The Earthquakes wrapped up a busy 24 hours of transactions by double-dipping on the Farm, adding two players from Stanford’s men’s soccer team.
With the first of their four picks in the MLS SuperDraft 2022, the Earthquakes selected forward/midfielder Ousseni Bouda, originally from Burkina Faso. After moving to the Millbrook School in New York, he won the Gatorade National Soccer Player of the Year. Bouda scored 10 goals and tallied 14 assists in two seasons of game action at Stanford (he missed the 2020 season with an injury) and was named Pac-12 Freshman of the Year in 2019.
Prior to the draft, Bouda was selected as a part of Generation Adidas, an annual group of highly-touted collegiate underclassmen and youth national team players. The selection to this not only allows Bouda to enter the MLS a year early, but it also means his salary will not count against San Jose’s annual salary budget.
Five picks later, the Quakes traded up to select defender Oskar Ågren, a junior out of Clemson who’s originally from Malmö, Sweden.
“We’re very excited about the potential of our draft class this year,” Earthquakes general manager Chris Leitch said in a press release Tuesday. “Ousseni and Oskar were two of the highest rated players on our board, so to select them both leaves us feeling good about our process. We’re looking forward to bringing these players into San Jose and helping them launch their careers with a positive support system.”
He was a second-team All-ACC player in the 2021 season, scoring five goals on 12 shots including three game-winners.
In return for the pick that became Ågren, the Quakes sent their second round selection (No. 36 overall) and $100,000 in general allocation money to DC United.
San Jose also took one Stanford player off the draft board on Monday, officially signing Piedmont native Will Richmond on a Homegrown Player contract that could go through 2025. The midfielder played for the Quakes Academy from 2016-18 before heading to Stanford, where he scored 11 goals and 11 assists in four years and was twice an All-Pac-12 selection (First Team in 2020, Second Team in 2021).
“Will is a player we’ve kept our eye on for several years and we’re happy with the strides he’s made in college,” Leitch said in a press release Monday. “We’re confident he would have been selected very early in the upcoming MLS SuperDraft and we’re excited to help him transition to the pro game in 2022.”
The Earthquakes added one more Clemson Tiger in the third round on Tuesday, selecting defender John Martin with the 64th overall selection. Martin played defense alongside Ågren on Clemson’s national championship-winning team in 2021.
Both Ågren and Martin will need to sign contracts with San Jose, while Bouda’s selection for Generation Adidas means he’s already under contract and was immediately placed on the roster. The Earthquakes had a fourth round selection they acquired in a December 2020 trade, but passed on selecting a player with it.
Elsewhere around the MLS, two players with Bay Area ties were chosen in the second round. San Jose native Ben Reveno of UCLA was selected by the New England Revolution with the 52nd selection overall and Santa Clara midfielder Julian Bravo was taken by the Portland Timbers with the 55th pick.
