I can't open twitter at work.........so I was going by what somebody else told me was in Chang's tweet. Sorry that I got your panties in such a twist. I let my excitement get the best of me.
Latest is Marvin Iraheta with Chivas USA. Iraheta was the DA U17/18 POY for the '09-'10 season. They also dropped former HG signing Bryan de la Fuente. They're also considering several others for HGs: Five Chivas USA Academy players are training with the first team, and they are options for Home Grown Player contracts. U.S. under-17 national team standout Esteban Rodriguez (Palmdale/Bell Gardens HS), a midfielder, is the most prominent. The others are midfielders Marco Delgado (Glendora/Glendora HS) and Eric Gonzalez (Corona/Santiago HS), goalkeeper Jake McGuire (Chino/Damien HS) and forward Ben Spencer. http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/soccer/post/_/id/13968/chivas-usa-goats-start-with-local-signing
I was curious if there was a list of Home Grown players out there? I was reading about Iraheta signing with Chivas, only to see at the bottom of the article that they waived their older HG player Bryan de la Fuente. How many "failures" have their been in the HG ranks?
HGs that have been released? Francisco Navas (Houston) Giorgi Chirgadze (New York) Cesar Zamora (Chivas USA) I think that's it. Note: Iraheta is actually one month older than Bryan de la Fuente. Edit: I guess Nizar Khalfan (Vancouver) was also released, but he's back with Philly and he's more of a "letter of the law" HG than a "spirit of the law".
Ben Spencer has been with Chivas for less than 6 months, so it would be interesting if they pulled that one off. I think RSL would have something to say about that. It will be interesting to see what happens the first time we have a battle between two squads for a player that transfers.
We should start a 2012 Home Grown Player thread, and start it off with a list of current homegrowns. As far as Iraheta goes...........it's another "Villarreal"-like case. I guess he qualifies thru Cosmos West, but how long was Iraheta training there while it was a ChivaUSA affiliate? That merger was announced last August. I wonder how many training sessions he's been at with Cosmos West or Chivas since that merger was announced. Not many. I mean, anybody who argues that ChivasUSA "developed" Marvin Iraheta is delusional. At best Iraheta has been training in the ChivasUSA system for 6 months. This "one year" of training rule we all think exists.......clearly doesn't. The more I see signings like this the less I understand why signings like Cascio are rejected. RSL definitely has a gripe there.
I'm sorry, but they shouldn't be able to sign Stevie Rodriguez. He trained at Cosmos West BEFORE they were a ChivasUSA affiliate. Then he went off to train at Bradenton............then came back to ChivasUSA. If Mario Rodriguez can't sign for the Galaxy (because he played for the U17s prior to being in their academy), Stevie Rodriguez shouldn't be able to sign for ChivasUSA. Unless that rule doesn't exist anymore, which is possible............after all Marvin Irahuta played for El Salvador's U17's.
I recall talk about that, but Chirgadze isn't currently on NY's roster and there hasn't been any announcement about a new contract.
He was with the RSL academy for at least one full year, which is the minimum requirement under the rules. He's only been with Chivas since Sept.
It happens. Eriq Zavaleta may be eligible for three teams. (RLS, Chivas, Columbus). Seeing as he was named to the All-Big Ten first team as a freshman for Indiana..........it'll be interesting to see what happens there.
To me its onerous in the sense that almost 60 clubs are 'developing' players that can't drive to MLS academies due to non existance of residency and onerous driving distances. That's alot of good players that have no way of getting a year in. We're leaving alot of talented youth behind due to rules.
These rules are such bullshit. I know MLS is striving to maintain a semblance of competitive balance and trying to create situations where the players manage to get teams bidding against each other for them, but all these rules, many of which are loosely or inconsistently enforced, often discourage good talent from getting onto MLS teams and into MLS environments. The league should be trying to do more to make it easier for players who want to go pro IN MLS to do so and instead it seems to be making it harder. It's ironic, given that the whole point of the league is to compete yet they don't want to let the teams compete against each other off the field to get the talent.
I started putting together a "Homegrown Player Rule" page on Wikipedia, similar to the "Designated Player Rule" page (which includes a list of DPs), but never got around to gathering all the information and finishing it. That's probably a better place to keep it than a BS thread. Anyone interested, feel free to scrape the work I've done so far from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Chapka
Your right about HGP rule. http://www.mlssoccer.com/2011-mls-roster-rules If Chivas USA waits they could sign him as HGP in the Summer after he completes one full year in June. Unless the player decides to sign with RSL. I don't see Chivas USA signing Marvin Iraheta as a HG player.
Except they already announced it. http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/soccer/tag/_/name/marvin-iraheta It should be noted that I haven't seen anywhere that he was signed as a "homegrown" per se. I don't know what other mechanism they could have used, though. A discovery signing of some sort?
I have a problem with the competitive balance issue. Clearly the big market clubs have a larger reservoir of talent in their backyards. If the league is going to "give" local players like Villarreal and Iraheta to the LA clubs, even though they technically don't qualify as homegrowns..............then those clubs have a clear advantage over clubs like Kansas City and Columbus. The rulebook isn't vague. Somebody posted the link for the 2011 roster rules above. (perhaps the rule has changed for 2012) Is there room for debate in this sentence? A club may sign a player to his first professional contract without subjecting him to the MLS SuperDraft if the player has trained for at least one year in the club’s youth development program and has met League criteria Seems like its not too much to ask a player to play with an academy for at least a year before one can consider him "homegrown." It's just a year people! One could debate what constitues a "club's youth development program" in that sentence........but the words AT LEAST ONE YEAR seem fairly easy to understand. Instead the LA clubs are grabbing kids developed elsewhere (since Pateadores and Cosmos West were predominantly not affiliates when Villarreal and Iraheta were there), bringing them to train with their academy teams for a few months, and then signing them as homegrowns. How does that work? Is the league just desperate to tap the latino/hispanic market in LA, and so is just letting anything go there? Behind closed doors the rest of the clubs in the league MUST be asking the league office what the hell is going on there.
Did Eriq have a full year at Chivas? I know he transferred mid-year, but I'm not sure if he was there for another year after that. I'm not certain that he had a full year at RSL either. I don't know about Columbus.
I need to finish my updates on my project: HomeGrownPlayers.com which I want to maintain as simply a database of homegrown achievements, stats, bios, etc. It's been a lot of work especially when MLS isn't exactly forthcoming with information especially the early homegrown players. Flores... homegrown? No. Chris Cortez... is another a good example. Originally was listed as a homegrown, but in actuality not a homegrown. All of these changes in policy make it even more difficult to understand how certain players qualify for HG status. At this point, I've stopped questioning how a player qualifies based on written rule because the league continues to make them up on their own. Like others, I would like a more free flowing process. If you want players entered into the league at an earlier age, fine let them enter but allocate them just like you would with the likes of Luis Gil, Danny Szetela, etc. I'm out of the country for the next week, but will update the site before the end of January. Still think DC and Toronto have done the best job collectively of adding MLS ready talent, but 2012 will be a big year as most teams will have HG's that are regular features in the gameday lineup.
I'm hearing Chivas USA had open tryouts last weekend for which about 40 or so players showed up, one of them was Iraheta.
I've also decided not to discuss whether a player qualifies or not.............until I see the 2012 HG signing rules. I'm not gonna worry about it. Iraheta may not be a HG signing after all. He may be a discovery signing of some sort. I just find it odd that a club can pick up a Salvadoran youth international and Development Academy player of the year off the street without going thru any draft process whatsoever. I guess its the same way Chicago could sign Gabe Ferrari off the street last year.
Looks to be a good start. This will be a great resource. I checked out the RSL homegrown's and you may already be aware of this, but they have two additional HG's not listed: Nico Muniz, signed last fall and Lalo Fernandez signed a week or so ago. Also Donny Toia played midfielder and forward in hs/college, but RSL has him slotted as a left back. Great work thus far!
Actually in the reserve games, he's looking pretty good. He took some time to adjust at first, but he's solid on the ball, positions himself well, and of course is great getting forward.