OFFICIAL LA Galaxy 2 USL Pro Team 2014

Still no LA Galaxy USL Pro announcement. Wonder what the hold-up is, especially since the field logistics are no sweat if they are playing and practicing in and around the Stub Hub center. I assume this team is what Kenny Arena was brought back to coach.

 

they're probably just taking some time to implement all the suggestions we've made on bigsoccer

 

This is also the reason we don't have an announcement on our new winger yet. Bruce is still sorting through our formation suggestions and trying to determine which one of us is correct about the type of player and how we should be using the cap.

 

Bruce has talked about it though, so it's happening. I think they're waiting to see who they bring in.

 

I think they might still be waiting on the rules breakdown between the first and USL team. MLS, in all their infinite wisdom, probably didn't have the rules ready so the Galaxy are playing wait and see.

 

That makes sense but should've they thought about that earlier before committing to have all mls teams have affiliation or reserve teams on USO pro.

 

There are a lot of things MLS HQ should have thought about earlier but haven't. If you listened to the State of the League address Garber basically admitted the league is still making up things as they go along. The integration of USL can leave a lot of loopholes for teams with more money than others. Let's take a recent example, Arriola.

Now, let's say TJ offered him 70k. He wanted to stay closer to home so that all worked out. We were only able to offer him a min deal so he scoffed. Let's say now, with the USL team, we can sign him to the USL team for >100k and then loan him to the MLS side as we see fit. This is just one of a bunch of examples which establishing the USL team would allow the MLS team to game the system and circumvent the salary cap. MLS HQ has to get the rules correct because they are all in on parity.

And that's just on the money side. How are roster spots broken down? If I loan a player from MLS to my USL team does that player still stay as a cap hit/rostered player on the MLS team? There are a bunch of permutations that realistically need to be thought out but that is something they should have already planned for.

I am assuming HQ didn't think anyone would go straight to establishing their own team. They probably assumed everyone would want to do a dry run with a partnership and then build a stand alone after a couple years.

 

It gets even more confusing.

"It's also unclear how the contracts will be handled between LA and LA2, but it's likely that's where several young prospects will end up. MLS teams don't have to be roster compliant until a specific date in the pre-season, but LA is currently holding interests in over thirty players."

Huh.....?

 

Still no word on how/if a player can move from USL the MLS during the season? That’s what interests me most.

29 including Friend and Samuel, not including: Villarreal (HG loan), Mendiola (HG), Jamieson (HG) or the “foreign winger” so 32 if you don’t count Jose.

 

Probably won't be too much different than baseball or hockey. If we call someone up from the USL team, we need to send someone down from the MLS team to the USL one.

 

Actually, the league only requires the Galaxy to have 18 players under contract at one time. Which means, I could see the Galaxy starting the year at the minimum roster requirements and only adding to the 18 man requirement if an injury occurs.

I think players like Meyer, Garcia, McBean, etc. are going to be loaned out to this USL Pro team, even though they're good and cheep enough to be on the 30 man roster. Only added back to the main Galaxy squad if they're need to fill in due to injury.

 

I'm interpreting this differently (based on no facts ).

I think our USL team will be a reserve team rather than another team we loan players to. We have enough players for both teams. 18 players for the first team (11 starters 7 reserves) leaving another 12 players for the USL team. That isn't enough by itself, but the 1st team bench can play in the USL when at home and we can pull players from the academy to be a bench for the USL team, kind of like we do now.

Notice that in the article, Bruce says:

Opportunity to get all these players players, not just a few.

 

My guess, and this is just a guess, is that it will follow the baseball analogy where teams have their 25 man roster on the club, and then there's the 40 man roster where some of those players are in the minors. Not every player on the AAA club is on the 40 man roster, but those who are can be recalled easier. If they aren't, the major league team has to purchase that contract.

So I expect LA2 will have a handful of reserve guys, and a bunch of new talent Onaflo signs just for the team

 

The fact that we have enough players for two teams doesn't really mean that it won't be a separate USL Pro team. If MLS stipulates that we loan players for season-long loans in order to clear roster space (like we did with Walker and Gaul last year), then there will be a few of those players on season-long loans to the USL team. There will also likely be a few post-Academy, non-college players who will be signed to contracts on either the USL team or the MLS team depending upon MLS rules (this will allow those U23-type prospects to get paid and us to get compensated if Liga MX wants to come poach them, but still allow them to get the playing time and development they need). The rest of the team will be short-term (one game) loans from the senior MLS squad that operate much like they did in prior years for the reserve league games for players who haven't gotten to play or who are rehabbing injuries. So, it might look very much like our normal reserve team in terms of roster composition, but the roster of paid players may be a little bigger than we normally have when there are no loans and there will be many more games than the reserve team normally gets.

The reason we can form our own USL Pro squad and some other teams are affiliating with existing squads is because (1) we have enough players, including former Academy players, (2) we have an ownership group willing to pay those extra players and to pay for extra coaches - Kenny Arena, for example, was just an extra hire and didn't really replace anyone -- and extra games, and (3) we not only control our own stadium, but that includes a huge amount of practice space and alternate game space so that we don't really have to worry about the costs associated with hosting the team and their games.

 

It wouldn't bother me if this is what they did, but it seems like it opens a can of worms. Say that the G2 team consisted of

1) One-time loans from G1 (so still on the G1 roster)
2) Year-long loans from G1 (so not on the G1 roster, but Galaxy own the rights)
3)Post-academy players (not on the G1 roster, Galaxy do not own the rights)
4) Occasional academy players (not on any roster, Galaxy do not own rights beyond "homegrown" rights.

Categories (2) and (3) seem problematic to me. We could sign a bunch of players to cheap homegrown contracts and develop them in G2 for a year or two which allows us to pretty much circumvent roster restrictions when it comes to young players. On the other hand, if they restrict the number of loaned players, say to four, then we're missing out on the opportunity to get our other young players minutes. Category (3) players are also a problem since why should we spend resources developing them when we don't own their rights?

I could see a rule structure that allows us to loan out a max of four players for purposes of removing them from our roster. For some teams, that's all that they will do. On the other hand, we might have another eight young players who are technically still on the G1 roster but are de facto G2 players.

 

Some of this is semantics, I admit. But my guess is that, in terms of minutes, the bulk of the minutes will from be Galaxy roster players with a smaller amount coming from (a) non-roster but Galaxy-rights players, (b) non-roster non-rights players, (c) academy players, probably in that order. If Jaime Villareal doesn't get a homegrown contract I could see him falling into category (b).

And it's probably good for him to have someplace to play since we'll make mistakes and not offer homegrown contracts to players who grow into them. Of course, he would be free to sign with another team, but given his connections he might prefer the Galaxy (or not, if he think's he's been snubbed)

 

It would be nice if we knew what the rules were instead of just speculating. Oh. Wait. This is MLS. Maybe LAG haven't told MLS what the rules are yet

 

I think you are worrying about intra-league competitive issues (we will "circumvent" roster restrictions) and the league could easily be thinking more about inter-league competitive issues such as the ones that result in Arriola and others opting for leagues other than MLS. They may want all teams to sign homegrown players and loan them out (category 2) or they may want the league to have rights (option or whatever) to all players on MLS club-owned USL Pro teams so the league and the team can benefit from selling off some of those category 3 players or subsequently signing them to the MLS roster. After all, there already is a inter-league competitive balance problem with giving affluent teams the ability to sign home grown players and circumvent the draft. It's not a loophole. It's by design to encourage teams to work on their academies.

 

I agree that all Galaxy players should be eligible to play on either teams. But I think it's going to be a mix of having a reserve and an affiliate. MLS players that have been loaned out to an affiliate USL team have been recalled to play with the MLS team. There are a lot budgetary benefits to loaning playing out and having less then 30 players on the books.

 

The Arriola situation seemed more about whether we could offer a high-salary contract rather than just a contract. I'm not sure the USL gets around that and I'm not sure that MLS has signaled much interest in moving on that dimension.

My concern is getting our current players playing time. I expect the following players to get less than 100 minutes senior playing time

McBean
Rugg
Hoffman
Jamieson
Mendiola
Walker
The homegrown player that's still to be signed
Gaul
Meyer (maybe)
Venter
Perk

That's 11 players right there. After they get minutes, rehabbing players get minutes, academy prospects get minutes, there isn't going to be much time to go around. And truthfully, I'd rather see UCLA players like Iloski, Raygoza, Torre or Howe get minutes just to see if they're worth keeping interest in.

 

I'm giving up on this issue. Until the rules are published in some reasonable format and I can review them, it is just making my head hurt.

 

I doubt there is going to be to much to the roster rules simply due to the CBA. Players on the full roster would be eligible for both teams (call it a loan, if you'd like). The rest would just be like any other player not in MLS. You'd either have to own their rights (via homegrown, draft or otherwise) or use a discovery on them to get them on the full roster. It's entirely possible that we could sign a player to our USL Pro team whose rights would be owned by another MLS club. If we wanted to move him up, we'd have to trade for his rights.

Perhaps the next CBA will address this in more depth, but for now we have to use the one that is in place.

 

NCAA rules prevent this, they'd lose their eligibility playing with paid pros, which is why you only see college players in the PDL or NPSL. However, players that haven't enrolled in college yet can play with pros (as long as they're not paid) and it won't effect their future NCAA eligibility.

I would also like to see us start our own PDL team for our former academy players in college. However, current academy players aren't eligible to play PDL because that would hurt their college eligibility. NCAA doesn't want incoming recruits playing with future teammates before they get to college. Also, only a max of 5 players from the same college are allowed on a PDL club. So we couldn't have like 7 UCLA players on our PDL team.