The lineups the four remaining A-League teams used in their 4th round wins: Rochester - Theo Zagar, Bill Sedgewick, Craig Demmin, David Wright, Carlos Mendes, Corey Woolfolk (Doug Miller 57'), Kirk Wilson, Lenin Steenkamp (Roland Aguilera 91'), Ryan Trout (Noah Delgado 46'), Shaun Tsakiris (Ian Pilarski 46'), Chris Carrieri Richmond - Ronnie Pascale; Matt O'Toole, Tim Brown, Kevin Knight, Peter Luzak, Tony Williams; Richie Williams, Clyde Simms (Matt Delicate 72), McColm Cephas (Mike Burke 83), Joey Worthington; Kevin Jeffrey (Paul Lekics 61) Charleston - Dusty Hudock, Nigel Henry, Mark Watson (Kelvin Jones 74'), Rick Titus, Henrik Jensen, Steve Klein, Justin Evans, Gabe Valencia (Jason Kutney 82'), Ted Chronopoulus (Chris Goos 24')(Greg Simmonds 89'), Paul Conway, Jesus Martinez-Morales Minnesota - Joe Warren, Dustin Branan, Brent Jaquette, Chris Brunt, Freddy Juarez, Godfrey Tenoff, Jeff Matteo, Jay Alberts (Amos Magee 89'), Kevin Friedland, Johnny Menyongar (Marco Ferruzzi 76'), Melvin Tarley (David Castellanos 82')
Out of Minnesota's starting lineup (don't know enough about the other teams), I would say that Warren, Branan, Brunt, Alberts, Friedland, Menyongar and Tarley could all potentially survive on an MLS roster. None of them would start regularly, but as players towards the end of the bench who see time when other folks are hurt/suspended/whatever, they'd be fine. The most viable out of the bunch would probably be Branan and Brunt, who I think could both be solid defensive backups and even get an occasional start when someone else is out. Oh yeah, and I for one would love to see Richie Williams back in MLS.
MLS Regular Season experience. Yuck. Rochester Theo Zagar, Bill Sedgewick, Craig Demmin, - 19 games for Tampa in 2001. Didn't he break Josh Wolff's foot? David Wright, Carlos Mendes, Corey Woolfolk (Doug Miller 57'), Kirk Wilson, - 6 games for Dallas in 1999, 2000. Lenin Steenkamp (Roland Aguilera 91'), - 19 games for Crew and Revs in 2000, 2001. Ryan Trout (Noah Delgado 46'), Shaun Tsakiris (Ian Pilarski 46'), Chris Carrieri - 74 games for Rapids and Quakes from 2001-2003. Richmond Ronnie Pascale; Matt O'Toole, Tim Brown, Kevin Knight, - 11 games for the god awful 1999 MetroStars Peter Luzak, Tony Williams; Richie Williams, - 216 games from 1996-2003 Clyde Simms (Matt Delicate 72), McColm Cephas (Mike Burke 83), - 9 games for DC and Dallas in 2000. Joey Worthington; Kevin Jeffrey (Paul Lekics 61) Charleston Dusty Hudock, - 9 games for Rapids in 1996, 3 for Fusion in 1999. Started first ever Rapids game - 3-0 loss at KC! Nigel Henry, Mark Watson - 18 games for Crew/Revs in 1996. 11 games for DC in 2001. (Kelvin Jones 74'), Rick Titus, - 25 games for Colorado in 2002. Henrik Jensen, Steve Klein, - 4 games (73 mins) for 1997 Revs. Justin Evans, - 30 games for Quakes/Fire/Burn in 2000-2001. Gabe Valencia (Jason Kutney 82'), Ted Chronopoulus - 162 games for the Revs/Metros 1996-2002. (Chris Goos 24') (Greg Simmonds 89'), - 9 games for Miami in 2001. Paul Conway, Jesus Martinez-Morales Minnesota Joe Warren, Dustin Branan, Brent Jaquette, Chris Brunt, - 9 games for Kansas City 2002-2003. Freddy Juarez, Godfrey Tenoff, Jeff Matteo, - 7 games for Crew in 2002 and 2003. Jay Alberts (Amos Magee 89'), - 13 games for Mutiny and Fire from 2000-2002. Kevin Friedland, - on Wizards roster in 2003. Did not play. Johnny Menyongar (Marco Ferruzzi 76'), - 19 games for Tampa in 1997. Melvin Tarley (David Castellanos 82')
I thought Wolff broke his foot taking a free kick in Tampa. But I could be wrong. So 19 of those 58 guys have been in MLS, near as we can figure.
I don't. I would have to be more knowledgeable to make a coherent plan. But as I don't have this knowledge, I will attempt to throw out an idea for the USL and MLS and if there are problems, we can see how it goes: Open Cup releases schedule in late January and the amateurs cannot finish until Memorial Day (I'll assume weather is the factor here) MLS and USL release approximately the same time, maybe mid-February(?) MLS plays 30 games in 29 weeks. (~1 game week) A-League plays 28 games in about 20 weeks. (~1.4 games per week) PSL plays 20 games in about 15 weeks (1.33 games per week) PDL plays 18 games in 12 weeks. (1.5 games a week) There are seven rounds from the time the USL comes in to the finals. It seems that USSF assumes that only MLS teams will be in the tourney as the quarters occur after the PDL ends their season and the semis and finals occur after the A-League ends. Break up each of the first five rounds from the PDL phase into a three week period from 6/1 . The second week in each phase would contain the Open Cup game. This would allow the USL to schedule around the USOC games and not overload the teams with three games in four days situations. The game would be mid-week, so there would be three weeks of marketing for the upcoming game. The semis and finals can be scheduled after the quarters, based on the teams remaining games and venue accomodations. If a PDL team does make it, geez, they're SOL, since there is a roster lock, no?
No, he said that there are 264 players who could or *used* to play in MLS. Lots of those 264 are in the latter category. The Dante Washingtons and Amani-Doves of the world. And maybe 2/3 is a bit high - but if you look at it not from now, but from the perspective of next season (or moreso, two seasons from now after two rounds of expansion), then yeah - a lot of those players are going to be moving on up.
Well, there's not a good "control" to check that. A lot of A-League players are going to get games in MLS over the next few years because 50-100+ jobs are about to open up. The fact is, I was expecting to see more MLS experience than I did when I went through the rosters to create the list.
Which would make them....MLS-quality. At one time or another. And to varying degrees. As Andy pointed out, not a lot of those A-League guys had a lot of MLS experience. It's almost as if they had a chance and didn't make the most of it or weren't good enough. Bottom line: I know there are good players in the A-League. I'm skeptical that 2/3rds of the league is Division I quality (even American Division I). But I don't know how you'd figure who could play in MLS other than to see who does play in MLS when more jobs open up. I suppose, though, if there were 16 MLS teams, many of those 264 guys could find gigs in MLS. That doesn't necessarily make them MLS quality right now.
And there's not really a good year to go back and look at USOC rosters to do a comparison. In the early years MLS rosters were in huge flux as teams figured out which players were for real, or were willing to work cheap. Then a bunch of A-Leaguers got a look in the 98-99 expansion era. Then a bunch of MLS players got shoved into the A-League, and a lot of A-Leaguers got shoved into retirement in 2002 as MLS contracted by 2 teams and the A-League lost five! Now we're looking at MLS expanding by 2 teams next year and 2 teams a year or two after that. Fact is, I'm just not impressed by these rosters. Looking at the MLS experience, you see a bunch of cup of coffee players. Some failed developmental players. A few old-timers who got a run back in 96-97. And then Richie Williams and Teddy Chronopoulos. I'm sure you could fashion a surviveable MLS roster out of the best 24 players from these teams, but it'd sure be ugly.
My point is not a 24-player full MLS squad (although I'm not sure it would be as ugly as we think - my Burn was pretty ugly last year with MLS players). My point is that if MLS adds 12 reserve squads, let's say 12 players each, where are they going to get those 144 players? Not just draft picks. It could decimate the quality of the A-League, drive off fans, and leave the league to the Canadians and Puerto Ricans. What do we care about A-League? Growing the soccer fan base throughout the country. I'd hate to see another 5 A-League teams go under in the U.S. I think a healthy second division prepares players better than reserve squads, more meaningful games and more fans. I would prefer that each MLS team pair up with an A-League squad and shuttle players back and forth, like MLB/AAA baseball. Sure costs less than dragging a whole second team around to play a grunge match with no fans the day after a real match. I suppose when the last MLS/A-League deal went dead, that was it for that. MLS will develop their own system if the A-League won't play ball, and the A-League may have cut their own throats.
I don't think that plan has ever been floated. The current reserve rumors involve adding 4. That's right - 4. players to each team.
There's a market for A-League soccer. And I am not 100% convinced that their biggest problem is quality of play, or that a great many of the people who go to games are that concerned about it (same as in MLS). They're actually stabilizing now, it seems (Edmonton notwithstanding). 30 teams back in the day was way too much, but I don't see them dropping to 8 anytime soon. I think there will be between 12-16 A-League teams for a little while, at least. Others (like ChrisE and numerista, I think) have looked into the "what happens in expansion?" situation, to see where the "new" players come from and where the displaced players go. We've looked at where the ages of folks in the A-League and where and when they move up (and down from MLS). I don't have that info handy, though. But my theory is that there's a certain level of soccer ability that is acceptable to allow you to play in the A-League, and that there are actually a good number of guys above that line. Just a theory, but I think that once you get past the upper echelon of A-League players, they're just kind of interchangeable, not only with each other, but with the guys on the outside coming in out of college. If you can start and play well in Division I college soccer, you should be able to find a spot in the A-League. And we're cranking out a bunch of those guys every year. The A-League may lose some of its better players (not all), but the way MLS is going, they're going to get guys directly out of college, or younger, more and more in the coming years.
Another thing the A-League does though is make more room for foreign players that want to play in the United States but MLS teams do not deem them worthy of a SI slot. Take Pat Onstad for example. Because he was able to play in Rochester for a number of seasons and attain a green card he suddenly becomes much more attractive to MLS GM's. Even DeRo who doesn't have a green card, had to take up an A-League foreigner slot for a number of years before MLS would take a risk on him. McColm Cephas and Kevin Jeffrey are in this same boat and results consistant with what they've had and/or green cards would put those two in MLS. Montreal also has several players that could make an MLS roster except that they don't have green cards (i.e. Gabe Gervais, Nevio Pizzolitto, Yuri Lavrinenko(who lost a roster sport b/c he didn't have a green card), Eddie Sebrango, and Greg Sutton(played with Chicago already)). The other thing AndyMead left out was players like Ian Pilarski who was drafted by Chicago but is on loan to Rochester for the season. There's no doubt in my mind after seeing Chicago's developmental squad that'd he have made it, but his game time would have been limited. Two players who didn't play against the Revolution but most definitely could make an MLS roster are John Wilson and Yari Allnut(already played with the Revolution). I think it'll be very interesting to see which players MLS expansion absolves from the A-League. And ideally I'd like to see an MLS/USL player agreement again rather than overly expanded MLS rosters.
Really? What team would John Wilson play for? Seriously? He was drafted by Kansas City in 1999. Then he was drafted by Kansas City in 2000. He spent the entire season on the bench. I guess he could be a Bo Oshoniyi type of player - so yeah, he could be in MLS. We're not talking about 30x90 players. Not many of them anyway. As for Allnut, he played 45 minutes for KC in 1996, but was ruled ineligible for some reason after that game. Plus he's 34 years old. A lot of the "could play in MLS" guys in the A-League are just the oldtimers. The ones of note are the ones you mentioned like Pilarski. KC has loaned one or two DEV players to Minnesota for the remainder of the season. These are the players that I'm more interested in. Not the MLS washouts like Chris Brunt or John Wilson or Michael Green. -- But Kenn is right. The A-League's survival isn't predicated on talent level. There is a market for sporting entertainment. Minor league teams of all sports survive on team identity and often one or two players "Rob Ukrop" who become the public face of the team while every other position changes every couple of years. MLS expansion may cause a brief dip in the quality of the A-League, but it'll likely return to where it is now in a couple of years. The US is cranking out college seniors at an incredible rate, and - despite our criticisms about stunted development - many of them can play the game pretty darn well. And drew is right, too. The A-League is a great place for CONCACAF players who don't have a domestic league that measures up, but haven't been able to secure an SI slot in MLS.
Rumors? On BigSoccer? Say it ain't so... Four just siphons off the best A-League players, doesn't necessarily kill the teams. That might be easier for them to swallow.
I'm not even sure those extra four guys come from the A-League. If an MLS team has a chance to add Mac Cozier or a 17-year-old, they're going to go for the 17-year-old. At least for their reserve squad.
Re: Mac Cozier v. 17 year old. For the most part I agree. The seventeen year old will come for less and possibly offer more on the field. However, a player like Cozier who has been around the block could offer a player/coaching role for a reserve side and that may come at a cheaper price then hiring another asst. coach. I don't think it would be a terrible idea to have a veteran or two in the reserve teams, if and when they happen. Here's a question: We have been focusing primarily on players. Where is the all the additional coaching coming from? Will the both squads practice together or will it be similiar to an English reserve side with a separate support system from the main team?
I thought I brought that up in the reserve thread. I think you'll see an additional coach for each MLS team whose primary duty is gameday coaching of the reserve squad. Plus there'll likely be one or two part-time staffers/equipment/pr/trainer types needed. I don't think team's will need to add two or three coaches. With the first generation of MLS players retiring, I don't think that finding professional coaches - especially for reserve squads - is going to be a problem.
You're missing Allnut's 2 seasons with the Revs (well 1.5). Perhaps John Wilson has developed into a better player since 1999 or 2000! He's still 26 and has another 3-5 years in his prime as a defender. I quoted the last part of your post just because I liked the way it sounded. Another player I forgot, but is a fantastic example is John Wolyniec. The guy sucked in Rochester, did above average for other A-League teams and now he's a sometime MLS starter and has a national team callup. There are plenty of forwards and other players in the A-League who are better players than him. His is a matter of right place at the right time with the right coach willing to give him a chance. Hitting the goal of the year didn't hurt either.