Columbus continues to stock up on HG players, signing Akron defender Chad Barson. http://www.thecrew.com/news/2013/01/crew-signs-defender-chad-barson-homegrown-contract
The Sounders have signed their first homegrown DeAndre Yedlin of Akron. http://www.sounderatheart.com/2013/1/11/3866532/sounders-sign-1st-homegrown-player-deandre-yedlin Now that's some kind of funky hair...............................
Michael Seating reportedly sings a deal with DCU................ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/soccer-insider/wp/2013/01/11/d-c-united-signs-homegrown-player/ Seaton (Hyattsville, Md.) played for the Freestate Soccer Alliance — a Bowie-based youth program that last month forged a partnership with United — and D.C.’s under-16 academy squad. In 2011-12, he was the team’s leading scorer in the U.S. Soccer Federation’s Development Academy regular season.
So the club he played for just formed a partnership last month with DC United. And DC gets him as a home grown? [edit]After reading the article, it at least appears as though he has been training with DC United to a certain degree and played in some reserve games last year.
http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/club-soccer-articles/dc-united-signs-academy-player-seaton_aid28339 Looks like DCU's signing of Michael Seaton is o-fficial. "We are very excited to have signed another academy product today. The main goal of the Academy is to prepare players for these moments," Sonny Silooy, D.C. United’s Director of Youth Development said in a release. “Our connection with the First Team has allowed for Michael to go from the Pre-Academy all the way to the top. He has the tools and a lot of potential. We have been impressed at his rate of development, and look forward to his future as a professional soccer player.
Ives Galarcep @SoccerByIves As if Colorado's draft haul (Deshorn Brown, Dillon Powers) wasn't good enough, I'm told they've signed Dillon Serna to Homegrown Player deal
An offseason summary: Colorado -- Dillon Serna -- Akron (Fr) Columbus -- Chad Barson -- Akron (Sr) Columbus -- Wil Trapp -- Akron (So) D.C. -- Michael Seaton -- HS Dallas -- London Woodberry -- Maryland (Sr) Dallas -- Bradlee Baladez -- South Carolina (Jr) Los Angeles -- Oscar Sorto -- HS Los Angeles -- Gyasi Zardes -- Cal State Bakersfield (Jr) New England -- Scott Caldwell -- Akron (Sr) New York -- Santiago Castano -- HS New York -- Amando Moreno -- HS Portland -- Steven Evans -- Portland (Jr) Seattle -- DeAndre Yedlin -- Akron (So) I'm going to toot my own horn here for predicting a rise in HG signings from the college ranks: Percentage of HG signings from college prior to the 2012-13 offseason: 25.5% Percentage of HG signings from college this offseason to date: 69.2%
Wasn't that hard to predict. Most teams Academies haven't been going that long. So after about 5+ years of the academy initiative it is not surprising that they are starting to come out of College in greater numbers NOW.
By my count Serna is the 50th homegrown signing since 2009................... I'm not sure we're done this off-season. We knew the Crew were interested in signing Wiet and Luthy, right? I mean, Wiet has MLS talent and wasn't in the draft. So surely he's trying to latch on with the Crew.
Will be interesting to see what happens with him. Could still be recovering from injury, could be headed to med school.
Wiet is going to play at a lower level while he finishes his degree; we don't know anything about Luthy yet. If the Crew don't draft a keeper in the Supplemental Draft I'd say it's a good bet he signs.
Luthy wasn't offered a contract: http://www.mlssoccer.com/superdraft...erdraft-top-10-ranking-best-keepers-available
That is incorrect according to local reporting. Our beat reporter got Brian Bliss on record saying they offered he and Wiet contracts.
Question to see if someone here knows more than me and can explain this. Sporting drafted Christian Duke today in the supplemental draft. Duke is a former Sporting juniors player and from what I have found has probably spent enough time in the academy. So my question is why they needed to use a draft pick? Is it because they didn't make a commitment on him before the draft? Or am I missing something?
What I've heard was that he wasn't eligible for a homegrown deal because he didn't meet the minimum amount of time spent training with the team.
Similar to Ian Christianson of Georgetown. He was a Fire academy player, and we all assumed he'd be selected by them as a homegrown signing. [In fact during the last College Cup final between IU and Georgetown there were no less than eight Fire players on the rosters] We were shocked that they didn't sign him, but as it turned out MLS declined their homegrown request. I haven't heard what the reason was, but it was probably the same. Instead he was drafted by RBNY in the second round of the Superdraft.
Josue Soto becomes the latest HG casaulty. http://www.houstondynamo.com/news/2013/01/dynamo-waive-midfielder-josue-soto
It's hard to feel as bad about this one. Soto entered the league via the HG rule, but his plight is the same as the four year college player who did not make the grade. There's no "he jumped to MLS too soon" what if, here.
A milestone for the MLS homegrown program seems imminent. Andy Najar finalizing a move to Anderlecht http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs.../d-c-united-selling-andy-najar-to-anderlecht/ Najar would become MLS’s first homegrown academy player to make a permanent move to Europe.
Article about FCD's recent signings London Woodberry and Bradlee Baladez, and the general trend of signing NCAA homegrowns: http://www.fcdallas.com/news/2013/01/new-breed-homegrown-players Baladez and Woodberry are the first FC Dallas Academy products to leave the U-18s to develop their games at the collegiate level before joining the first team. All seven of the club’s previous Homegrowns jumped straight from the Academy to the pros. Head coach Schellas Hyndman said those extra years of development were invaluable for both players. “When players go off to college like Bradlee and London, they’re both a little bit more mature than when they left for college,” said Hyndman. “They’re both coming out of very good college programs where they’ve been productive.”
Jose de Jesus Ortiz @OrtizKicks Big day for the Dynamo. Bryan Salazar of the Academy will talk to the team about a homegrown contract right now. The kid is legit
http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2013/02/14/salazars-wow-factor-earns-dynamo-homegrown-deal When you watch Bryan Salazar, it's not hard to see his creativity. The teenager with the Neymar hair led the Houston Dynamo Academy at the U-18 level, routinely showing that he could beat opponents by himself and provide that creative spark that every team covets. Doing that against his peers is one thing – doing it against the Dynamo first team brings another level of attention. That is what Salazar, 18, did two weeks ago in a scrimmage. He took the game to several Dynamo defenders, winning his share of the battles and making a name for himself. On Thursday, he signed that name on the dotted line of the fifth Homegrown player deal in Dynamo history, becoming the first player that has played at all levels of Houston’s system.
Interesting that Torre, Howe, Tilley and Cervantes have all started in the Dallas Cup. Clearly there's a lot of interest in these 4 as all of them have also played for the G's reserve team in the past and Tilley was sent to Stockholm at some point - you don't do that for nothing!!! Anyone know what is happening here? By the way. I watched the game against Frankfurt; Torre Tilley were very good. Howe was good Carvantes fumbled twice, but was OK.
The table above is from a little over a year ago. The average number of years of college soccer was 0.8. Now, take the ten rumored or confirmed HG signees thus far in 2014: No college: 1 (Hamilton) 1 year of college: 1 (Allen) 2 years of college: 2 (Kovar, Robinson) 3 years of college: 2 (Okoli, Gallego) 4 years of college: 4 (Shipp, Ritter, Friedman, Walker) In this group, the average number of years of college soccer is 2.7. I'm sure that we'll get some more no-college signees as the year progresses, but nowhere near enough to dominate the way they did in the past. What I think we're seeing - and credit to @Balerion for anticipating this - is that instead of replacing college soccer, the HomeGrown process is increasingly piggybacking on it, and perhaps enhancing it.