DP's, bringing up youth, academies, PDL teams, and a second team like LAII. Read the last two pages from the Houston vs Colorado thread
I did...wasn't sure where to start. Academies: frankly the likely heart of MLS growth of for the next few decades. However the inability to lock kids down to youth contracts will continue to hold back overall growth. It is a bit chicken and egg as MLS cannot pay to compete on the upper end if the world market (a few guys aside) so homegrown is the path. However, until they can pay enough to incent top talent to forgo college they cannot keep and develop most of this talent.
U-8 through U-12 should be scouted heavily among elite clubs, and even rec leagues. Bi-annual tryouts etc. Kids that are brought into the academy should play football 9 months out of the year. Let kids go that do not meet strict milestones. Over the years, you may build a strong core of two to five players that the club keeps and has played together for years, and the others that don't fit the system are loaned out, or sold.
Bring in the youth from your area that plays for these U-whatevers and get them to play with our youth teams and bring them up through our system. Seems easy and people these days just want to get paid. European academies treat it as a school with education tied into it. Philly has something very similar that I think all MLS teams should strive to do. That's how you find the players like most of the 92 Manchester United(Beckham, Giggs, Nevielle Bros.) team and some of the best English players that came through the West Ham(Lampard, Terry,Cole) and SouthHampton Academies( Bale, Shaw, Walcott). Not saying these kids will reach that potential but it's better than the college system in my eyes. I do advocate going to college.
If you are serious about football, and have a shot at playing for a club instead of college, it's best for your career that you postpone college, and jump right into playing, in my opinion. The college system is one of the serious detriments to American footballers careers that they have to overcome.
Totally agree! Very few people in American sporting history have made that leap and I can admit it would be a scary one. I just think if they want it bad enough and know they have the skill set to make it go for it.
anyone remember Tim Allen's Home Improvement from the 90's-the oldest son character (played by Ty Bryan, who is actually a pretty good player and went on to star in a few soccer flicks) had the opportunity to go to European team's academy while at the end of hs and miss college. Of course the parents freaked. It just illustrates this whole point, that is ingrained into our society when it comes to futbol development.
I don't believe we will ever see MLS develop a youth system on par with England. There are two many entities in the US that are money making enterprises in competition with the MLS Academies. Add to that the fact that if a youngster joins an academy they are not obligated to play for that MLS team. The Becks, Nevilles, Giggs etc were signed at a very early age, and developed by the club. In this country education is considered paramount.
I was wondering what if other sports leagues like the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, etc. use the youth academy system and follow that from what they do in Europe?
I still don't think the DP rule and how it's implemented/adjusted yearly is very good in it's current form.
Is that because Houston can never seem to get a real one or that LA and Seattle seem to have like 6 on their team in any Calendar year?
It still creates a league of "haves" and "have nots". I'd rather them raise the cap to allow teams to improve the overall quality of the roster and improve depth instead of making teams top heavy with one or two high paid players. I think at this point in the league it's an OK rule since it allows teams that want to spend for better talent to do so without completely destroying the parity of the league. But the way they handle the ever changing rules is kind of shady.
The DP rule is to make it even across the board, is continuely bent and broken for other teams. Toronto had 4 DP's at one point this January. The transfer of either Defoe or Bradley sound have not been allowed until it a slot was open, but they bent the rules.
Guys, I think people have made good points regarding the academy's from how to improve, to how to scout, to how to run them better. I am sorry, but the problem is still the wage scale. As @Heft stated, the college system is to the detriment of professional football in this country because it puts us well behind the curve on the world market and frankly parents are comparing professional offers to scholarship offers. Listen, we can have the best academy in North America, with fantastic scouting . . . . but with a handful of exception you cannot keep those players because you can only offer them league minimum of 42K or less. If you are a parent of a budding star; would you tie them to an MLS deal at 100k or less? If you wanted them to stay in the US you would send them to college. If you saw opportunities overseas you wouldn't sign a deal with MLS. Until the league can offer economic benefit that is greater than the allure of a college educated job and the partial scholarship given to attain that job, the academies will be lukewarm incubators.
Don't disagree but the question is that even if the Cap is raised what does that actually mean on a team by team basis? As imperfect or nebulous as some things are with the changing of rules, precedents, amendments etc. it doesn't change the fact that some teams are willing to spend and some teams are willing to spend a heck of a lot less. Just because you raise the Cap doesn't mean teams will increase their spending outside of it. That they all spend roughly the same within the Cap isn't the problem IMO, its how they apply it and what some are willing to spend outside of the Cap that is the actual issue.
Ideally it would be raised to the point that the DP rule is no longer needed. And there would be a minimum to keep the cheap owners from bringing the quality down too much. That's all years away though. I do hope that the next CBA includes a nice bump in the cap though. With the TV deal they just got and the newer owners that are willing to spend money that may be possible.
I don't know if that is necessarily an issue provided the DP rule does not expand. If the cap is big enough where your "depth" is more in the lines of guys worthy of 200-250k instead of 150k your options for putting together a solid squad absent stars increases. Of course if the DP rule expands all bets are off. The way it is now, "off-budget" guys aside your depth has to come from the 100-150k range. To me the most important part s increasing the minimum salary for youth and homegrown contracts as I think that is the part of the budget that needs attention sooner rather than later. In my perfect world we would see this: 1) Soft Budget for salary only of $5 million for guys 1-20. 2) Hard budget for salary only of $20 million whereby owners pay above the five but not limited to three guys. 3) Transfer and loan fees are paid separately. To keep control you can still have a budget by where owners pay above the number but it is separate from salary budget. 4) Maintain Off budget classifications. 5) The hard one - increase roster size and instead of squeezing in HG under current classification, give each team a budget to sign up to five at any time (after five they move to senior roster). You can do this with a nominal increase over what they spend now but give teams flexibility to sign younger talent and bigger deals. So MLS as a single entity would be on the hook for the same thing they are now but accelerate the budget increase by 1.8 million or so in 2015. Teams now have more flexibility (if they want several 500k guys for example or if they want an OBG at 200k but a million dollar transfer).
I like those ideas. Something else I've thought about is reducing the cap hit for players that have been with your team for a while. Something like after their 4th or 5th year the cap hit starts going down by a certain percentage each year with a cap on how much it goes down. That would help teams be able to build a squad over a longer period of time without having to lose key pieces every few years.
That could be interesting; but using other sports as a barometer is probably less likely. But in theory, you could do that now by front loading a contract (as opposed to the Dallas Cowboys who backloaded and are not 20 million over the cap). Honestly, I think having the soft and hard cap let you do that; at a price. For example I could have a 5 million dollar team that I want to keep together, since I am not tied to specific DP spots I can keep that team together it will just cost me an incremental amount as their salaries rise. Also, having five HG spots to stash younger players helps.
http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/...llenge-soccer-celebrate-huge-signing-classes/ Here are the Dynamo Academy players and the college they are going to attend: Gabriel Camera: University of New Mexico Michael Cusack: High Point University Matt Dorsey: University of New Mexico Zach Jackson: University of Tulsa Bryce Marion: Stanford University Albion Neziri: Florida Atlantic University Elo Ozumba: Northwestern University Irvin Ramirez: High Point University Daniel Rutter: Coastal Carolina University Louis Thomas: West Virginia University Emmanuel Usen: Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Garrett Welch: Southern Methodist University Disappointed and somewhat surprised that no one got signed to play in HBU.