Congrats to Toronto but I would be a little careful stating that the DA is not such a benefit. This tournament is not a competetive one for many of the MLS DA clubs. For them those were the playoffs and for some players this tournament is now considered a pain becuase it would be when they can take a month off at the end of the season. To me this is more of a pre season tournament for next years u-16 team sprinkled with some u-18 players. In other words this is more like a pre season warm up tournament than a championship.
Certainly, what you say is a good explanation for RSL's poor U17 showing. They didn't make a significant effort, and it makes you wonder why they sent a team at all. But if you look at Chivas USA, they fielded some of the best U17 talent in the DA, plus the residency players who ordinarily aren't with them. So, while I'd certainly agree that the whole event could use a re-think, I'd suggest that Philly and Toronto deserve plenty of credit for reaching the final, regardless.
I agree with you. I think they should do this tournament sometime in January when all the teams are peeking. But certainly not taking anything away from the teams that do take it seriously. They shold be commended. RSL once a time did and won the thing and reached a few finals.
Being Canadian, we love anything in southern States in January, and we will use any excuse to get there! PS: Most of the starters on TFC-U17 are just turned 16yrs. My kid just turned 16 in May as did 9 players.
Our season ends in October, so I'm sure they will be inviting any team up for a visit..... Its hard to find good opponents for this team...........
Only a little information has been posted about some of the rosters. If anyone has a twitter account they can ask jr eskilson to take pictures of more rosters. LAG u17 http://img.ly/lOxV LAG u15 http://img.ly/lOy7 Union u17 http://img.ly/lOoU FCD u17 http://img.ly/lOuO
Union win 4-3 in PKs. This tournament left with as much attention as it did when it started, not much.
At least JR Eskilson of TDS was there today. He reported that the golden boot winners were Jorge Ruiz of Chivas at U15 and Nathan Kohl of the Crew at U17. Kohl only scored one goal in the DA last year, so he's a big surprise. No surprise at all about Ruiz, though. For being a late 97, he did amazingly well in last year's DA.
Here's his article: http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/club...n-chivas-claim-generation-adidas-cup_aid24784 I haven't seen any TFC youth teams play. However, their showing here is a direct result of the investment the club has made.
A nice byproduct of Canada having MLS academy teams is that we now see Canadian kids being scouted to top NCAA programs - ie UCONN, New Mexico, Akron etc. Even if the kids don't get signed to the first team they can get a good education and with hard work a little luck, might resurface down the road for MLS. Canada has always had good players (specifically big cities like Toronto) but it was impossible to get seen by many big time NCAA coaches. Now I think the roles will be reversed and coaches will be seeking out thse Canadian players. A huge difference from a decade ago when they had about as much interest in Canadian kids as the average guy does in fat girls.
We caught video of two GA matches. CDUSA/ Seattle U-17: http://goalwa.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/video-buzz-generation-adidas-cup-sounders-v-chivas-usa/ U-17 Final, Philly takes it all: http://goalwa.wordpress.com/2012/08...u-17-champion-decided-in-shootout-in-seattle/
Wow congrats to all the winning teams and coaches. Very excited for the upcoming season for the Academy league. Last year was my first year with a son in it so it will be intresting to see him transition from u-16 level to u-18. Once again he is a young 95 so he will get two years at the u-18 level which I am very excited about.
I think the Union are on to something special with the way their Academy is uniquely setup. They're able to pull from the best players available due to their partnerships with FC Delco, PA Classics, and Penn Fusion. Tri-State players wishing to play in front of Union Academy U17 Coach Jim Curtin can get seen at this combine in Philly, and could be on this team next year. http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/club...ines-launches-to-expose-more-players_aid24717
Yes the timing of this tournament is the major problem because it interferes with time off at end of season. The GA cup is simply a showcase for colleges and national and international scouts take advantage of it as well. They do it as part of adidas MLS sponsorship deal also. Now with the 10 month season its going to be harder to fit in but it looks like january/Feb is open but the MLS is not in season.
I was personally thinking they should do this twice a year, once as a preseason tourny right before the season was beginning and once during MLS Cup. That way you could evaluate and see which teams have improved the most during the season and teams could be evaluated vs "peers" and their growth. But when MLS Cup now not having a pre-set host it is basically impossible for it to be at MLS Cup. But still think they should do one in the late winter, maybe Feb? Good chance for players to get a good run 0ut and maybe impress their teams so they can go to preseason training.
I like the February Idea. Let us also remember that if the purpose for the MLS teams is to sign homegrown players and since the contract are with the MLS and the MLS would be the one to receive any transfer fees there is not a lot of incentive for MLS teams to trot there best players out there for international scouts to see. The system needs to be set up for the MLS teams to be rewarded for develpoing talent and rewarded means deeper teams in the future or money for transfer fees. Those are the only two things that will really motivate a club . As for the Philly system it might get some good results in tournaments and could results in a few homegrown sigining based on talent alone but it is certainly not a model that will develope talent. You think Barcelona would want a player like Messi or Iniesta training with a feeder club ? Of course not. They want their coaches and their system ingrained in that player. The ultimate model is clubs finding and developing talent for there mens first team or selling those players and making money.
You could just as easily fill in the X-es above with at least a dozen different things that are commonplace in the top tiers of US youth soccer, such as paying lots of money to play, commuting long hours to practice, traveling thousands of miles for games, being separated from their families, and so on. Most foreign clubs are also perfectly comfortable with 90+% of their youth players going on to become menial laborers, and in the US, that's a sacrifice we'd prefer not to make. As much as I think we should be learning from Barca's game, a lot of their answers for development simply aren't feasible here. Not now, and probably not ever.
Agreed but we can do better. We can set up rules and systems that encourage developement. just because we are a different country does not mean we cant learn from what others have done successfully and adapt it to our own country. Spain was always good but never great. You can attribute almost all their succes these past few years to a change in their develpement model . We can and should do the same. It will not be exactly the same but we should be humble enough to learn from what others have done.
I agree we need to do this quickly. Its Benchmarking and is done all the time for businesses and organizations to quickly evaluate, compare, contrast, and basically steal and integrate those 'best practices' into your organization to quickly and cost effectively manage change to quickly compete and improve. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benchmarking
The first Philly goal should never have been.... Clearly a philly player took out the keeper at the knees from behind, and in went the ball. Still a dam good game......
LOL. Not that you're biased or anything...you have a child on the Toronto team, right? I didn't see a "clear" foul (the play starts around 2:20 for the curious) but it doesn't really matter in the end. It's probably better for the Toronto GK to get some penalty kick experience in a pressure situation, right?