Sporting Kansas City selects Indiana Hoosiers center-back in MLS SuperDraft 2025
Sporting Kansas City on Friday selected center-back Jansen Miller at No. 8 overall in Major League Soccer’s annual MLS SuperDraft.
The 6-foot-2 Miller, from the St. Louis suburb of Ballwin, Missouri, was a standout defender for the Indiana Hoosiers. American Soccer Analysis regarded him as the top center-back in the draft.
Miller played his freshman and sophomore seasons at Xavier before transferring to Indiana, a national powerhouse in college soccer.
“I’m very excited to be drafted by Sporting Kansas City,” Miller said in a Sporting KC team news release. “I know a lot about Kansas City. I’ve grown up watching the team and I know how big and massive of a club it is in MLS. It’s been the standard for the last 15 years so I’m very excited to get to Kansas City and get to work.”
Miller, a product of the St. Louis Scott Gallagher academy, recalled coming to Kansas City to play Sporting KC’s equivalent side on numerous occasions. He said the prospect of playing for Sporting and learning from manager Peter Vermes was exciting.
“I feel like everyone in MLS knows who that is,” Miller said of Vermes, “and he’s been very, very successful.”
Miller didn’t have a local MLS team to root for as a kid growing up in the St. Louis area — St. Louis City was born while he was competing for Indiana — so he defaulted to watching Sporting KC’s games when he could.
“It was cool to see (St. Louis) have (an MLS team),” Miller said. “But I was at Indiana so I was kind of removed from it.
“My parents were into St. Louis City,” he added with a laugh during a call with KC media on Friday afternoon. “I don’t think they’re going to be into it anymore. They’ll all have a complete switch to Sporting, and I’m excited for that.”
Sporting went into MLS SuperDraft 2025 holding the No. 4 overall pick. But KC traded that draft position to the Colorado Rapids in exchange for the eighth pick and $162,500 in 2025 general allocation money (commonly referred to as GAM).
As the draft progressed Friday, Sporting KC also selected Ohio State Buckeyes defender Anthony Samways at No. 34 and Maryland Terrapins midfielder Leon Koehl at No. 64.
Koehl was part of the academy operated by German giant Bayer Leverkusen and even made the bench for a Bundesliga game before heading to the U.S. for college.
With Friday’s No. 1 overall pick, expansion club San Diego FC selected UC-Santa Barbara midfielder Manu Duah. The San Jose Earthquakes took pre-signed Saint Louis University defender Max Floriani No. 2, and the Chicago Fire plucked Wisconsin Badgers forward Dean Boltz at No. 3.
The Colorado Rapids used the No. 4 selection — the pick acquired from Sporting KC — on Cornell forward Alex Harris. The New England Revolution then traded the fifth overall pick to San Jose, and the Quakes used that spot to pick up University of San Francisco defender Reid Roberts.
Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry.danielkc@gmail.com.
This story was originally published December 20, 2024 at 2:06 PM.