MLS-NASL Partnership Critical for Youth Development

yeah and i imagine that's probably the biggest hurdle in these negotiations. I think both the MLS and NASL want to work together, but i think the problem is there is 19 mls teams and 8 NASL. I think the NASL would prefer to not have MLS reserve teams in their league, and im sure the MLS would prefer not to deal with the costs associated with financing an entire reserve team in the NASL.

I think for now we'll likely just see several more loans occur from the MLS to the NASL, maybe the MLS will set something up where they will place all their loanees into some kind of pool where NASL can openly grab them and use them for their squads (i don't know im just shooting in the dark). And in addition maybe have something where the MLS can call back his loanee with 2-3 weeks notice (in case of injuries and what not).

 

MLS reserves are good enough to play for the first teams of NASL and maybe MLS academy players could be a part of NASL's reserves.

 

I still don't see how this will help the siutation with 18-23 year old players. Many of them will sit on the bench in the NASL too. I'd like the NASL, if they are to partner with MLS, to have have mandatory requirements or quotas for youth players. If anyone here tells me it doesn't work, 4 words: Mexico, Mexico, Mexico, Mexico.

 

Players born in 1992 are getting decent playing time in NASL.

 

Luis Gil, at the age of 16, played 9 games in the USL.

 

Have you seen many NASL first teams? They'd play. The problem is you have no control over their coaching and how they are used. For instance, Sporting KC loaned Konrad Warzycha to the NASL Carolina Railhawks for the remainder of the NASL season back during the summer. But they quickly recalled him since the Railhawks coach was playing him at right back. Sporting are trying to develop him as a center back.

The NASL would gladly take entire MLS reserve teams. The would be teams where you would not have to worry about ownership and finances. Both Montreal and Vancouver planned on putting reserve teams in the NASL. Nothing has been mentioned since about this.

The problem is MLS probably cannot afford to put entire reserves teams together for each club. That's why maybe 6 or 7 reserve teams shared by a few MLS teams makes more sense. Of course that presents its own problems.

 

Adding MLS reserve teams to the NASL will improve the quality and overall attendance of the league. The point is to get significant playing time for the players and not for the clubs to win the league.

 

Conor Shanosky led all Ft. Lauderdale field players in minutes played and was even named NASL Defender of the Week at one point. NASL is a good league for our prospects to learn to take responsibility.

 

That is because the MLS Reserve League is not an actual competition.

 

Well then, i stand corrected on the first part (i'll admit it was more an assumption than anything based on fact).

But still, i can't imagine the MLS would want to spend money having to support a reserve team even if they could afford it. It would be much cheaper to have an affiliate club in a lower league. All you would have to do then is throw your reserves on their roster, dictate who plays and where, and the NASL/USL owner benefits from not having to pay salaries for players, and they would be able to keep all of the local revenue from ticket sales and sponsors. (if it worked like baseball anyways).

Unfortunately not every MLS club has a NASL or USL team next to them, so i still don't see anything like that happening until the NASL and USL expand enough for it to make sense.

 

I am ok loaning our best players to teams in the NASL. Ideally, I'd like to see what Real Madrid and Barcelona B have. Their teams' actualy play in the lower division where kids get experience, but also line up against men... earning pay checks.....

 

I'm not so sure most players will be so rooted to the bench. Not everyone is going to play all the time like Conor Shanosky, but that's okay. Josue Soto made 10 starts and 15 sub appearances for San Antonio, totalling 1151 minutes. That's not a ton, but it's approximately 1151 more minutes than he would have played for Houston.

I think there are far more examples of players who went on loan and played quite a bit than players who didn't. Shanosky, Soto, Hertzog, Duran, Jean-Baptiste, White, Arguez -- off the top of my head -- all played a lot while on loan this season. How many counterexamples are there?

In addition to the cost, it's simply overkill to put together an entire reserve team. Why spend more money on building a 40-man roster capable of fielding two full squads for two full seasons when it's just for the benefit of 2-3 prospects who could really use the playing time? Realistically, those extra roster spots are going to go to low-end NCAA guys who are long-shots to make it in the league.
I think the league is catching on the value of a decent loan. I suspect they'll see how this method goes for another season or two before trying anything drastic like entering reserve teams into the NASL.

 

Reserve teams don't draw well in Germany or Spain, either, despite their integration into the league pyramid.

 

Yeah I think the affiliate club is most likely the future. We obviously have the baseball and hockey systems here as examples, then down in Mexico, there's Cruz Azul Hidalgo, Pumas Morelos, Neza (Morelia), etc. as what they call satellite teams.

Also, I think within the next 5-10 years, we're going to see an explosion of expansion into the NASL and USL. Especially seeing how well San Antonio and Orlando have done on and off the field. Cities and owners realize they won't be an MLS market and/or don't have the really big money, but if they can get a 5,000-10,000 seat stadium built, they can have some success in the 2nd and 3rd tiers.

Portland probably wouldn't need an affiliate club considering they draw like 14,000 people to a reserve game.

 

Loudoun County, VA (Washington DC suburbs) has a team joining NASL in 2014. They are building a small stadium and partnering a minor league baseball team with an NASL franchise to fill it with dates. I don't know how well this will work, but it comes across to me as a little shaky. NASL need to be careful as they expand. They don't want to weaken the league with poorly created franchises.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...7298114-e295-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_blog.html

 

Definitely. They almost need to have some of the same requirements as when MLS expanded. The top 2 options being the owners pockets and if the team can play in a stadium where they control the lease or have a friendly lease agreement that can allow them to make money.

 

As usual you cover most of my points for me...but just to lock it down.

A. If a player isn't good enough for mins in the NASL then probably isn't that great a player. That said, you do need to find the right environment for the player. For example the Gals sending aa6/ 17 yo HG to Puerto Rico or something just makes no sense...the guys that should be loaned are the 18-21 yo players that aren't quite ready.

B. MLS doesn't need a whole reserve team in the NASL, a bunch of MLS teams can barely fill the bench at times now....MLS would have to expand rosters to 45-50ish. Most MLS teams only needed to send 3-4 guys down this year, with obvious exceptions like Dallas.

C. I think the ideal NASL team would be a semi-local team....That way the team can keep track of them, and if need be a emergency recall can happen. Not to mention the odd practice. And maybe you get a few fans that are interested in seeing "the next big thing".

I think the biggest issues are gonna be with MLS/NASL financial issues, and the paperwork involved for MLS teams. For instance, who pays the wages for these players? If McBean is making 80-90k what NASL team is gonna want to eat that? How would these players count towards MLS Cap/roster limitations....

 

You must be having reading comprehension problems, as I spelled it out quite clearly.

So, I'll repeat. By and large, NASL won't provide suitable, high quality professional coaching for one simple reason that MLS itself doesn't really provide it either.

If you want to fix the problem, you have to start at the top for the elite prospects, not use the scarce resources in insignificant areas where there's very little expectation of tangible return. In other words, it isn't worth spending extra money to train mediocre MLS players. You want to develop prospects to at least the level of the second tier European leagues and that ought to be the top concern at this time.

Richer Ukrainian teams will absorb the top quality native players. Going foreign is a quicker way to advance in the UEFA Cups.

And, in any case, MK is in 4th place in the Ukrainian league while Dnipro, which has a large percentage of the home grown.

But the discussion of various Ukrainian clubs is the side story. You either think that the Ukrainian players are of a much higher quality than the American and that their youth coaches are far superior to the US youth coaches or you don't.

In the latter case, I am sure you can point out Americans winning the European Player of the Year honors.

You want experienced and proven youth coaches, not the American hopefuls.

Because then you will end up like Chivas USA, with Fraser, Vanney, at al.

And the NASL coaches aren't even that good.

 

Wait, are you saying that hiring experienced youth coaching professionals is an impossible task?

All I can say in response to that is, "Malarkey".

Bull crap.

Dempsey went in to a relegation candidate Fulham as a rarely used sub.

Donovan spent his formative years with the Bayer Leverkusen minors.

Altidore is an AZ product.

Gomez was a struggling winger with KC, nearly on the verge of retiring from the game.

Mikey was raised in Heerenveen.

Fabian Johnson, Steve Cherundolo, Jermaine Jones and Daniel Williams were made in Germany.

MLS can count Cameron (at the present, a mediocre fullback at Stoke) and Zusi, who's also average at best.

I would not call that a "success".

But that is not the gap addressed by this NASL-MLS proposal.

You may want to read my posts again.

 

This post takes picking and choosing facts without context to make a point to a whole other level.

"Donovan spent his formative years with the Bayer Leverkusen minors" makes every other point you make in this post moot, besides those made about the German Americans. Where were Mikey, Altidore, Dempsey, Cherundolo's formative years? Only when they found success in Europe? That's utter bs.

You conveniently forgot Stuart Holden, and I know you wouldn't choose to forget a fact just to prove a point. That's so unlike you.

An MLS agreement with NASL would certainly help bridge the development gap and allow young professional players to get meaningful games. That said, coaching is an issue that needs to be addressed and further investment by USSF and MLS needs to happen, especially at the youth level.

I'd like to see you and scoachd1 argue about high school and college soccer. I'll bring the popcorn.

 

Not at all. I just hold a CL tier German team (played in the CL final then) with such stars as Ballack, Ramelow, Lucio, Basturk, Neuville and Schneider far, far superior to MLS of the same era.

In fact, I would go further and state that Donovan got worse once he began to play like a career MLS'er. The coaching got worse, the demands more slack, the pressure much lower. And he regressed.

Only if you think than MLS in any form represent a suitable facsimile of a high tier Euro football.

I don't. And if you do, I don't think you can't tell shit from Shinola.

Besides, the aforementioned names "found" nothing. All had to start at a lower level and diligently work their way up the soccer ladder. None of them was a ready product when they went overseas.

Stu has Euro roots. Reyna had South American roots. Neither is a pure product of MLS.

High school soccer, in theory, should be recreational, not pro producing.

That's my take and I support that message.