Charlotte FC trades for No. 1 overall pick in MLS draft, takes Clemson’s Hamady Diop
Charlotte FC’s 2023 draft night got going early.
The Queen City club acquired the No. 1 overall MLS SuperDraft pick from expansion team St. Louis City on Wednesday evening and used that pick to select Clemson defender Hamady Diop.
St. Louis City acquired the No. 20 pick and also received up to $400,000 in General Allocation Money (GAM) and $50,000 in conditional GAM in the trade.
This means Charlotte FC has had the No. 1 overall pick in each of the past two league drafts. As an expansion team last season, the club selected midfielder Ben Bender, who made a big impact in Year 1.
“We wanted to have flexibility in building this club, and we always wanted to have a means — in this case, the GAM — to kind of strike and jump into deals that we are thinking about securing for the club,” club sporting director Zoran Krneta said Wednesday evening. “And we thought this year that the draft had some interesting players that we liked.”
One of those players, clearly, was Diop.
Diop is a 6-foot, 186-pound defender from Dakar, Senegal. The Clemson Tiger had an illustrious college career. Among his accomplishments: He was on the ACC’s all-freshman team in 2020, he made second-team All-ACC in 2021 and 2022, and he was also an integral part of Clemson’s national championship run in 2021.
Krneta said one of the “attractions” of Diop’s game is that he can play both fullback and centerback. Charlotte has been looking to fill out its defense all offseason after declining the options of defenders Christian Fuchs and Harrison Afful in October. (The back line was already planning to start the 2023 season not at full strength; Guzman Corujo will likely still be nursing a knee injury for a good chunk of the beginning of the season.)
Diop told reporters in a post-pick virtual press conference that he knows that Charlotte will “expect a lot” from him, considering the club traded up to select him. He also said that the club’s history in the draft is encouraging.
“You can see the No. 1 pick last year getting a lot of playing time, proving himself,” Diop said of Bender.
Prior to the draft, Diop was one of 11 elite collegiate underclassmen signed to a Generation adidas contract. Per MLS rules, these contracts are not charged against a team’s annual salary budget.
The versatile defender described his player-persona as “someone who really loves winning” and who isn’t afraid to attack and score goals from the back line. When asked about what it means for him to join his former Clemson teammate in goalkeeper George Marks in Charlotte — the 20-year-old smiled.
“We actually have spoken a little bit this year because he came and visited a couple of times,” Diop said of Marks. “He told us how things worked there, how people take care of him and stuff like that. He’s a young player, so if they’re taking care of a rookie, that’s all we need to know for Charlotte.”
He added: “You could see Quinn McNeill as well, who too was my teammate, so it wasn’t just George ... so I quite know Charlotte now.”
Other news and notes from draft day
▪ The trade up and No. 1 overall selection wasn’t even the beginning of Charlotte FC’s Wednesday night. The team acquired 20-year-old midfielder Brandon Cambridge from the Vancouver Whitecaps Academy before the draft began. Cambridge spent 2022 with the University of Portland, where he was selected as a third team All-American by College Soccer News. (He was ineligible for the 2023 draft because he came through Vancouver’s academy.)
▪ Charlotte FC also traded up to the 12th pick in the first round of the SuperDraft and selected Patrick Agyemang from the University of Rhode Island. The move cost CLTFC $50,000 in GAM and the team’s first-round pick next season, Krneta said.
▪ In the second round, Charlotte FC selected forward Nick Scardina of the University of Washington at No. 40 overall. In the third round, the Club selected midfielder Andrew Privett of Penn State.
This story was originally published December 21, 2022 at 5:12 PM.
