Three players in one day: Austin FC trades for Jaden Nelson, selects two SuperDraft players
Three players were acquired by Austin FC on Thursday. One is a young, speedy winger with roster-changing potential. The other two are SuperDraft picks likely bound for VerDos.
Thursday was another busy day for Austin FC.
With rumors that Osman Bukari is exiting the club still swirling, the club made a player-for-General Allocation Money (GAM) trade with Vancouver Whitecaps FC, getting Canadian international winger Jayden Nelson for $700,000 in 2026 GAM, $550,000 in 2027 GAM, and the No. 17 pick in the MLS SuperDraft.
Nelson, coming out of the Toronto FC Academy, is a fast winger who can play all across the front line — though was mostly deployed at left wing in the 2025 season, getting two goals and six assists in a little over 1300 minutes. While he held a supplemental roster designation in Vancouver, he'll be a senior player with Verde, and also occupies an international slot that Austin currently doesn't have — though it's quite possible, when 2026 roster rules come out, that Canadian players will count as domestic players for American as well as Canadian MLS teams.
What is Austin getting in Nelson?
"Jayden is super fast, really lovely guy," said Har Johal, who covers the Whitecaps for Daily Hive Vancouver, and pinged me via Bluesky a couple of hours after the trade became official. "Great to chat with. Fantastic asset on the wings," and she adds, "Can really put defenders on edge with his bursts."
She notes that his desire to get more on-field minutes and make the Canadian national team for the 2026 World Cup — co-hosted by Canada — is part of what made the trade possible.
She said he could be better in defense and maturity departments; for the latter, she cites the July 4 away match against the Galaxy when, on a yellow in stoppage time, he kicked a ball into the stands to get a second yellow, get sent off, and miss the next match.
Because of the prominence of Ali Ahmed and Emmanuel Sabbi as starting wingers for much of the season, Nelson got relegated to a sub role, but Johal maintains that he stayed on head coach Jesper Sørensen's good side — and played a crucial role in the playoff win over LAFC that will rank among the biggest and most satisfying wins in Whitecaps history.
Johal also notes that he's a childhood cancer survivor — as various sources report, at 18 months old, he had a form of testicular cancer that came back a second time, spreading to his lungs, and doctors were concerned he might not survive, let alone become a professional athlete.
Watch this 7 1/2 minute video and get misty:
Here's his last 365 days' chart (basically his 2025 chart), measuring him against other attacking midfielders — but with numbers indicating that he could also convert to or at least spell at wingback should he again find himself behind other wingers in a lineup.
In case you're wondering how a Nelson-for-Bukari replacement would be, here's the spider chart comparison overlay that caught my eye when I initially ran it.
And thought they're not the same player, if Nelson really is going to be deployed as a left winger, rather than a right winger just slotting in for Bukari, here's how he compares against other Verde left wingers from 2025.
And here's how he stacks up against another speedy winger, the Galaxy's Joseph Paintsil.
Clearly, he's a talent — maybe even eventually capable of DP-level performances — and he's still just 23. He's a player to be excited about now and for the future.
SuperDraft picks are in
As part of the package to get Nelson, sporting director Rodolfo Borrell did give up Austin's first-round SuperDraft pick, which the Whitecaps used on Washington midfielder Zach Ramsey, who SuperDraft prognosticator Mark Kelhenburg thought would go in the second round, but was a key part of the Huskies' national championship run. (My alma mater won a title, y'all.)
Instead, Verde scored two players.
In the second round, they went with Stefan Dobrijevic, a University of Akron forward who helped that team's run to the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament that Washington won, getting eight goals and 12 assists on the season.
In the third round, they picked Penn midfielder Patrick Cayelli, who had nine goals and eight assists in 17 appearances in his senior season, winning some Ivy League awards in the process.
Here's how American Soccer Analysis rated them. (H/T to Tim Thompson for reminding me this got built by dropping it in a Slack conversation.)
Your expectation of these two players, at least initially, is seeing them at Parmer Field with VerDos. It's a dice roll that a player in the first round of the SuperDraft, in the year of our Lord 2025, breaks into an MLS first team with regularity. But both players are at least intriguing enough to follow as they integrate into the second team.
But neither of them is the most intriguing player we've learned about coming to Austin today.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. For more coverage, check out Emergency Podcast! (an Austin FC Podcast) wherever you get your podcasts.
There are some names you wouldn't believe on the current list of available MLS free agents. But how many of those names would be good on the back of a Heartbeat Kit?
Austin FC's backup goalkeeper the previous two season appears to be out the door. That means a new opportunity — though it may involve a lot of observation from the bench — for Damian Las.
Thursday was another busy day for Austin FC.
With rumors that Osman Bukari is exiting the club still swirling, the club made a player-for-General Allocation Money (GAM) trade with Vancouver Whitecaps FC, getting Canadian international winger Jayden Nelson for $700,000 in 2026 GAM, $550,000 in 2027 GAM, and the No. 17 pick in the MLS SuperDraft.
Nelson, coming out of the Toronto FC Academy, is a fast winger who can play all across the front line — though was mostly deployed at left wing in the 2025 season, getting two goals and six assists in a little over 1300 minutes. While he held a supplemental roster designation in Vancouver, he'll be a senior player with Verde, and also occupies an international slot that Austin currently doesn't have — though it's quite possible, when 2026 roster rules come out, that Canadian players will count as domestic players for American as well as Canadian MLS teams.
What is Austin getting in Nelson?
"Jayden is super fast, really lovely guy," said Har Johal, who covers the Whitecaps for Daily Hive Vancouver, and pinged me via Bluesky a couple of hours after the trade became official. "Great to chat with. Fantastic asset on the wings," and she adds, "Can really put defenders on edge with his bursts."
She notes that his desire to get more on-field minutes and make the Canadian national team for the 2026 World Cup — co-hosted by Canada — is part of what made the trade possible.
She said he could be better in defense and maturity departments; for the latter, she cites the July 4 away match against the Galaxy when, on a yellow in stoppage time, he kicked a ball into the stands to get a second yellow, get sent off, and miss the next match.
Because of the prominence of Ali Ahmed and Emmanuel Sabbi as starting wingers for much of the season, Nelson got relegated to a sub role, but Johal maintains that he stayed on head coach Jesper Sørensen's good side — and played a crucial role in the playoff win over LAFC that will rank among the biggest and most satisfying wins in Whitecaps history.
Johal also notes that he's a childhood cancer survivor — as various sources report, at 18 months old, he had a form of testicular cancer that came back a second time, spreading to his lungs, and doctors were concerned he might not survive, let alone become a professional athlete.
Watch this 7 1/2 minute video and get misty:
Here's his last 365 days' chart (basically his 2025 chart), measuring him against other attacking midfielders — but with numbers indicating that he could also convert to or at least spell at wingback should he again find himself behind other wingers in a lineup.
In case you're wondering how a Nelson-for-Bukari replacement would be, here's the spider chart comparison overlay that caught my eye when I initially ran it.
And thought they're not the same player, if Nelson really is going to be deployed as a left winger, rather than a right winger just slotting in for Bukari, here's how he compares against other Verde left wingers from 2025.
And here's how he stacks up against another speedy winger, the Galaxy's Joseph Paintsil.
Clearly, he's a talent — maybe even eventually capable of DP-level performances — and he's still just 23. He's a player to be excited about now and for the future.
SuperDraft picks are in
As part of the package to get Nelson, sporting director Rodolfo Borrell did give up Austin's first-round SuperDraft pick, which the Whitecaps used on Washington midfielder Zach Ramsey, who SuperDraft prognosticator Mark Kelhenburg thought would go in the second round, but was a key part of the Huskies' national championship run. (My alma mater won a title, y'all.)
Instead, Verde scored two players.
In the second round, they went with Stefan Dobrijevic, a University of Akron forward who helped that team's run to the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament that Washington won, getting eight goals and 12 assists on the season.
In the third round, they picked Penn midfielder Patrick Cayelli, who had nine goals and eight assists in 17 appearances in his senior season, winning some Ivy League awards in the process.
Here's how American Soccer Analysis rated them. (H/T to Tim Thompson for reminding me this got built by dropping it in a Slack conversation.)
Your expectation of these two players, at least initially, is seeing them at Parmer Field with VerDos. It's a dice roll that a player in the first round of the SuperDraft, in the year of our Lord 2025, breaks into an MLS first team with regularity. But both players are at least intriguing enough to follow as they integrate into the second team.
But neither of them is the most intriguing player we've learned about coming to Austin today.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. For more coverage, check out Emergency Podcast! (an Austin FC Podcast) wherever you get your podcasts.
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