PHILADELPHIA—The surprises started with the second pick in Thursday's Major League Soccer Super Draft and continued for most of the first round.

A player once considered a lock by virtually everyone in MLS to go in the top three tumbled to the reigning Supporters’ Shield holders in the 16th slot, the national player of the year bluffed his way into the 18th pick in the draft, and several unheralded players went much higher than expected.

The one selection that went according to plan was expansion Orlando City's decision to grab Connecticut sophomore forward Cyle Larin, already a Canadian senior international, first overall. Orlando listened to multiple bids from teams trying to trade up to get him—including the Montreal Impact, which were in negotiations up until the draft stated, according to several league sources. Ultimately, Orlando City opted to bring the 19-year-old attacker to the Sunshine State.

New York City FC held the second overall pick, and because its head coach, Jason Kreis, and technical director, Claudio Reyna, value skilled, technical players most pundits felt that Washington sophomore midfielder Cristian Roldan would be a perfect fit.

But after signing Mix Diskerud and finally securing that Frank Lampard would be in town in July, another central midfielder with Roldan’s skillset was suddenly surplus to needs for NYCFC. The club instead they took Oregon State forward Khiry Shelton, an elite athlete with deft feet who emerged at last week’s MLS combine as the top senior available.

That began a long spiral for Roldan, who sat nervously offstage in the grand ballroom of the Pennsylvania Convention Center as team after team passed on the chance to draft him.

“I never thought he’d fall that far,” said one technical director. “I don’t think teams thought he’d be there so not many of them did their due diligence on him.”

Roldan’s slide ended when Seattle pounced, sending the 27th overall pick in the draft and allocation money to Real Salt Lake for the 16th overall pick, which it used to take Roldan. Sounders coach Sigi Schmid first spotted Roldan as a freshman two falls ago and encouraged MLS to pursue him for last year’s draft.

“We never thought he’d be available to us,” said Schmid. “I think it’s a steal.”

Roldan said falling was a frustrating and disheartening process but in the end he was thrilled to land where he did.

“It’s great to stay in Seattle, which is my second home, and to be able to go to a team with a real chance to win MLS Cup and to stay close to my brother,” said Roldan, referring to his brother Alex, who attends Seattle University. “It’s not how I thought it would play out but I’m glad how it ended.”

Two picks later, the New York Red Bulls pulled off the coup of the draft when it selected UCLA senior midfielder Leo Stolz, who on Friday won the Hermann Trophy as the college player of the year. Stolz had balked at MLS’ initial offers and had insisted to the league that he wanted to end up in either Los Angeles or New York.

When MLS failed to meet those claims, Stolz arranged trials in his native Germany and is spending this week with an unnamed second division club. But “Leo reached out to us late this week and said he’d be willing to sign with us if we took him because he wants to be with us and play in New York,” said new Red Bulls coach Jesse Marsch.

Marsch's supervisor, technical director Ali Curtis, said the team was surprised Stolz was still there.

“We never thought we’d get a chance to get the Hermann Award winner,” Curtis said. “He’s pro-ready and makes our midfield deeper and gives us competition at another position.”

Meanwhile, a pair of less-heralded players who weren’t even at the scouting combine surged into the first round. Clement Simonin, a 23-year-old defender from France who played his final two seasons at North Carolina State, went 10th overall to Toronto—part of a busy day that saw the franchise pick Syracuse All-American goalkeeper Alex Bono sixth overall and his hulking college teammate, Skylar Thomas, with the 12th pick.

In another surprise, Sporting Kansas City took Amadou Dia, a speedy midfielder from Clemson, with the 20th pick.

Like Roldan, several of the more technical players fell to late in the draft as teams opted to go for more athletic players like Central Florida forward Romario Williams (third, to Montreal) and Michigan State’s Fatai Alashe (4th overall, to San Jose despite injuries limiting him at the combine).

D.C. United, the top team in the East last year, took San Francisco attacker Miguel Aguilar, a skilled attacker expected to play as a wide midfielder, while reigning MLS Cup champion Los Angeles Galaxy took Ignacio Maganto, a Spanish midfielder from Iona College, who showed good vision and dribbling ability at the combine.

“It’s not a coincidence that the MLS Cup champion and the teams with the best regular season records in both conferences took the most technical players drafted in the first round,” said a rival general manager. “They’re able to take chances where the other teams tend to go for the safer picks, which are the more athletic players.”

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Brooke Tunstall is an American Soccer Now contributing editor and ASN 100 panelist. You can follow him on Twitter.