Their plan is to do this in 2015, I hope they follow through. Perfect opportunity for back end roster players.
Our U-18 college commitments: http://www.newyorkredbulls.com/news/2014/02/red-bulls-academy-players-announce-college-commitments I'm a little surprised to see Politz, Louro, Lema, and Basuljevic on there. I guess they either weren't offered a contract or turned it down.
True. I wonder if Evan Lauro, Arun Basuljevic, and Chris Lema have a good training camp one of them might be offered a contract.
i can't see us offering Lauro because we have three keepers and two of them are pretty young, so it would be better for him to play in college probably.
http://www.bigapplesoccer.com/teams/redbulls2.php?article_id=36276 "Petke said that Basuljevic and Lema "showed us something that partially we already knew and also partially that surprised us. Those two are going to benefit from a good year of college before they move on." Basuljevic, who is from Mahopac, N.Y. and Lema, from Ridgefield, N.J., both will attend Georgetown University. Asked what surprised him about the two academy players, Petke replied, “It’s one thing to have them in the odd practice throughout the year. Most of the time in those situations they're playing with the reserve team. But to throw them into a full pre-season with the entire team with every aspect and see them adapt to it and adapt to the speed of play and raise their games to match the payers around them, it was great to see to know that in an environment like this. Even though they are inexperienced and they do have a way to go, they're not standing out negatively there. They're doing the right things in certain situations. Of course, the speed or play sometimes catches them too quick. That has happened a couple of times this year, but overall, specifically those two, you can tell them know the game, you can tell they have benefitted from our academy. And they have a bright future, hopefully with us."
Good to hear. We don't know to what extent the players themselves are spurning offers from the Red Bulls. But it sounds like Petke wants to see a little more seasoning before pulling the trigger. Maybe that's spin, but it sounds like they are both on his radar and he wants to sign them, eventually if not right now. Not bad, but it would still be better for him to be wowed. Let me just add that these guys would potential be a central midfield tandem that could carry the club for a decade, but for the time being they are well behind the likes of Dax and Alexander. Which is to say they have time to be brought along slowly.
Question for you and others on here. I see discussion on Basuljevic and Lema but what are the thoughts on NYRB academy grad Bolu Akinyode. I saw the kid play with Seton Hall last season and I gotta believe he would be signed to a HG contract next season. Or do you all think the NYRB don't rate him highly? The kid was one of the impressive mids I saw last season and along with another NYRB kid, Adam Najem, two of the best mids I saw. (Stolz and Roldan as well). What are y'alls thoughts on Akinyode and Najem?
Without having seen Bolu play, I'd find it highly unlikely for anyone to come out of Seton Hall to make an MLS team. However, he's currently a junior, should be a senior in the fall. NYRB should need to stock a USL team next year. Could be some signings from the current junior/2014-15 senior class: Sean Davis - Duke Dan Metzger - Maryland Brandon Adler - Providence Kyle McCord - Virginia Paul Ehrenworth - West Virginia
That sounds like an excellent way to shape the core of an USL Pro side. Most players must be of good quality, but will have little chance to move up. Still, small chance is better than none. Considering how successful the Academy has been in producing college players, ex-Academy players seems like a good place to start.
To pick prospect future players is the ideal way to star, but they need a place to practice and grow, our collages and universities are not that one, they don't give a heck about soccer and the production is inferior than the primary school in central America, so, we need a team on the second or third division ASAP.....
Woah. Do you mean anyone coming out of Seton Hall in the future or just in general? Didn't Kljestan go to Seton Hall? Plus a number of current MLSers and current rookies came out of small soccer schools. Marco Franco, Tesho Akindele, Damion Lowe. I gotta believe you meant the current crop of Seton Hall players are just unlikely to make an MLS team in the future. That's a good point about the NYRB's potential USL team next season. Definitely would make sense to stock the team with some NYRB homegrowns that will be juniors leaving college after next season or seniors next season. You all(NYRB) have seem to have some really solid talent in the pipeline that should put some other teams in the East to shame if harnessed and brought along properly.
Yeah, almost sited Kljestan in my post. He was a beast there, so much so that he left early (GA ?). Don't see MLS offering GA deals to anyone there now. RBNY - who knows. Moreno and Santiago signings both surprised me. USL squad will be interesting. Based on the class and the success they had in their youth groups, it feels like we could load the squad with academy/former academy guys, but why limit yourself ? Just grab the best guys/prospects not making MLS squads, whether they were our academy guys or not.
It'll be very interesting to see how this USL team shakes out. Does anyone know what the roster rules are going to be for something like this? If we've got 5-10 guys on the tail end of our senior roster will they train with the senior team or the USL team? Both? I imagine it would go something like this: Whoever earned a spot on the bench for the senior team in the past week gets an automatic start in a USL game. Gotta keep them fresh if Petke is thinking about using them. Next up would be whoever else on the senior roster has earned a USL start. Guys like Duvall, Stevenson, Oyongo, Lade, etc. Guys who haven't been making the bench, but need minutes to grow into a bench player role. And then finally if you have U18 academy guys who have proven everything they can at that level you throw them in a USL game and see what they can do.
You're missing the point. You can't simply sign your U-16 team to pro contracts. Even seeding the reserve side with draftees is insufficient. You will need long term players in this set-up. Think a team of Armando's, career minor league players who won't have much chance to move up, but certainly are solid at the level. As I was saying, the Red Bulls will have a pretty good pool of potential players, choosing exclusively from former Academy players, and they won't have to draft them or go hunting for nearly as many front he free agent market. Essentially, they could take the cream of the crop from this year's U-23 team and augment with a few draftees, Academy products and veteran USL free agents. But it won't take much to create a pretty good side. Bitching about how many years, centuries, eons and epochs it has taken for the Red Bulls to create this team is pretty pointless. It was a missed opportunity, but that's all over after this year. As it stands, the Reserve teams are playing just an 8 game schedule. My guess is the Reserve League will be defunct next year. What they need to do going forward is work with the USL to create some roster rules that ensure these teams are real development opportunities.
I could see where the league would create an expanded roster option for the clubs that have these USL Pro reserve sides. They would have fewer first team players, say 25, but with player sharing and dedicated USL players the combined first and second team rosters would be 40-45. It would raise salary cap issues and mean fewer available players, but the tradeoff is the expanded playing opportunities for the one's who won't see much in the way of MLS minutes.
Reserve game : http://www.newyorkredbulls.com/news/2014/03/red-bulls-reserves-fall-chicago-fire-2-1-2014-opener Lema and Basuljevic got a bit of time.
Beat me to it. I did start a separate thread to enable discussion about these players on a rolling basis.
Well if you have a second league team yes.....What I don't understand is, that a team like the RBNY that have deep pockets hasn't inaugurate one on the PRO or the USL for years now and like they did with stadium postponing it for years until the last minutes and now with the second team they will have one because is a ULTIMATUM of the league.....Not look so voluntary of they part in develop players or the team here in USA..... They follow on that step and they will loose 1/2 of they fan to the new team on NYC.....
Roxburgh has addressed this many times, they wanted to accomplish this earlier but haven't because MLS has never been clear about the rules between moving players between the first team and the B team. Only one team in the entire league has beaten us to this, its not as simple as you are making it seem. What in the world does our USL Pro team have to do with losing half our fans to NYCFC?
Iced beat me to it. NYRB never pulled the trigger because MLS had no previous set-up for it. MLS started one this year with LA (a trial almost), and we plan to follow suit. I don't see what the big deal is. It doesn't seem like we'll be the LAST team to have a USL affiliate. Sheesh. ALSO, as far as I know we are the only team in the league to have a completely FREE academy system. And that system goes all the way to U13. Something most other MLS clubs can't brag about either. ALSO, we have an awesome training facility (currently being expanded for our future USL side) which is also something most MLS teams can't say. ALSO, there are still MLS teams out there without their own stadium so count yourself lucky. We have one of (if not THE) best stadiums in the league.