USSF Development Academy 2.0

Jesus, scoachd, talking the most doesn't make you right. Take a breath.

Not disagreeing with you in the slightest, although I do think it's healthy that different organizations are trying out so many different approaches in these early days.

At this point, it's hard to criticize a club for making its academy a low priority. That won't change until/if several of the more ambitious clubs start to see big returns on their investment.

FC Dallas is an interesting case study:

There are 4 DA teams within earshot of each other in Dallas. And in the past two seasons..........two non-FCD teams have made the last 4 standing in the DA playoffs (Solar this year, Dallas Texans last year). There's incredible competition for players down here, and FCD still stands tall. They supplement their strong local players with kids from their affiliates and abroad (like the Chinese youth international).

What's true about DFW is that there is a level or environment of club perfect for what a player wants. If a player wants to make the commitment required for an MLS DA team, there's FCD. If he wants to be in the DA, but not an MLS club.......there are options. [Those are pretty intense too. Andromeda is aligned with Spurs, the Texans are aligned with ManUnited, Solar is aligned with Chelsea. And they all take trips to Europe, etc.] If he doesn't want to make the commitment to the DA, but wants to play in elite club ball........we have that in abundance. I'm always suprised at the Dallas Cup by kids/players/clubs/programs from the area that I've never heard of. We have great high school programs also for players.

And there are success stories from every single category. If I put together a team of alumni from the 4 Dallas based DA clubs it would be astonishing. The "active pro" alumni list of the Texans alone is incredible (Clint Dempsey, Omar Gonzalez, Shea Salinas, Lee Nguyen, Ramon Nunez, Hunter Freeman, Andre Akpan, Anthony Ampaipitakwong, Greg Garza, Jared Jeffrey, Conor Doyle, Alejandro Moreno, Daniel Hernandez, Hirofumi Moriyasu of Sydney FC, Daniel Atunez of Tecos, Stephen McCarthy, and on and on and on.)

That's the advantage of being in a city like Dallas or LA.............that you just don't have if you're in South Carolina. You have an infinite array of options depending on your commitment level, your talent, etc. South Carolina United probably has a little bit of a tough time finding enough kids in their area that want to commit to the 10 month schedule. We don't have that in Dallas. They can field 4 strong teams with kids that want to play the 10 month schedule.

teh worst part of all that is Texas only has two D 1 programs. Such a hotbed of soccer and the all go to scholl outside the state

It's pretty surprising that SMU doesn't absolutely kick ass every year.................

Players from Dallas area youth teams have a pretty good run of national titles going. Below I've only listed one per team, but I think that a few other players may belong on it, as well.

2011 UNC - Okwuono (FC Dallas)
2010 Akron - Ampai (Texans)
2009 UVa - Villanueva (Texans)
2008 Maryland - Omar G (Texans)
2007 Wake - Corben Bone (Solar)

So did the USSDA release the academy-wide Starting XI and players of the year and I missed it, or did they just forget/not bother to announce them?

I agree. Even if your academy is successful new problems can emerge. For instance TFC had two players from their academy poached by Premier league club Q.P.R this year. Youth Canadian national team star player Kevin Aleman didn't want to sign an agreement with TFC stating he would stick with them post u17 world cup (he was using the u17 world cup as a showcase for himself) so they told him to leave and now he plays with Valladolid in Spain. There are other kids who played with TFC who moved on in similar fashion. Clubs can develop players for years, but the players can just leave whenever they like and clubs get no return on their investment.

On a related note, I believe that ussoccer still hasn't posted highlights from the U16 final, or any of the other games that day, either.

Until we get a fully funded residential program we will not be at the level of Europe. The challenge that RSL Arizona faces is that it is not fully funded by RSL and therefore most of the players must pay a pretty good amount of money to play there. They do a great job of training and the style is top notch but most parents will struggle to have their kid play there more than a year.

Is it just Toronto or is there no MLS club that would receive a transfer fee for academy/residency players? I thought Kevin Aleman was a Costa Rican player?

Actually, there are more pay-for-play MLS academies than people think there are. People assume places like RSL-AZ are fully funded, but they're not.

The overwhelming number of academy players in MLS aren't under contract with the league in any way, shape, or form. A few have signed homegrown contracts (like say, Richard Sanchez at FCD), and the club would receive a fee in these cases.

We've debated about this ad naseum on these boards. Part of the problem is that a kid can't sign anything that can be construed as a contract with a pro club & also maintain his NCAA eligibility.

Yep, DCU still asking $1100 a year. Its a damn shame!!!

Doesn't help that DCU is still losing quite a bit of money. Reason # 1,000 DCU needs their own stadium.

Great article on the newly established Portland Timbers Academy, including this bit of info I wasn't aware of

http://highschoolsports.oregonlive....rs-see-timbers-academy-as-golden-opportunity/

If you feel I've got something wrong feel free to point it out. But in terms of "talking the most" I'd say my percentage of posts on this forum are a fraction of yours in the college forum. It probably seems like more because I tend not to respond daily.

Cool Article. Thanks and I was not aware of that but it does make sense. As I recall dont they do a homegrown list of ten for each age? So for example they would have a list of ten homegrown for 1995, 1996, etc ?

I have been told that each club must submit a list of potential homegrowns. Not sure of the number of the list. I also just heard that each club is allocated $140,000.00 per yr for homegrowns.. to be divided up as club sees fit. Can anyone confirm?

Yes each team keeps a list of Homegrowns that meet the criteria of the 1 Yr/# of training sessions.
Even players who go to college, leave the academy, or switch teams. You never know how they will develop.
Never heard the specific amount of $140K per year. If true its troubling. We only invest $140K per year to sign domestic youth players which are the future of the league. There is no incentive to have any residential training academies if there is such a restriction to signing your best talent. We'll go out of our way to sign youth like Valencia for big bucks but restrict our US talent to such degree. When will times change.

I thought it was a list of 10 homegrown possibilities period..............not a list of 10 per year, though.

In fact, I think we've seen the list for some clubs on rare ocassions. Didn't the Dynamo list somehow get released to the public a year or two ago?

Yes........I found it:

http://www.houstondynamo.com/academy/homegrown

The important sentence is on the bottom there........

Players must be designated as Dynamo home-grown players before entering a four-year college or the United States U-17 national team residency program.

So when people (like myself) talk about all the potential homegrowns at FCD or the Galaxy.........we must realize that a lot of those players may not be on the FCD homegrown list. For intance, SMU's starting keeper Jaime Ibarra went to FCD's academy. (One could see FCD needing a 3rd keeper next year) But did FCD put Ibarra on their homegrown list after he left their academy? Is he still on the list? Who knows...............

I have never read anything about a number limit of who can be on the list just a limit how many can be signed from that list. Wouldn't seem to make sense to limit the list if you are investing in hundreds of players and can only legally and legitimately sign a few a year. All the HG list is to allow the team who trained them over a year to have available first access to that player since no one knows how the player will turn out ofter he leaves the academy. The player doesn't have to sign.

http://www.redbullsacademy.com/academy/overview/homegrown_player_policy.aspx

I think this more recent article has some salient points:

http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/1110...reakdown-application-of-the-home-grown-player

Each club sends a list of 18 to 20 potential prospects in four separate age groups (U-14, U-16, U-18 and U-23) to the league office on a quarterly (or, in some cases, more frequent) basis. The players included on that list must be in the club's youth development system at the time (and presumably located within its home territory – generally defined as within a 75-mile radius of the home stadium plus any additional territory granted to the team) and may not include any U.S. youth internationals who were not involved in the club's academy program prior to their inclusion with the national team.

All players must take part in a combination of 80 games or practice sessions before departing for college in order to establish their eligibility for a Home Grown contract. Once they leave for school, they must participate in a minimum of 30 games or practice sessions (usually with the first team, but not always) during their four years in order to maintain their connection to the club. No player may feature in a competitive first-team game without spending at least one season under the club's auspices, even if an exception is made to include them under the Home Grown rule.

Thanks for the info. Where do I start. How would most teams know who in the bleep their 20 U14 players would be. Wouldn't you want to weight the number of prospects more closely to their soccer maturation closer to 18 and 23 rather than 14 and 16? Shouldn't it be up to the team to decide who their prospects are. As you can tell I'm not a big rule person when the circumstances in and of themselves solves alot of these issues. If a player trains with a club as a youth for 4 years why would they have to then come back to train before they can sign? They already have a connection with the club and its only an option to sign not a requirement for that player to sign with that team. I don't like all the rules in general that restrict MLS teams from signing our nation's best but why is there further rules to prove the connection. If a player leaves for 1 season of college they now have to come back to only that team and play 30 games or is that divided by 4?
Organizations make rules to keep people employed.
Ugh!