Major Link Soccer: 2012 Combine Comes To A Close, SuperDraft On The Horizon

And so comes to an end the 2012 Major League Soccer Combine.

Now comes the draft, which is only two days away. Who will the winners be? I don't think there will be any clear winners as drafts are a gamble to begin with at least as far as I'm concerned.

Over at ESPN LA Scott French brings us up to speed on UC Irvine midfielder Miguel Ibarra. He's 5'7" and weights in at a whopping 135 pounds (and that might be soaking wet with a brick in his pocket). George Kuntz his coach at UC Irvine likens him in some ways to FC Barcelona's mighty mite Lionel Messi.

"The guy creates and scores goals. What I like about his play is how [Barcelona's Lionel] Messi dribbles inside and slips the forward in -- Miguel does that both from the right and the left side, or he can take guys down the line. He's got extraordinary speed. His cardio ... there are very few guys who can run at the level of speed with and without the ball that he has over a long period of time."

After seeing the supporters selected players in the Guardian yesterday, Travis Clark today comes with the Top 15 in the MLS SuperDraft, a top 10 and then he names 5 sleepers and the possible teams they may end up at. I'm not going to name them all, but in the top ten are some of the usual suspects we've been hearing about: Darren Maddocks, Andrew Wenger, Casey Townsend, Luis Silva and Andrew Jean-Baptist. Andrew Duran and Andy Rose make his sleeper list.

Black and Red United have another fine player profile for Thursday's SuperDraft. This time they profile Darren Mattocks -- who also happened to make Travis Clark's top ten list.

Rant Sports has been a great source of information over the last few days regarding the Combine and the upcoming SuperDraft. They don't fail to disappoint today with their Top 40 draft board. They have Darren Mattocks tabbed as their over all hands down #1 pick.

1. Darren Mattocks Forward Akron Sophomore Franchise Player Clear Cut #1 Overall Prospect
Darren Mattocks has the ability to be a complete franchise player. Mattocks had 2 straight seasons of 18 goals. Mattocks struggled on some plays against adiPure’s defense. adiPure’s defense features Jean Baptiste, Austin Berry, Tyler Polak. It will be fun to see how Mattocks handles himself against the LA Galaxy or the Houston Dynamo type of teams.

They tab Andrew Wenger to go at #2.

Ives at Fox Soccer breaks down the combine and SuperDraft class position by position. Of note, the draft is deep with strikers. Only two goal keepers make the list Ryan Meara and local product who was at the Sounders Vegas combine Chris Blais. The rest of the list is pretty much most of the names we've heard through the combine but still worth a look.

In MLS.com's "Monday Post Game" article they talk about the combine as it's come to a close and a few other things. What caught my eye is the transfer rumor at the end, it seems that Inter Milan midfielder Dejan Stankovic could make a move to the MLS. He's only had 10 appearances for Inter this season, and he's 33. Anyways, because the MLS has a LA and New York fetish -- that's who he's being linked to.

There are a few more after that, but that's the one that stands out. And thus we wrap up Major Link Soccer's reporting on the 2012 combine.

But hey, bright side is that Thursday I'm sure there will be plenty to talk about.