2017/2018 Academy News

This reminds me of the old joke about the two high ranking Russian officials during the Cold War.

Sergei: "Comrade, what if we opened the Iron Curtain for one week, just to see what happens?"
Vladimir: "Are you crazy? If we do that, you and I will be the only ones left in Russia!"
Sergei: "Speak for yourself..."

 

My son was in the initial academy class 10 years ago. Coincidentally, I ran into Mario Prata while refereeing at a recent DA showcase. I probably spoke to him a handful of times when my son played for him. I speak with him each time I see him at a soccer event. The guy is pure class and knows his stuff.

 

Good chance I probably hated your kid then. I played for Middleboro 03-07

 

Looking fwd to reading this.

 

Ironic too considering the Revs are big on analytics. You'd think they'd apply that thinking to the academy. I know a guy who worked for a premier league academy as a predictive modeller just to predict which kids would make it to the first team, with some success. The revs should emulate that approach and begin predicting starting in the youngest level so they can make sure to sign the kids with the highest ceiling.

 

Wonder if Charlie Davies would be interested in becoming an Academy coach.

 

The Revs do like guys with no coaching experience so he has that going for him

 

Well, in fairness, an academy/youth team job often is the first step for a recently retired player who wants to get into coaching. Let him cut his teeth there for a while before they appoint him the head coach.

And I remember in the Heaps era, there was talk of them using analytics to "work smarter." I wonder how that worked out? And that's the crux of the matter. If they want to be a "Moneyball" team, they have to use those kinds of things, and not quarter-ass it like they have been.

 

Exactly. They're trying to be Patriots light but are failing in just about every single way, including analytics. Instead of just on-field analytics they need to venture into predictive analytics (I worked in the analytics tech space for awhile so I'm very bought-in on the benefits).

 

What? I thought “moneyball” just meant “cheap-ass”! After all, you can’t make a ball with your money if you’re spending it....

 

Well, if you only use $1 bills, you can make a much bigger ball than you can if you were in Canada or Europe, where the smallest paper note is a fiver.

 

Undoubtedly why the Canadians prefer Looniepuck. It fits better with what they’ve got at hand.

 

Is this going to be another "Michael Jordan was cut from his high school JV team" stories?

 

So, at what point does someone with the Revs' front office realize that the Academy isn't really getting the job done?

 

In order for someone with the Rev's front office to realize that the Academy isn't really getting the job done, I believe it's first going to require someone with the Rev's front office to realize that the Rev's front office isn't really getting the job done.

 

I don't think so. Friedel is now the man in charge and he's got a background in USSF and PL youth teams. He is almost certainly very aware of the state of the Revs Academy - and just as surely has ideas about how to improve it.

When he was hired, the org. said that he'd be having influence over the academy.

 

Wail, didja hear what Bilello said about the academy a little while ago?

 

What's your definition of getting the job done? I don't really give a rat's ass about whether those teams have decent W-L records. As an academy team, there will always be times when the team is weak, but has 1-2 players who are worth developing.

I'm interested in # of players we sign, and most importantly the number of MLS minutes these players see with our first team. There are other leading indicators such as getting minutes with a YNT team or a competitive NCAA D1 program.

We have 4 signings in (?) 9 years of our academy. Diego rates an A, Caldwell a solid B, Herivaux a C-and Anking an incomplete. Did I miss any? There's certainly room for improvement.

 

Agreed with every word of this.

That said, they've signed four Academy players in their history. Fagundez and Caldwell were obviously successful.

Herivaux has played about 45 minutes in two and a half years. Angking has yet to step on the field in MLS.

Caldwell left the Academy on a full-time basis in 2009 to go to Akron. Diego signed in 2010. We're now working on about eight years where the academy has produced nothing of note. It's just not good enough.

And I'm sorry, I'm not buying the idea that there are a bunch of future pros when I keep seeing stuff like this:

The #NERevs U-17 team finishes up 11 Generation adidas Cup matches (qualifiers, round robin, playoffs) with an 0-11 record.

Negative 37 goal differential overall. Worst run of all #MLS academies by far.

— Jonathan Sigal (@JonathanSigal) March 31, 2018

 

Sound like good steps towards building a more cooperative system with other clubs in the region.