The USL kicked off its ninth season last weekend with a whole new look. FC Cincinnati is gone, the league has split into the Championship and League One, and a staggering seven expansion sides have joined the second division.



When a league has 36 teams, it gets difficult to keep track of every noteworthy player and storyline to follow. That said, here are twenty players with MLS upside that fans should have on their radar. For the sake of highlighting fresh faces, we’ll be skipping Nashville’s loanee duo of Cameron Lancaster and Daniel Ríos, players who float between an MLS side and their affiliate like Jonathan Campbell and Efraín Álvarez, or veterans over 30 like Kenardo Forbes and Thomas Enevoldsen.



(Age as of March 14, 2019 in parenthesis)



Modern No. 6s



After Mark-Anthony Kaye’s successful start to life in MLS last season, teams will be more keen to scout the second division for young defensive midfielders.