I have heard some rumors where the USL and MLS will not be renewing their partnership. Does it have to do anything the proposed reserve teams that MLS has thought of implementing? What do you guys think about this?
if that's the case, that could be a very good thing mls forces each team to develop a reserve team and then they play each other when the parent teams play or something of the sort (me thinking)
I will not pretend to be intelligent enough to know if this is a good thing or not. I will say that it does not make much sense for a Division 1 league to not have a working relationship with the DIV 2 and 3 leagues. Course, they could come up with a whole new agreement. It certainly seems like it puts MLS teams without a reserve team at a disadvantage.
This may be a good sign. Maybe MLS will announce that all clubs will have reserve teams in place for next season. I know there was some mention of this before the World Cup. Bruce Arena was advocating it. Otherwise, this news does not make any sense.
The CURRENT version of a reserve team like the Fire Reserves and DC United's that play in the PDL are not capable of providing fill-in players for MLS. Most of these guys are college guys. However, done differently it would be beneficial. Have each club create a reserve team. Allow 18 man rosters on the reserve team -- no Senior or Trasitional Internationals. No more than 2 Junior Internationals. If the clubs filled about half these positions with promising young players right out of high school, then fill out the rest of the roster with players who can contribute when needed on the main roster. Everyone on the reserve team makes league minimum. Get them 15 to 18 games per season against other reserve teams and scrimmage regularly against and train with the main team and you'd be building a stronger MLS. Also, think about what it would do to the National team in years to come. 10 teams (hopefully 12 in a couple years). 9 to 10 players per team and you could have 120 young players in this pool of reserves. Take the 30 out of Bradenton each year instead only the top 2 to 5. Basically, guarantee each Bradenton player that they'll have a spot somewhere in a league reserve team. Pick up a handfull of other high caliber players here and there around the country -- possibly players developed through the YOUTH clubs these teams will form. If you take 4 classes of Bradenton players, you've got 120 players. It's going to be an up or out program -- the best of each class will make it right into the main squad -- Donovan, Beasley, etc. The rest basically have 4 years to prove they belong. Still doesn't compete with the thousands in such developmental programs in some other countries, but it'd be a great start.
Value of Reserve Teams? It is one thing for MLS to field reserve teams and quite another thing to put enough money into them for there to be any value in it. To get decent players on a reserve team, I would think MLS would have to pay them something comparable to what they would receive in the A League. I can't see where MLS has the money to do this. To give some idea of the kind of money that might be required, there was an article on A League expansion last month where an A League commissioner said annual budgets for A League teams fell between $500,000 and $1.2 million per year.
I think a separate relationship could be good for both. MLS could start true reserve sides that could play in the leagues (probably PDL). USL could have solid contracts with players so they wouldn't have to have their players pulled on a game by game basis. However, they could then sell players to MLS, thus providing a reason to develop talent. Right now there is little incentive for talent development since the teams don't make enough money doing that.
Re: Value of Reserve Teams? The powers that be at MLS have plenty of money. Whether or not they will choose to spend it is the real question.
Not if it there is a clear distinction that it is easier to get called up from a reserve team than it is to get called up from an A-Leauge team. If there is no deal between USL and MLS then some kind of transfer or loan agreement would have to be made. Bottom line is that it is cheaper to call up from within your own ranks. The other side of that arguement is if it is more expensive to set up your own reserve squad than it would be to work out load agreements. Another benefit of having reserve squads is that when the league finally expands, the dilution of the league would be less. Thus keeping the league quality of play in the league at a higher level, making it more attractive to the 3 or so new internationals per expansion team.
A new agreement will happen. The MLS is going to go the cheap route with it's reserve teams. And this is a good thing. They'll be using them to get all the 16-21 year olds regular playing time in the PDL. They'll still need to get the Steve Shak's of the world some playing time to help them better step in for injured starters. And if the MLS isn't going to increase their rosters back up to the mid-20s, they'll absolutely need to be able to call in new players once just a couple are injured.
When and if MLS sets up reserve teams for all its teams - doesn't that make Bradenton redundnant - or would they still need a National Youth Training center. Side question: Do I remember correctly that the thinking is that Bradento would relocate to the Depot once construction has been completed?
This is also being discussed on the USL board. Here's the link. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=14375 You might also want to check out www.usldiscussions.com for other viewpoints. Although I see the need for MLS to have reserve teams play somewhere, I think this is reinventing the wheel. Some sort of agreement will be reached between the MLS and USL.
Thanks for the link, houndguy. I think what everyone wants is what can best help both sides. I think the A-league and the rest of the USL need some better compensation and MLS needs to have a broader pool of players. I just hope an agreement helps out professional soccer in general.
It would be very cheap to have reserve teams. We pay them what we pay developmental players. I think it is something like 1500 a month and then gurentee them a private school education for high schoolers and a college education. That's more than what they get from colleges to go there and it sweetens the pot for parents to accept their children turning pro. Not to mention it is good PR to have such a scholorship program in place.
My impression from what I've read over the past several years is that neither MLS or the USL franchises were happy with the deal as it was written. MLS was unhappy that they were unable to treat top level USL (generally A-League) teams as true minor league affiliates, with regular demotions and callups. This was tried a couple of times early, most notably with the LA Galaxy and the Orange County Zodiac, but failed when the USL teams balked at the constant lineup changes. The USL teams were unhappy that they often would lose their best players to MLS with the compensation being determined by someone else. If you ask me, the best thing for USL's independent franchises would be to have their agreements with MLS for both players coming down and going up would be to have them be piecemeal - one player at a time. If MLS wants a player to get some minor league seasoning outside of the reserve system, they should find a team to take him for all or part of the season and work out a loan contract with that team. If MLS wants to acquire a player from the USL who is under contract, they should negotiate a transfer fee. There is no need for a system-wide agreement other than some very basic rules upon which to transact with one another.
The developmental player gets $500-$1000 a month. It won't be like PDL because most of them play in college. You can't earn money for a sport and play that same sport in any division of college. The majority of developmental squad players came out of the superdraft, they are people who either graduated from college or left early. These are not the high school players that everybody thinks they are. The wheel does need to be reinvented. The way it is now is inferior and needs to be replaced often and when you have to put more wheels on for new modes of transportation you have to buy all new ones. A new better wheel that last longer that doesn't need to be replaced and is cheaper in the long run because you already have them stockpiled for your new transportation is whats needed The A-league works fine for themselves, trying to integreate them into a single entity system is harder to do. You are not going to get their best players when you have someone hurt on a MLS squad. With a reserve squad you be able to get the best that is to offer, who already know the system of the team play and practice with. As the league expands its footprint less focus from players who want to make it, will be on the A-league. It is bound to happen. Probably not at 14 or 15 teams but at 20 teams the A-league will start to feel the effects of growth in MLS. The quality of players they will recieve will probably go up, but not proportionately to what MLS is receiving. Right now the development squad is at 4 players. Next year I would speculate that the teams squads will be at 6 to 8 players. In 2004, 10 players. At some point it will level off 10 players is a round number to level off at for 2005. In 2006 I would suspect that it jumps up to 14, where it will level off again for 2007. In 2008 it would be up to 16, where it will once again level off the year after. Finally in 2010, a mamamoth year for US soccer, a full 18 man reserve roster. By that time maybe there will be 18, 6 in 3 confrences (maybe single table if we are lucky) giving a total of 648 players in the MLS player pool (600 american or green card holders) I didn't mean for this to turn into a "I have a dream.." speech.