good enough for a 23-year-old to crack the MLS roster. Even if Vellios totally turns it around the rest of the way, the odds of him displacing Sam Adekugbe or Tate Johnson are very long. So, all in all, this seems like a bit of a waste of everyone’s time. Vellios should be in the CPL, and these development minutes should be going to someone who is a few years away from being ready (at which point the Whitecaps might need a left-back again).
Daniel Russo/FB/23
Daniel Russo was drafted in 2024 by Atlanta United but almost immediately tore his cruciate ligament and barely played last season. So I can see why the Whitecaps might have seen potential found value here. Russo does have a good left foot, and that can make him a danger in the final 3rd. But his defending and pall progression have not been good enough so far, so I feel more or less the same about him as I do about Vellios. He will probably be a squad player for someone in USL next year, and this year, I would rather the MLSNP minutes went to somebody younger.
Dembo Saidykhan/CB/21
Dembo Saidykhan’s chart paints a picture of a sort of Brexit-ball centre-back who goes around hacking people down and getting the ball launched. But I think in reality, his G+ is being brought down by two bad moments. One where he gave away a penalty with a slightly rash slide tackle and one where he under-hit a back pass to the goalkeeper that led to a goal against. Saidykhan is actually a relatively short centre-back (6’0″) who likes to get on the ball and break the first line of pressure. It’s just that it takes a lot of astute 10-yard passes to overcome giving the opposition a goal when it comes to G+. Those two incidents are a little bit telling, however. Saidykhan is technically strong, but he also has the capacity for disaster. He is 21 and considering he would take up an international spot, he is really going to have to tighten up the rest of the way. His technical ability and generally strong defensive play make me willing to see how the rest of the season plays out. That said, there have been rumours of interest in Saidykhan in Europe (he has some cache after strong performances at the U-20 world cup for Gambia), and if someone offered me a low 6-figure fee and a sell-on percentage, I would probably take it.
Mark O’Neill/CB/23
Mark O’Neill is another of a slew of undrafted college free-agents WFC2 picked up ahead of the season. He is quite strong on the ball, but he has had a couple of tough moments defensively. If he were 19, then I would be excited about him, but for a 23-year-old, I don’t think his defensive play is strong enough. His one saving grace might be that stylistically, he is a good fit for the Whitecaps’ first team, being an aggressive defender who is strong in possession. But I’m not really convinced.
Jackson Castro/CM/22
Jackson Castro is the member of the undrafted cadre that looks most promising so far. He is very well-rounded without having one particularly elite skill. He is putting up 0.48 xG+xA/96, which would be good for a centre-mid in any circumstance, but becomes doubly so when you consider that WFC2 as their centremids play quite deep. Castro is 22, so I don’t see him being a star in MLS or anything, but he looks like a guy who could be decent supplemental roster depth. But, at the same time, Jeevan Badwal and Liam Mackenzie are younger players with much higher ceilings (both have barely played for WFC2 this season due to first-team commitments and injury), so I wouldn’t be prioritizing Castro over either of them.
Yuma Tsuji/CM/16
Tsuji is a great example of the need to grade players on a curve. It’s obvious from both the stats and watching him that he isn’t an MLSNP star yet. But a 16-year-old getting on the pitch and being a plus passer and defensive player is pretty exciting. You can tell that the speed of play in MLSNP is a little fast for Tsuji at this point, but the potential for him to develop into a very strong defensive midfielder is equally obvious. The aforementioned Badwal and Mackenzie had both yet to take the field in MLSNP when they were 16, so Tsuji is ahead of schedule. I think it will be at least a couple of years before he is seriously considered as an MLS player, but I am very high on what he has put forward so far.
Luca Chen/CM/17
I was pretty excited for Chen this season after some interesting cameos last season. But so far, he has probably been the weakest of WFC2’s regularly playing teenagers. Chen plays a mixture of centre-mid and fullback, and, as we can see from the stats, he has some decent passing. But the rest of his game has not really clicked at this level so far. Still, he is quite young, so we are a long way from writing him off.
Johnny Selemani/W/17
I was a bit down on Selemani going into the season after a middling CONCACAF U-17 championship where he played as a right-back for Canada. But he has been cooking, playing further forward for WFC2. Selemani is a dynamic dribbler and is putting up a respectable 0.44 xG+xA/96. For a 17-year-old, this is very impressive stuff. He is probably another year away from being a first-team player; he still struggles a little bit with the physicality of professional football, but I am very high on him. Selemani might be a candidate for a run-out in the Voyageur’s Cup if a game is well in hand, sort of like how Badwal made his debut last season.
Nikola Djordjevic/W/22
Djordjevic was Vancouver’s pick in the second round of the 2025 super-draft. He has played a mixture of fullback and winger. He would almost certainly be a right-back if he made it to MLS, but he has played slightly more as a winger this season, so that is who he is being compared to. Still, though, Djordjevic looks good. He is 22, so he should look good in MLSNP, but I would say he is meeting expectations. He is quite a dynamic attacker off the wing and looks solid enough defensively. Djordjevic has missed some time with injury, so these stats come with a bit of a small sample size warning label. Getting through the murderer’s row of Ocampo, Bovalina, and Laborda is going to be tough, but Djordjevic is making a decent case. I am intrigued to see how the rest of the season goes.
Cyprian Kachwele/ST/20
You look at Cyprian Kachwele’s stats and you say, “Wow, that’s a player with MLS potential.” You watch Cyprian Kachwele play and you say, “Hmmm, I’m not so sure.” There is no doubt that Kachwele has levelled up compared to last season, but this levelling up has not been evenly spread. Let me tell you about an event that was a microcosm of Kachwele’s play. WFC2 were defending a corner. Kachwele won a header at the top of the 6-yard box and headed it clear of the penalty area. Then Kachwele outran every other player in the box to reach the ball first. He ran with the ball to the halfway line, where he pushed the ball about 10 yards past a defender and then ran onto the ball. His run ended with setting up a teammate for a big chance that was ultimately missed. Was this play impressive? Absolutely. Is it repeatable at the MLS level? That is unclear. Kachwele is still a player who relies quite heavily on pace and off-the-ball movement. Kachwele would require an international slot, so he needs to be really elite to get an MLS deal. He has missed a lot of time due to injury, so it’s hard to say how real his impressive stats are. If his number still looks like this after 1000 minutes or so, I would say he is worth a look in MLS, goals scored through pace do count the same after all. But I have a hard time visualizing Kachwele in MLS when I watch him play. I guess we’ll see how he gets on.
Nelson Pierre/ST/20
Nelson Pierre is rated similarly to Kachwele by the fancy stats, but he is a lot more convincing to the eye test. Pierre has played as a mixture of a striker and on the wing. He is strong, fast, and skilled, which is a combination that is very hard to stop. When you look at his age and his numbers, Pierre looks like not just someone who could play in MLS, but someone who could make a serious impact. But there is a small problem. Pierre is on loan to WFC2 from the Philadelphia Union’s first team. I hope the Whitecaps have some sort of handshake agreement to acquire him permanently because slotting Pierre into one of their open supplemental roster spots would be a great way to add some depth in the short term and get a guy who could genuinely be a star in the long term. Of course, Philadelphia is one of the best-run clubs in the league, so they are likely to be well aware of Pierre’s value and charge accordingly.
Mateo Clark/ST/17
Mateo Clark is usually listed as a striker but plays more as a #10 or aggressive #8. As such, his chart looks pretty wonky. He has terrible receiving, as measured by G+, because he doesn’t get the ball in striker positions, but looks like he has elite passing because he gets the ball in #10 positions. Clark’s season has been ok so far. His xG+xA is a bit low for someone who has played in an attacking position, but he is not unskilled by any means. He looks a lot like a player who had one or two tricks that worked every time against his age-group peers (he goes for a scoop pass from the edge of the box constantly) and is now having to come to terms with the fact that professional players are going to stop those tricks more often. I am not as excited for him as I am for Selemani or Tsuji, but he could be something.
Alexander Milosevic/GK/19
WFC2 has used a lot of goalkeepers this year, so this is a very small sample size that you are looking at. On the one hand, there are clearly some positive things happening here. On the other hand, that shot-stopping is tough. It’s way too small of a sample size, and Milosevic is too young to be written off. But he is not muscling his way into the goalie of the future conversation at this point in time.
Loan Report:
Mihail Gherasimencov (20): On Loan to Cavalry F.C.
Gherasimencov is not yet a nailed-on starter by any means, but he has at least appeared in every competitive game for Cavalry this season and started their last two. From what I have seen, he seems to be having a generally positive impact, but there is not enough quantitative or qualitative data to say for sure. I don’t see any reason to be concerned about this loan at this point. (He scored a great goal in Cavalry’s most recent match, huzzah.)
Nicolas Fleuriau Chateau (22): On loan at VPS
Fleuriau Chateau is also slowly working his way into being a more regular starter. VPS has Mads Borchers, who is one of the more prolific strikers in the Finnish league, so nailing down a starting spot is not easy. But NFC has 2 goals and an assist in about 150 minutes in all competitions, so I would say he is generally on track. If he can establish himself as a top scorer in Finland, that could give the Whitecaps the chance to flip him for a decent chunk of change in Europe if they decide he is not in their long-term plans.
Max Anchor (20): On Loan at Pacific F.C
James Merriman will answer for his crimes in this life or the next.
Pacific Have a Much Better Chance of Winning with Max Anchor in Goal