Instead, Toronto – which finished ninth in the 10-team Eastern Conference last season – traded up five places to get the 10th overall pick and used it to grab the 6-foot-1, 187-pound center back and reigning Big East Defensive Player of the Year.
“I was very surprised,” Hagglund, 21, said Thursday afternoon about an hour after MLS Commissioner Don Garber announced the pick, which led to Toronto’s newest player being adorned with a red-and-white scarf – Toronto’s colors – on his way to the stage. “Especially a week ago, if you had told me I would go top 10, I would’ve been like, ‘You’re crazy.’ I was surprised Toronto traded up five places in the draft to get me. It’s exciting.”
Hagglund, dressed in a dark suit with a purple tie, was with his parents, Sue and Stu Hagglund, and Xavier coach Andy Fleming at the Philadelphia Convention Center for the draft, the first two rounds of which were televised on ESPN News.
Hagglund, projected by two other MLS draft experts to be picked 22nd or 29th, was described in what was labeled as the “Coaches’ Breakdown” on the MLS website as “what you get when you combine extreme athleticism and good defensive technique” and “a solid, physical player who wins every ball that comes near him.”
The assessment concluded with this observation from an unidentified MLS coach:
“He needs to realize he belongs in the MLS. I don’t think he realizes how good he is.”
The selection capped a whirlwind few weeks for Hagglund, who graduated early last month from Xavier, where he majored in management. He participated in the MLS Draft Combine last week before flying back to Greater Cincinnati and then almost immediately heading to Philadelphia.
While preparing for the combine, he stayed with his parents and, while rummaging around his old room, he came across a list of “Goals in Life” he’d put together in the first grade. No. 1 on the list?
“Become an MLS soccer player,” he said, adding, “MLS or a baseball player.”
Toronto is scheduled to open its MLS seasonMarch 15 at Seattle. Hagglund is scheduled to report to Toronto next week, but that won’t be his first visit to the city.
“I was up there two years ago with the Columbus Crew,” he recalled. “It’s a huge city.”
Hagglund, whose sister Jenna was an All-American volleyball player at the University of Washington and also played with Team USA and now plays professionally in Germany, grew up playing youth soccer with the Lakota Eagles under coach Steve McCollum and was named Division I second-team all-Ohio under coach Rick Cooper at Lakota West. He also played club soccer with Cincinnati United Premier.
“He’s a phenomenal athlete,” Cooper said. “To see how he grew from when he was a freshman here to when I saw him last summer working out while he was rehabbing an injury was amazing. He’s a wonderful kid, too. He’s a phenomenal young man. Whatever he is as a soccer player, he’s 10 times that as a person.”
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