Sounders FC will listen to trade talks

Coaches and staff from Seattle Sounders FC are on their way to St. Louis today for the 2009 Major League Soccer SuperDraft, which is Thursday at 11 a.m.

The MLS player combine ended Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale, offering the Sounders FC contingent one last look at the crop of talent from which it will pick at the draft. Seattle currently has the first overall selection and the first choice in the subsequent three rounds.

The field observations are over and players have either gone home, back to school or to St. Louis, but the behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing will continue late into Wednesday night. Sounders FC is now weighing trade offers that include shipping that top pick to another team for more picks, allocation money or veteran players.

"The lobby bar at the hotel is sort of a sociological study," head coach Sigi Schmid said Tuesday. "Different teams will have their different little corners and somebody will go over there and talk to one other team and then they'll come back and another team will talk, and everyone's sort of wondering 'OK, what are they doing? What are they doing? It's an interesting exercise."

Schmid said the Sounders are right in the thick of those negotiations.

"We have to be part of that or else we get left in the cold," he said. "Obviously we've talked to some teams and those talks are ongoing."

Trade talk could continue even until the morning of the draft.

If Sounders FC doesn't get an offer it likes, it still has the top pick. The team figures to get an impact player, someone like forward Steve Zakuani from Akron or defender Omar Gonzalez from Maryland, two underclassmen eligible to be drafted because they left college early to sign Generation Adidas contracts with MLS. Those deals are reserved for what MLS deems to be the top tier of younger talent in the country that has not yet completed college eligibility.

"I've been through a few of these," said Schmid, who attended combines as coach of Columbus and Los Angeles in years past. "Every year there's obviously some players who exceed expectations, some players who don't reach the expectations some people have of them. But overall I think this combine is a little bit deeper than the last couple. The quality of players goes deeper. It probably extends well into the middle of the second round."

Zakuani is widely viewed as the first pick, but Schmid said he doesn't know if there's a clear-cut No. 1 this year as there was when midfielder Maurice Edu went to Toronto FC with the top overall pick in 2007.

Schmid offered his assessment of the scoring-minded Zakuani and Gonzalez, a 6-foot-5 converted forward.

"Omar Gonzalez has played well. He was only here for two games because he had to go back for a school obligation. But he played well," Schmid said. "He's a big guy who's good in the air and he's a talented defender. Zakuani is a player who's got a little bit of special quality to him. He's a player who likes to take players on off the dribble. He's had some good moments here [in Florida], he's had some average moments as well."

José Miguel Romero: 206-464-2409 or jromero@seattletimes.com