That's pretty impressive. There's exceptions to every rule. If its Tah at Hamburg is built like a tank at 6-4.
Yeah, Tah's the guy. Maybe EPB is the MLS equivalent of Tah. I think its possible that he could be the rare 16 or 17 year old that is good enough to be playing professional soccer regularly. I won't argue with you about what you have been saying about CB's that age. Its rare to find a CB that age that can play professionally, but I think there are a lot of things about EPB that are rare. I don't think many US CB's are about to sign contracts with Juventus and play up a cycle with the US U-20 team.
While the percentage of minutes played by Americans has declined, I don't believe the number of minutes played by Americans has declined in real terms. Expansion means there are more minutes to go around. And I would rather have a league where competition for playing time is fierce, and where Americans can improve by playing alongside talented, technical and tactically proficient foreigners.
Is "hasn't declined in real terms" meant to be good? Shouldn't we be trying to catch up with countries that have far bigger pools of players getting regular first-team minutes than we do, including some teenagers (and minutes for American teenagers certainly have declined)? A limit of five non-US residents wouldn't diminish this, and it would turn your word "alongside" into something more meaningful, rather than a euphemism for Americans frequently being pigeonholed into narrow roles.
A comment from Vermes: http://prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com/...eenager-erik-palmer-brown-to-step-up-quicker/ The absence leaves Lawrence Olum and 16-year-old Erik Palmer-Brown as the top backups at central defender. Palmer-Brown, who attends O’Hara High School, has never seen MLS action. “Erik’s going to have to be a part of it,” Vermes said. “He’s going to have to step up a little quicker.” I personally believe that the injury means that Erik will at least make his debut (USOC?) and be given a chance to show he's ready. But SKC isn't the kind of team that's in "development mode" right now with their first team. They're in "win now" mode with a great group of veteran players. They'll have a short leash if Erik is exposed as being "not ready." I do not believe Erik will be a starter for them as you say. Olum is much more likely to be the primary backup right now. However, Erik will get a chance. If he succeeds, then more opportunities will come.
It appears that we have three professional leagues that have solidified and are all in the process of expanding. My first priority would be to get the player development model more solidified for every single team in each of those four divisions so that we keep having more and more professional ready players competing with each other for spots. I would like to see EVERY professional team have a Development Academy as well as a plan for 18 - 23 year olds. It could be as simple as a PDL team, or some other 18 - 23 year old team, but we need to have player development be a required part of the professional model so that we have a large population of players who have been part of a program that has at least attempted to train them to become a professional player. This would give the expansion that is taking place in each league a better chance of success and would "protect" the expansion teams of the future by providing them with more players that have been trained to play the game professionally. I guess that it is a chicken or egg type of situation, but both sides - requiring teams to play american players and requiring them to develop american players - need to take place or else the other won't work.
I think an easy model for us to use is that of Germany and the Bundesliga................................ They actually don't have foreign player limits with their first team clubs. Much more lax actually than places like England, Spain, and Italy. However, they have foreign player limits on their academy and reserve teams. And they're required to spend a certain amount each year on player development in order to maintain their status in the league. [What they've gotten is a large talent base of young Germans of high quality...................making foreign player limits with first teams essentially unneccesary. Why sign 6 young and talented Americans, when you have 10 Germans of similar quality? You wouldn't. You'd only try to sign the absolutely elite foreign youth prospects.] And of course critically different from nations like England is that each team in Bund1 and Bund2 is majority owned by Germans (by rule). In theory their owners actually care about the development of German players. The difference between the US and places like Germany right now is the money. We calculated a few years ago that Bayern Munich alone spends more on youth development each year than all of MLS and the USSF combined. It's just apples and oranges. We can have all these grand ideas on these boards......................but somebody has to pay for them.
Dave M-N will make fun of me for saying this, but player development in this country really is at a crossroads. In rough terms, decade one of MLS was about riding out the start-up phase, decade two was about stadiums, and now decade three is about players. Teams can be sustainable with a player pool that resembles the old NASL, but the only possible way to achieve excellence is with a complete developmental pipeline.
Right. I am saying that we should have a player development plan for USL teams and NASL teams as both of those leagues are expanding as well. In a country as large as ours, we need to have ALL of our professional teams working hard at developing the best possible players - not just the top tier. Lack of a player development plan is one of several reasons why a lot of professional leagues in the past have sputtered or failed. Without a consistent feeder system of good, pro ready players at an affordable price, it is hard to stay afloat financially. Also, in minor league sports in particular, the community can really buy into locally developed players doing well for the team.
Well, money can go the other way. See England. Love this piece today about England's conundrum developing homegrown talent: http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/apr/11/premier-league-homegrown-players Just a selection: But then, why should the Premier League have any real interest in creating anything from within? Approaching its quarter-century, English football's top tier has become the most geographically non-specific of televisual products. In fact I can see no real reason why the whole thing couldn't in time be moved to China, where new stadiums could be built, huge crowds drawn, the branding retained, massive sponsorship attracted and no significant revenue or personnel supply lines interrupted. Except, of course, that the Premier League is suffering on its own terms with this inability to refresh itself from within. If the sole point is to provide a winning product, Spain and Germany are winning that race, providing between them 11 of the past 16 Champions League semi-finalists. This is obviously partly to do with wealth. But it also to do with methods and there is clear evidence that a spine of carefully nurtured home-reared players is what separates the very best from those who have just the outline or the deep pockets of an elite-level team, just as the current European champions are built around that enforced, academy-led spine of Thomas Müller, Toni Kroos, Philipp Lahm and Bastian Schweinsteiger This to me is why Germany is the model. They've got the combination of the wealth, but also the methods that are leading to success. MLS clubs have to BELIEVE that developing homegrown players leads to success. Success being defined by trophies and putting a winning/entertaining product on the field.
Ah got it. good points. Would love for Academy teams to affiliate then partner then be merged into all USL NASL teams. One aspect of 'minor league' teams that succeed is seeing up and coming players work up through the ladder. Right now in US we are just developing this angle with MLS/USL relationship. It has to work at other levels too. Of course we really need to fix the NCAA eligibility issue.
Looks like the early MLS games: Benny Joya is on the bench for Chicago Eric Miller is starting for Montreal Gil is out with a hamstring injury. Shane O'Neill starts at centerback with Dillon Serna on the bench.
I think would be his 1st start, he did come in last week as a 2nd Half sub after Horst got red carded.
Burgundy Wave @Burgundywave 11h Dillon Serna was given the hockey assist on Buddle's goal; that's the first ever point by a #Rapids96 homegrown player!
Only Yedlin got on the field for the Dallas-Seattle contest. Acosta, Garcia, and Okoli didn't get off the bench.
I don't what your take is but in watching Dallas' last 2 games I think Acosta is just better than Loyd. He was just vanilla last night with a few mistakes.