Youngsters in MLS 2012

The response on that tweet is the prevailing attitude amongst many FCD fans.

"let's hope he doesn't sign as HGP and languish without games like some of the other talented FCD kids."

Acosta's gonna have some choices, I'm sure.

 

They need to just throw these young kids out there with the first teams and see how they do. I'm pretty sure that is how it is in Brazil and Croatia.

 

Umm, how? Do you mean the ones who aren't pro? The ones preserving their NCAA eligibility? We aren't Beazil, we have small roster, amateurism rules coaches who aren't hired to sell players and 17 year olds who don't have the reps/ability to play at this level.

We are in a unique situation, we can't just do what we "think" other countries do.

 

Has any MLS team showed interest in buying Junior Flores?

 

Alright, thanks for answering my question. I hope he ends up playing in MLS instead of somewhere in Europe.

 

Well, as you know Flores can't sign with whatever MLS club he wants to go to.

If he signs with MLS, he'd go into the Superdraft (like Freddy Adu, Brek Shea, Michael Bradley, etc.) or a player lottery (like Luis Gil, Danny Szetela).

Now, the league can try to engineer a deal so the player goes where he wants to. Like they did for Gil. But remember that RSL had to give up an international roster slot, a draft pick, and 25% of any future transfer fee..........in order to acquire Gil from Kansas City (who won the lottery for him).

So it's not a choice of DC United or Europe for Flores. It's more nebulous than that. It's "mystery MLS team" or Europe. And I can understand why you wouldn't choose "mystery MLS team."

 

This needs to be changed. Let the young players go to where they feel most comfortable.

 

No Bueno

 

This would be horrible for MLS and US soccer. Besides the necessity of parity for the league at the moment, this would completely derail the Academy efforts. What is the point of investing in an academy if you are the Galaxy when you can just sign all of the top local/national players who want to play for you?

 

Why aren't we seeing other players like Junior Flores or Luis Gil coming out of MLS academies?

 

HG rule has been around for five years, the Academies are still young...and I'd contend we do see players in the academies with that level of talent....but of course they aren't going to cover the entire country, even when the Academies do get older.
The point is that you'd sacrifice the necessary changes to the system for one quick signing. It's not going to happen and it shouldn't happen. MLS academies are starting to become the powers they need to be to begin to transform youth soccer in the United States.

Instead we are more worried about a single 16 YO who, considering the odds against EVERY player that age, likely won't be the best player in this age group. It's naive.

I don't like having to take on these arguments, but this board used to be/should be the most developed conversation on bigsoccer. Every now and then someone has to take a hatchet to the dumb ideas.

 

Umm...Juan Agudelo, Diego Fagundez, Andy Najar, and Bill Hamid say hello.

 

No, I was asking why aren't we seeing more super talented American youth coming out of the academies?

 

the mls academies?? well a lot of the academies are brand new, and agudelo (an academy product) not even a year ago was being hyped up as the next US superstar... i don't even think the guy is 20 yet, and he's starting with chivas usa right now.

besides, a lot of the best prospects in mls academies can be taken by foreign clubs and academies as the mls academies don't charge a fee to those clubs for doing so (though its up to the player whether he wants to), so some of those talented youth players could be overseas right now.

plus i honestly don't see a problem that guys like luis gil and junior flores are emerging from academies outside the mls ones, i see it as a good thing tbh.

 

Hopefully sh*t will change in the next few years.

 

And I gave you an answer...by youth development standards the 5 years of Homegrown eligibility is a tiny amount of time. Kids who were 13 when the the changes were made are 17 or 18 now. Kid who were starting organized soccer than are only 12-14 now.

And, as long as your definition of "Super talented" is by typical American standards, then they are starting to produce them, and have produced them.

I don't get what your argument is...that we should give up on MLS academies because two players didn't come from MLS academies? That we should sacrifice our efforts so Junior Flores can sign where he wants?

 

Sure it's fine for right now but this drafting mentality is only going to hurt the league in the long run. The MLS will eventually end up with second tier young talent while the elite kids go overseas because they weren't given the ability to choose which MLS side they could play for. As the academies develop they'll start getting kids in earlier and younger and start producing higher quality players more regularly. Eventually the draft will have to go anyway. I don't understand the argument of how taking away the draft will effect the MLS and US Soccer negatively. Not having the draft will stop rewarding the teams who are lagging behind in their academy efforts and force them to start training and searching for young players so they can help the club in the future. The draft just gives a free pass to all the clubs who don't want to invest the appropriate amount of money in the academies. These clubs who are relying on the draft year in and year out are the ones who are hurting the MLS and US Soccer. The sport is going to have to adopt a non draft structure sooner or later if they want to further the sport and the academies.

 

That question had nothing to do with Junior Flores but was more about seeing other players who are just as talented coming out of the academies.

 

Seriously? You don't see how this will be a problem? You've completely tied yourself in a knot here.
If you let players sign where they want, then there isn't a purpose in the Academies. Academies give players the chance to go into MLS with their local team, their preferred team. This also gives MLS teams the ability to expand their reach beyond the draft and develop and procure top young players.

If there is no draft, why would a prospect tie themselves down to just one MLS team? Why wouldn't every young player want to be on a non affiliated team where they can start a bidding war, or be available to sign with a team that has an available roster spot? Why would MLS teams with greater images/reach spend millions on the academy when they can just sign players from around the country?

MLS teams are starting to invest in younger and younger ages. They are actually developing talent now, and becoming the central forces is US Youth Soccer...but you are more worried about a couple of players signing abroad who can likely would sign abroad even if they could choose their MLS team?

NOT having a draft gives teams a free pass. The idea is to make the draft less and less relevant by getting more and more players under the MLS umbrella with residencies/affiliates/etc. Your idea is one of the good old fashioned "it's not like Europe so it's wrong!" ideas. Amateurism rules explicitly make things different here as they prevent youth contracts. This prevents MLS teams from tying down prospects at a younger age when the players have to play locally to stay around families. Also, in other countries essentially every academy has professional ties. Not so in the US where most players don't have professional ties...creating a large pool of free agents. Without Homegrown rights and the draft, this pool of free agents would heavily favor name teams who would have no need for Academies, and this pool of free agents would also favor top prospects who would have no need reason to join an MLS academy and limit their options/price.

Again, there is a reason there aren't any reasonable people working in US Soccer proposing this. This would be a 180 change on our system that would create an anarchy that would destroy the USSDA as we know it.

 

There's an easy answer.

Our academies are in their infancy compared to their European/South American counterparts. MLS teams have only been in the youth development game for several years, while the Euro/South American clubs have been doing it for generations. Until the homegrown initiative started ~5 years ago, MLS clubs had no incentive to develop young players.

And right now MLS academies are trying to do it on shoestring budgets compared to clubs like Barca, Ajax, Boca Juniors, etc.

It's gonna take at least a generation to catch up to the youth development infrastructure in places around the world. We can't snap our fingers and solve this problem. We can't even simply throw money at the problem to a large degree.

So it's just gonna take patience.

The good news is you don't need to develop an army of world-class players. The US has qualified for the knockout stages in 3 of the last 5 World Cups as it is. You only need a few elite "game-changers" to turn the USMNT into a serious contender.

 

The draft focuses on a few dozen players in the country. How does allowing these players going to a team of their choosing destroy the USSF? The majority of kids that are in these academies are not going to get drafted so your theory of total destruction doesn't have any validity to it. As the academies start to incorporate younger kids into their system the draft will die because the reliance on college trained players will shrink. Do you think that a team is going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on training, teaching, housing and feeding a youth player to eventually let him enter a draft where all their work will more then likely go to another team? The draft structure works in other American sports because their are no academies to train youth players. The MLB, NFl, NBA etc all rely on the college system to develop their talents for them. Its different in the MLS. The teams that are investing in young talent and training them aren't going to let their players go to another team without appropriate compensation. Also there are rules in place to make sure that a player from Ohio can't go to an academy in LA so your fear of the Galaxy stealing all the talent isn't going to be an issue. No matter how much you kick and scream and rant and yell about the poor ways European teams develop talent, the draft will not be relevant in the MLS in the long run and the MLS will copy the Europeon/Latin Ameican/ Central American system because it works. The players that are going to have the ability to play in the MLS in the future wont be trained in college, they'll all start at the academies. I understand your reasoning on the professional contracts being the main thing holding things back in terms of eliminating the draft. This is going to be where the battle is lost or won in terms of keeping the MLS draft intact. I agree that if these players are all free agents then most teams wont want to develop them and that needs to be dealt with first and foremost. Tying down players to their club from an early age will give both the youth and the club growth stability.

 

yeah but can't MLS teams sign players from their own academies without them having to go through a draft?