D.C. United made North Carolina State defender Nikola Markovic the No. 1 overall selection of the 2026 MLS SuperDraft on Thursday.
The full three-round, 90-pick draft was conducted Thursday, just three days after Washington beat Markovic's Wolfpack 3-2 in overtime to win the College Cup men's national championship.
Markovic, a 6-foot-4 native of Quebec whose parents came from Serbia, played two seasons of college soccer at NC State and started 22 matches in 2025. He helped the Wolfpack lead the nation
with 15 shutouts; they yielded just 13 goals all season.
"It's a dream come true," Markovic said after going No. 1, according to the league website. "I've been wanting to play pro all my life, and even though this is a dream come true, I think this is just the start because I want to accomplish a lot more."
Markovic tallied one goal and one assist in each of his two seasons at NC State, but his value for rebuilding D.C. United is clearly at the defensive end, along with his leadership.
"What Nikola brought to the table was not just that he was on the leader on the pitch, which we observed in detail, but he's also a great leader off the pitch," D.C. United managing director of soccer operations Erkut Sogut said.
"... He was a (College Cup) attendant, so we watched the games. We were live there, so we really went deep in making this decision, and it was very important to bring into this culture of D.C. United, a player with that winning mentality."
D.C. United picked first overall for the first time since choosing 14-year-old wunderkind Freddy Adu in 2004.
FC Dallas held the second and third overall picks thanks to a pair of trades with Atlanta United and CF Montreal. Dallas selected Georgia Southern forward Ricky Louis at No. 2 and Virginia forward Nicholas Simmonds at No. 3.
Dallas also owned the No. 16 pick and took the first goalkeeper off the board, Vermont's Niklas Herceg.
"We were aggressive (in the draft) for a couple reasons," FC Dallas president Dan Hunt said, per the team website. "We have some open roster spots on our supplemental roster, which makes sense to fill with good college draft picks, especially when you can get top talent. This is a really talented group of players, and we listened to the staff talk about them over the last couple of weeks so I think we filled a lot of needs here."
Sporting Kansas City took Clemson midfielder Kwaku Agyabeng fourth overall, and Orlando City picked the first American native at No. 5, Wake Forest midfielder Harvey Sarajian.
The Colorado Rapids opted to pick one of their own academy players, Rapids 2 forward Mamadou Billo Diop, with the sixth selection.
Rounding out the top 10, St. Louis City grabbed UC Davis defender Zack Lillington, D.C. United added Washington forward Richie Aman, Orlando selected Michigan defender Nolan Miller and the Rapids drafted Georgetown forward Mitchell Baker.
Inter Miami picked 30th overall after winning the MLS Cup on Dec. 6. Lionel Messi's team drafted Bryant defender Abdel Talabi.
--Field Level Media
