AND THE FIRST ROUND DRAFT PICK IS... “S

o the Colorado-for-galaxy one is announced. And Chicago took Seattle’s spot and now they’ve traded that with Colorado… and…”

“…I get the order – it’s just that they’re in multiple parts for each trade, and I need to be able to go and tell Don what he can announce now…” “Where is Don? Get me Don…” FFT is behind the scenes at the 2016 MLS Superdraft at the Baltimore Convention Center. A clock on the big screen is counting down, as the latest of an endless sequence of video montages keeps the atmosphere bubbling in the main hall. Behind the curtain that shields the event operations space from the rest of the vast ballroom, however, some barely ordered chaos is occurring within touching distance of FFT’S privileged vantage point. Here, tall black curtains define a tiny ‘room’ where, against the clock, the league’s technical team are processing a last-minute trade.

At the centre of the clutch of administrators, Todd Durbin, the executive vice-president of player relations and competition for MLS, is looking at a piece of paper with a slightly pained expression. After staring at it for a moment, he hands it back to the desk in front of him, enacts a brief pantomime of hand gestures, then says: “That’s good. OK.”

With that, the small crowd that has formed around the desk breaks as abruptly as any pre-game huddle on the pitch: spreadsheets are altered, tweets are prepared, the graphics for the big screen are reprogrammed, and what Durbin immediately describes with a mixture of pride and awe as “the most complicated trade in the history of the league” is done.

The Superdraft is an annual event where the best young college players and an increasing number of invitees from overseas are selected by MLS teams, who take turns to pick against the clock, continuously reset to four-minute blocks. Think of a cross between playground