Top Drawer Soccer unveiled its annual list of the top 50 MLS prospects last week, including three Sporting Kansas City Academy products on the list.
Sixteen-year-old midfielder Gianluca Busio, the highest Sporting KC representative in the rankings, came in at No. 4. Further down the line, 20-year-old midfielder Wan Kuzain Wan Kamal was ranked 24th and 16-year-old forward Tyler Freeman was 27th.
Busio, a U.S. youth international who hopes to compete at the FIFA U-17 World Cup later this year, enjoyed a breakthrough 2018 campaign that saw him become the second-youngest player in MLS history to score a goal and record an assist.
Kuzain also broke out in 2018, scoring in his second appearance for Sporting last June while featuring regularly for the Swope Park Rangers, who advanced to the USL Cup Playoffs for the third straight year.
Freeman became Sporting’s most recent Homegrown Player last October. He found the back of the net during the club’s preseason campaign in Arizona earlier this year and, like Busio, will aim to represent the USA at the U-17 level in the coming months.
To be considered for the top 50, players must have been born in 1996 or later, signed to MLS via either the Homegrown mechanism or through the SuperDraft, and played 500 or fewer minutes of first-division soccer. The last stipulation prevented 18-year-old Sporting defender Jaylin Lindsey from making the list, as he logged 555 minutes of MLS action last year.
