Marky Delgado, a '95 has played for Chivas. Acosta, a '95 with Dallas is getting close to first team minutes.
I think we will be more likely to see loans across conferences. Where a team in one conference has a dearth of talent at a certain position so they loan out a player to a team in the other conference who is lacking depth in that position. The player may not get starting minutes, but be the first option off the bench. After all, who would want to support someone you are competing against for a playoff spot. Good thing conferences don't compete against each other for the actual playoff spots and teams from opposing conferences only play each other once during the regular season.
McBean's probably the right answer. Honorable mention to Diego Fagundez...............................who I know isn't American. But he's still 18 also.
Here's a youngster no longer in MLS Paul Arriola @PaulArriola It's official! I signed my first professional contract with Club Tijuana Xolos @XolosOficial! Thank you God! Dreams come true!
Well knew he'd sign with one or the other and never attend UCLA, but would be interesting to hear why Xolos over the Galaxy? Money? Especially with the way the Galaxy had him doing media type stuff in preseason. He can still live in his hometown and play with Xolos. Sucks as a Galaxy fan, but excited for his future.
Everyone knew that Arriola was intent on going pro. My sense is that he would have to wait a while with the Galaxy before he had enough time with them to qualify as a HG, and he just didn't want to wait around till sometime in the Fall, when I believe he would have met the time requirement. The Galaxy erred in not bringing him in from Arsenal FC for the 2011-'12 season, but hindsight is 20-20, right?
Villarreal and McBean were not qualified when they signed their HG contracts. When they signed those contracts, they'd only been with the Galaxy for like 6 months and had to wait until that year had come up so that they could play for the 1st team. Arriola has now been in the Academy for 7 months. But for Paul, if Xolos offered more money, he can still live down in Chula Vista, and he's in a better developmental pyramid structure, I can't blame him for that. It was kind of surprising not to see him join the Galaxy after he was done with Residency.
He had a tough choice to make. Advantages of Xolos: can live at home & commute to TJ, more development opportunities than in MLS, probably better initial contract. Advantages of Galaxy: despite more limited opportunities with MLS as a whole, the Galaxy are finding playing time for their young players, and given Arriola's showing with the 1st team in pre-season and also with the reserves, he would realistically have followed a similar path, and the Galaxy as perhaps the marquee name in MLS right now would have given him greater exposure to potential suitors elsewhere if he continued developing. Also, playing in Mexico is less forgiving. In MLS, even if the Galaxy eventually decided he didn't fit in their plans, he probably would have caught on with another MLS club (see: Bowen, T.). All this aside, I think it's a decent choice, and I, along with most other BS YNT fans, wish him well.
Yep, this is prima facie evidence why MLS clubs are loathe to go all-in with youth development. So far, I can think of Stevie Rodriguez from Chivas USA and now Arriola at Galaxy jumping ship with no return for the clubs. If this happens a few more times I wonder if MLS owners will demand some restructuring of the rules governing youth player control, notwithstanding the big concern about retaining players' amateur standing with the NCAA. Time marches on...
Why would it take so long to qualify? He's been with the Galaxy since Sum Cup last June, right? In any case, Arriola surely made the right choice. Tijuana offers him a regular schedule of U20 games and an entry route into a league that is superior to MLS in both salary and talent, and that also offers more first-team playing time for youth. All within a stone's throw of home.
For the Galaxy I think it came down to a decision between Arriola and Mendiola. With the size of the rosters you can only have so many hg players. Glad for Arriola to make the next step in his dreams but we really need to get our house in order. Hopefully something can be done about young players basically being able to sign with a different club outside, and even inside, the US without any type of training compensation changing hands. I'm not to optimistic of anything happening especially with the strength of the NCAAs unless the players could get guarantees their eligibility wouldn't be compromised.
As a Galaxy fan I'm gutted. He walks for free. That guy from Pachuca is right. Hopefully something gets done soon to protect teams closer to the border from having Mexican clubs poach our talented players.
So it's just Tijuana? Is that really reason to restructure rules for youth player control, one club? [As a US fan, having a prospect go develop in Tijuana is pretty much the same as keeping them in MLS. As a MLS fan, it's probably better for league competitiveness that 100% of all that SoCal talent doesn't end up with the LA Galaxy, they are scary enough as it is.]
The issue with the NCAA isn't likely to change anytime soon. And while in an ideal world I would want MLS clubs to be compensated and see their academies flourishing with elite prospects similar to all the great academies overseas, I also have no problem with Paul Arriola developing at Tijuana, or Kainoa Bailey developing at Leverkusen, or Joe Gallardo developing at Monterrey, or Emerson Hyndman developing at Fulham, or Josh Perez developing at Fiorentina. It's just a better environment for them. The NCAA and its rules are unique to this country; there are just some basic realities about the limits of MLS academies that we are going to have to live with.