Thad over at The Back Post recently had a phone interview with the Wizards Technical Director, Peter Vermes. He had to divide the interview into three posts, but you can see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 on his blog. Part 1 deals mainly with new players. The team is looking at a couple players, and 1-2 may join the team for training down in Florida.

So I'm back from St. Louis and ready to give a full recap of the Wizards draft. While it's hard to tell immediately what will come of this draft, looking at it, I think the Wizards got some good players with their picks.
1(8) - Matt Besler - D - Notre Dame
Besler is a local kid who grew up watching the Wizards and certainly endered himself to those Wizards fans who traveled to St.

Matt Besler with the Don.
Wow, welcomed home by snow! Nice...unless you're driving. Here are quotes from PV and Coach and all of the new picks. We're excited about the group, and they seem pretty happy about joining our squad and fighting for a spot:
KANSAS CITY WIZARDS TECHNICAL DIRECTOR PETER VERMES
On the draft as a whole
"In the end I think we had a good draft.

Tomorrow the Wizards begin working towards the 2009 MLS season, as preseason begins. Tomorrow, preseason begins out at the Swope Park training complex on field 3. The rest of this week and part of next week will be spent either at Swope or at the KC Sports Lodge. After that, it's off to Florida to train in Bradenton from the 29th through Feb.

Akeem Priestley from UConn. According to the write up I was given, Priestley is a member of the Jamaican U-23 national team.

The Wizards 2009 MLS Draft is finished with no big moves by the Wizards to move up or down. The Wizards kept all their picks, getting a defender, a forward, 2 midfielders and a goalkeeper.
With the 8th pick, the Wizards took Matt Besler of Notre Dame, a local product, who will likely play along the back line.

The former Wizards season in MLS continues to wind down and while there weren't a lot of goals this week by players, there was some news involving former Wizards. First I've added two new players to the list, as the Jermaine Hue and the Jamaican league started up a little bit ago. And the Wizards 4th round draft pick this past year, Akeem Priestly is now playing in the top division in Azerbaijan.

Kitson
Priestley
With the 42nd overall selection, Kansas City has selected goalkeeper Neal Kitson of St. John's University. Kitson was a two-year starter for St. John's and had the 5th best GAA in college soccer last season (0.48). He was named to the 2008 ESPN All-American XI and to the NCAA Men's College Cup All-Tournament Team.

Greetings Hillcrest Road followers. The 2009 season is already upon us, as Wizards training kicks off tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. CT on the turf field (field 3) at our beautiful Swope Park Training Center. All sessions are open to the public, so if you're off work, head on over to see the first training session of the new year in person.

With the changes this past offseason to MLS teams rosters, the draft this past year was a little bit different. Due to the smaller rosters, there were only 4 rounds in the draft. In those 4 rounds, the Wizards had 5 picks. So let's take a look at those 5 picks from this past year.
1(8) - Matt Besler - The local KC product, Besler had himself a solid first season in MLS.