Just want to make my point clear and I have on other threads. I don't have a problem with college soccer per say. It is what it is. I understand. I just despise people who try to spin it as something it is not. They are either soccer stupid (possible here in the US), doing someone favors (has happened) or are so out of material and they are looking for something to write about right now. Still, even if they are looking for something to write about, the thought process leads me to think "stupid", that's how weak their writing on this subject. Trying to be controversial, or raise a subjects profile for hits, can also show a severe lack of comprehension in one regard or another. Don't try and sell me on something that is basically ridiculous. College does not make good pros in general, and they get paid what they do because of it, not because of evil MLS. Small cap, so you don't spend a lot on crap. College = cheap/poor labor and proves it, so they are paid accordingly.
Agreed. I would rather spend time and money on the academy system and finding alternatives for player development at 18-22 than continueing to try to "fix" something that is too big and unsupportive to change.
As a former college soccer product..i have seen the NCAA destroy more good players than develop and improve them. Listen, its just not a suitable place of a player with professional ambisions to be. Its is not designed around creating professionals, its just some athletics for a colllege system and a place for them to learn a trade and play some sports on the side and that is how 90% of them take it. The training is weak and regulated to much, especially the restrictions on when you can train. The coaching is often sub par, the team mentaility sucks for the most part, the distractions are immense in college for a 18 year old, and the overal talent levels around you are poor. It is basically (outside maybe a handful of programs) not a place great players will emerge. Those players are forged in a profesional training environment with experianced players and coaches from a very young age to be ready. Screw the NCAA, i would love to see MLS go to a straigt academy only system, with a 1-2 round supplemental NCAA draft every year just to snag the very few really standout college players that slipped through the cracks or players from non MLS affiliated academies like Braderton, etc.
I agree that MLS must revise it's policies towards college players, but to move away from them and into academies...or atleast pressure them into going pro earlier. Mahoney should be shot.
College soccer does two positive things. First, it's the "carrot" that indirectly funds our youth training. Look, there's not that much money to be made from developing players in the US, so it's inevitable that it's going to be parent funded. That's where college soccer comes in. Second, it provides the wide net that our weak professional structure doesn't. I think that college soccer could do alot more in this respect if a) they went to normal substitution rules, b) lengthened the season...play September through November, take a break for winter and exams, then play from February through, say, mid-March. and c) created a division within Division I, sort of like I-A and I-AA in football about 25 years ago. That would concentrate the good players together. Add in the best of THOSE guys playing PDL, and it's not that bad of a system. Probably the best the US could come up with until pro teams have sufficient financial incentives to spend alot on youth development. I don't usually watch college soccer, but I'm a UNC fan, so I watched their matches. Here's what struck me. I thought that the technique was better than I expected. Each team had 3-4 donkeys, but I expected each team to have 6-7 of them. And the non-donkeys were better than I expected. But man oh man, the soccer brains. Awful. 90% of the game was played at 100% full speed. Absolutely no change of pace for long, long stretches, nobody tried to hold the ball in midfield and wait for runners.
For me, this is the one HUGE flaw in the way MLS conducts its business: the lack of an academy system so they can develop their own players. I understand in starting up the league it was too much of a quagmire to jump right into, but I don't understand how 12 years later the academy system, such as it is, is still so flawed, both in concept, design and implementation. I'm not the expert but it seems they're cutting off their own nose despite their face. To rely on the college system to do it just ain't cuttin' it, and to rely on acquiring talent from elsewhere is just as expensive if not more. I realize the youth system of America is a giant albatross around everybody's necks but one would think they would try to slice through all the bureaucratic tangle and make something out of it.
Fortunately we won't have to worry about this much because most of the college players won't be on MLS rosters this year. Even more so than in years past.
Maurice Edu just got transferred to a big club, and for big money. Wikipedia says he played 3 years of college ball. According to the same, Sacha Klejstan played 3 years in college. Ibisevic spent a year at SLU. And just for fun...I wonder if Eddie Johnson would have had a BETTER career if he had gone to college for a year or two. Might have helped his mentality. Same with Freddy. Anyway, college soccer is inferior, yeah. But the evidence tells us that it's not nearly as bad as you're saying. That's dumb. Far, far, far too many kids don't live within an hour's drive of an MLS team.
...and that' s why I say "it is what it is" with regards to the collge game SD. The system is set up to reward this type of play. The multiple subs, run, run, run, press. Add that coaches have limited time to work with the players and the winning formula for college "is what it is". Got it. Don't expect it to change. Just don't spin me BS. That's all. There are exceptions of course, but I agree with Onionsack in one regard. I have seen more "skilled" youth players ruined by college soccer than helped. Their skill can not be cultivated because of lack of skill around them, lack of coaching/playing time, lack of tactics because of the system, which leads to that player flat lining for the most part. For me college is where the majority of players come to die for the most part. Sure, they can maybe be MLS filler pros, but they are pretty much damaged and done. It isn't that some succeed, or some mature/grow...these are exceptions. The rule is cluelessness. Note - College would not have helped EJ one bit. Whoever said that. Nothing about college was gonna make EJ change. Maybe mature a bit, but his soccer brain is mush. College would have done zero for that. Hell, his attributes would have been coveted. Run fast son. Run fast.
It is time to let teams sign their players without these absurd restrictions and penalties. It's step one in the battle. For teams who have not stepped up enough - SCREW THEM. I pray this changes. Step one. Without it we will have more stupid college threads spawned by dumb articles unfortunately.
Here in KC we have the A. Wizards B. UnivMoKC Div I. made the tournament C. Rockhurst Div II. ranked either 1 or 2. D. PDL team. E. Wizards Juniors Academy. It would be idle to see the wizards purchase the pdl team run it as a way to feild it from the two college teams with players that came through the youth academy. That way the players stay around town, can come in and practice when not in college season, play on their PDL team, and still go to school. Maybe their can even be some scholarship program set up to those schools. Keep the players who don't go pro early within the clubs influence and eye. The academy shouldn't end when they go off to college. They should have promoters trying to get their players on the best college teams or USL team, it might take a couple years for them to develop to a contributing player
I think college soccer develops good defenders, better than the non-college US defenders I've seen in MLS or elsewhere in the US system. Maybe it is the time to figure it all out, gain the necessary discipline, who knows. I do not think it helps midfielders at all. I have no opinions on strikers, the US only seems to create one of those about every 15 years or so I agree that the NCAA soccer rules/structure need drastic overhauling. Not enough games, too many tournaments, weird substitution rules (that I'm sure are well intentioned and were useful 30 years ago), etc. There should be no more restrictions on college soccer player workouts/training than there are on college football players. I do not have enough of a grasp of the academy system to decide if it will ever be worthwhile as a replacement of the Draft.
MLS started slowly with the academies, but it is understandable given they were in survival mode. They have been following the slow but steady path that has given them success: announce limited signings, then forcing all teams to have a program. Now is the time to start increasing the number of signings a team can make. As long as MLS follows this route they will be successful. Of course, will the US soccer public, the ones who watch Fox Football Friday and South American leagues, want to pay good money for a locally developed product? One who is not on the cover of 4-1-1? That is the question.
Yeah, that's what I was getting at, his focus, his attention to detail. A few years back, I used to like to drive the college haters into apoplexy by pondering whether Maradona would have had a more productive career if he had spent a year in college banging sorority girls and playing soccer. I was only half-joking. The lifestyle of soccer superstars outside the US is just insane. Too much, too young. I'm pretty sure the current rule is that a team can sign 2 players a year from their academy, but there's some kind of limited free agency for the 2nd. Very vaguely like baseball's Rule 5. I don't really see the problem. In theory, yeah, there's a problem. But in reality, we all know that the 3rd best prospect in a given year ain't gonna be all that. This is an important point. We all talk about "soccer players," but really, if you get right down to it, the problem in college soccer is attacking players. Wings, forwards, and #10s. It isn't defenders, and it sure as hell isn't keepers. In my opinion, that doesn't really change how we should look at solutions, but it does change how we define the problem. (Does that makes sense?)
This is my evaluation as well. I think college soccer could be a useful tool for some players. It'd certainly help if the rules were improved. There is one thing in the article which is indisputably true: GA status dramatically warps how the draft actually works. Allowing each team to give roster protection to the first player selected by them in the first round would mean that the first round selections might reflect the actual player values. Now, there's a huge incentive to select a GA player over a more capable player - an excellent example was from Ohio State, where the third-best player from the team had a GA contract and was (IIRC) a first round pick, while the other two guys - 4 year players - aren't even in MLS anymore (one undrafted, the other due to contract issues). One of those 4 year players very definitely had the "soccer brain" we keep talking about in this thread, but wasn't as athletic as other players.
Exceptions to the rule no doubt. Not many non-GA players ever amount to crap in MLS these days. Really, well when we compare it to the league youth develoment systems of our competitors abroad it sure looks like a unpolishable turd IMO. So let those unfortunate souls be one of the few that makes it through the NCAA to MLS. Let MLS worry about MLS and their own clubs.
Maturity is a great thing. I think Sandon brought up Quaranta in our youth thread discussion. I think he is a much better example. Two years in college really might have helped him. I just think EJ was a lost cause and the fact that he skated throught our system the way he did and now got paid in Europe (!) is nothing short of astounding to me. I posted this a few years ago. I knew someone at Reading and posted it. When EJ went there it was basically Coppell saying - Why do I need a striker who can't dribble or shoot, who can't make decisions? That is EJ. That has alway been EJ. He hit it spot on. Amazing the kid got as far as he did. As I posted also, his Golden Boot UAE was as misleading as it comes. All PK's sans one. He didn't draw them and he missed a clear sitter per match and a few good chances on top of that. He is a bad example. Still, an incredible story that he got that far with so little. Santino may have benefitted. Rules - Thought it was one and then anyone could raid you with minimal comp. Still, should be no rules, and in NY's case we have a few bright prospects who are risky to sign with the cap/limited roster spots. There should be some sort of exemption for these kids IMO, so the risk is worth taking on the top youth player each year. Hell. Do something to make it easier and give people a chance to ease these kids in! We had the college defender discussion also and the various reasons why they had better chances to succeed. Still, do we produce backs with skill and brains that overlap and make crisp passes/crosses? Not really. We produce man markers, guys who can react to fast play, are disciplined, good in the air who are liminted technically and tactically. The good news? This can allow you to succeed to a decent level in the pro game.
EDIT: Yeah, Santino would be a better example. Also, I *think* Edson Buddle went to community college. As for the "second player" from academies, I *think* that it's a situation where a team can't just sit on a player, or else they risk losing him for minimal compensation. You've gotta use him. I would argue that the problem is mostly a lack of reward in the US for developing players, rather than our system per se. IOW, our development system is created by the incentive system. Here's a point I've made before. Is there ANY nation in the world, ANY, which has a less favorable (for soccer development) ratio of pay for the average working guy vs. pay for the average pro player? I suspect that every single league in the world that pays worse than MLS for your workaday starter (I'd say that's approximately $75K) has a FAR worse standard of living. The math just doesn't work in the US. THAT'S the core problem. We can smooth out the jagged edges, but there are limits, very significant limits. And the reason I think it's important to make that point is because I believe it's going in the wrong direction to argue for blowing up college soccer. That just won't work here for the foreseeable future. Instead, I believe that the proper course for the Fed is to do all we can to a) improve college soccer while b) augmenting alternatives like Bradenton and the new club initiative and MLS academies. BTW, so far this is a great discussion...strongly opposing viewpoints, but respectfully argued.
This is where I always crush college heads into quiet/submission. We have a huge issue in this country at all levels. It seems that we judge most of our players AGAINST OUR PLAYERS!!! When judged against kids, young adults around the world we come up painfully short. If we are improving, and I have not seen it at college level over the last decade, should it be measured against our best players? I'm not saying we should compare ourselves to Brazil. Just against the average foreign kid playing at a good level. Their understanding of the game dwarfs ours...dwarfs it. Fine, we have roadblocks, restrictions and limitations here...some cultural, political (the worst kind), structurally and knowledge wise. Fine. Just don't sell me coal and tell me it's diamond. There may be many dumb enough out there that still buy it or are in the system so they gotta say the right things. It's still a joke. Note - The corporate cynic in me wonders if these stories are union plants/favors. The ESPN piece - Look how many pros are in MLS that come from college! They need us. We can do it. Rah!Rah! Ridge - Look at these poor college kids. They make nothing. BooHoo. Coincidence? Probably.......but then again? Still, they mostly make nothing because college has pretty clearly shown that most aren't worth very much. Until college players regularly start to prove different these people need shut up up or look stupid IMO.
Right. I brought up Santino in the other thread. That said, I've long been frustrated with the NCAA, and feel that the majority of pro-bound players should "go pro" earlier rather than later. I see NCAA soccer becoming like NCAA hockey and baseball, where a few late bloomers - occasionally even Hall of Fame players - make their way out of, but the vast majority of pro players are being developed in professional organizations. For every player (possibly Santino) that the chance to mature in a more structured environment that NCAA soccer might help (and no guarantees, some folks will always fail to live up to their potential), it definitely retards the professional growth of many more.
This is the way to go. The system will not be blown up and replaced by some great top rate program. That's a fairytale. We just need enough people with will and vision, who won't bend to selfishness and politics, to help shape/force that change to improve the current system. Mark me skeptical until I see it. I won't rant anymore. I've been in our system for to long to hope for a lot. Respectfull? Guess I'm not stressed out enough here right now. OK. Go to hell you panzy!
First, as a former reporter (albeit at a small newspaper in Central Texas), let me lay to rest the idea of this being some media favor for someone. The fact is a lot of people go through the youth select system with the main goal being going to college, not pro soccer. Frankly, I consider that people are looking at this angle and caring enough to complain to be progress. And just on basic numbers, such a small percentage of players who go to college really have the ability to play professionally. Same as in other sports. How many college basketball players make it in the NBA (or even anywhere else as a pro)? Baseball? The NFL? I think this is just a matter of enough people in the college ranks finally noticing the way MLS pays its players. Great point. Some of those who play college soccer, who love the game and want to make it their profession but can't as players - they go into coaching or administrative jobs - all necessary parts of the equation. You've got a better chance of getting the NCAA to go to a playoff system for their top gridiron "subdivision." There is something to what you say, but MLS and the USSF are just going to have to continue to work on their efforts to build a better avenue for players to develop into professional athletes. Where NCAA can help, great. But no one is going to seriously look at dropping 140 college Div. I programs.
How many of those players supplemented their training by being a part of the USSF national team programs? As opposed to the number of players who succeeded to the full national team without that involvement but rather went just through the NCAAs?