Biggest issue to me is the completely inadequate reserve league, that had only 10 official games in 2012 Until there is an adequate way to develop players "in house" you will see teams like Seattle ( google recent article with Sigi addressing this very issue) continue to send players to college over signing them and getting them less actual game time.
If US Soccer and MLS stay serious about youth development, we won't need college players in another decade. Zusi is one of my favorite players, but, he's no Donovan.
Donovan may have won more than things than Zusi at 26 but Zusi is the more talented player. He has better playmaking and set-piece skills and is the most talented midfielder of our generation perhaps even more so than Claudio Reyna or Tab Ramos ever was. And Zusi developed in college soccer, he turned 23 during his rookie season and show that something special is going on in college soccer. Bright Dike will probably be the best forward in MLS for the next five years. Austin Berry the same as a defender. What have the academies developed in terms of world class, Michael Bradley? The success this year of Zusi, Berry, Dike, Luis Silva etc have converted me as a proponent of the college game. These guys should get better pay as a result of GA and academy program being shutdown.
Wow. Look, I love Zeus as much as the next guy, but you are delusional. That's not to say he might develop further, but at his age I doubt you will see anything dramatic enough to come close to where you have him right now. Furthermore, I when he was drafted, you could see potential, but he wasn't ready for the pros and needed a couple years to grow into it. He would have been better off coming to KC as a 20 or 21 year old GA than wasting years in college.
There is literally nothing in this post that is remotely correct. But rather than deconstruct the whole post, I'll focus on the end. You continue to completely ignore the crucial flaw in your argument: Even if you think that colleges are amazing they are not mutually exclusive from the academy program. Colleges only deal with one stage of development: Ages 18-23. The academy program deals with ages before 18. http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/college-soccer-articles/tracking-mls-home-growns-in-2012_aid25048 A quick google search found me this. It's a preseason article tracking MLS academy players in college. You'll notice that many of the top programs (Akron, Maryland, Georgetown) have rosters with academy players on them. Colleges don't just transform players from nothing into something. They recruit the best young talent and hopefully they continue to get better at college. And where do those players they recruit come from? Increasing from development academy teams, including from MLS development academies. If you want to argue that players are better off developing at college than they are signing as 18 year olds to MLS teams and languishing on the bench, that is an argument I can understand. But what you arguing is to shut the academy program down, which is incredibly stupid. Players need a place to develop before college. MLS academies give them the opportunity to do so increasingly free of charge, with quality coaching that is focused on their long term development, not just on winning. Pointing to examples of quality former college players that didn't develop at MLS academies (such as Zusi, Berry and Dike) does absolutely nothing toward proving your thesis that the academy program should be scrapped.
There's nobody between the "young Messis" (I wasn't aware we even had any of those) and the kids who go to college, not giving any thought to being pros? That's nuts. If it were true Caleb Porter couldn't have gotten half his recruits. What, were they there for the elite academics, the beautiful campus, or the city of culture? No, it's because they had one eye on the pros and believed Porter could help them get there. We know there are Academy players who go to college, but yet are quite focused on going pro at some point. Collin Martin of DC United's Academy is an example. A US U18 National Teamer, Collin accelerated his high school studies so that he could attend Wake Forest at 17. He did that so that he could go there a year or two, master the level and become a pro prospect and still be only 19 or so. Of course he considered how his choice might affect his career, and it would be silly to think that input from DCU coaches on that score would have been just summarily ignored.
Keep in mind that Berry is also a product of Cincinnati United Premier, which due to the academy system now only has more money and resources not less. Further they are able to offer more scholarships so players don't have to pay to play. Before the academy system CUP was independent and relied heavily on fees now that they are an affiliate of the Crew they get help from the first team. One would hope this will allow CUP to produce more players of Berry's quality. Or like others have been saying Berry didn't come from nowhere, if you want to produce better players someone has to spend the money.