Completely agree with you here. The measure of an Academy's success should not be simply whether or not you signed a HG player but did that player develop and get sold to a top 5 league in the world? As US National team fans we need to have players in the top leagues in the world and not simply having MLS clubs signing their own HG players and the player going no where.
There are many kids that tear up the competition at 14 and then fade away as their peers catch up physically. But you are spot on. The signing of homegrowns is the move du jour right now for MLS and the clubs don't want the public perception that they aren't developing their kids.
Particularly at keeper...................I have no idea why a team would sign a 14 year old. None. I have no idea why a 14 year old keeper would sign a contract. none. And this notion that San Jose was nervous about the attention he was receiving from Europe is crazy. Unless he has a passport situation I don't know about, its a long time until it matters. And by the time he's 18, he could be a completely different player. He also might be out of contract by then anyway. Jesus. I learned my lesson when it comes to keepers with Richard Sanchez at FCD. Oh, we talked a lot about how big Euro clubs like Chelsea were interested. What did any of it matter? He never played for FCD and he never played in Europe. He's inferior to Jesse Gonzalez right now, who was an afterthought in the academy while Sanchez was there. [Oh..............before Richard Sanchez there was Josh Lambo. Oh, European clubs like Everton were supposedly interested in Lambo. So what?] You know what? Our academies are going to get to the point in which every single player in a starting XI has European clubs "interested." That's OK. That's a good thing.
For me there is an additional measure of success on top of getting players to top 5 leagues. It is one that often goes overlooked in the recent times. That is, what have you won with these players? Let's use FCD as an example. They get all the plaudits for their Academy, and rightly so. However, these young HG's have not won anything yet (including the older HG signings) and that should be part of the equation. The Class of '92 at United didn't gain fame for getting a high number of Academy graduates into the first team. They gained fame because they won every trophy imaginable, many times over.
I agree with you completely here. This is a little more difficult. We don't know the family's situation and if earning a good chunk of change on a HG deal helps the family out, I can't have too big of an issue with it.
If we are using FCD as an example I would say the plaudits for their academy are misplaced so far. They have not accomplished anything other than signing their own kids and giving a choice few (Pax, Cannon, Jesus, Jessie, Servania---more recently than under Paraja) some minutes. They sign kids like its going out of style but the standard is not that high yet. They haven't sold a single player they developed to a big five league ( Don't count Richards) and they haven't won anything due to Academy players. Every team in the league could march over to their DA and sign the first five kids on the roster and say we sign lots of HG. If they come in way down the table in MLS and don't sell any of those kids its hard to call that a successful academy. FCD gets credit for spending money on the academy rightly so, but no results so far.
Completely agree. But to be fair to FCD, they can't skip steps in the process. First, they have to have the kids in the Academy. Second, they need to sign them and give youth a chance in the first team. Lastly, they need to win something or move players along to bigger leagues. Most of FCD's signings have come in the last 3/4 years, so its not exactly surprising they aren't winning yet. Let's give them some time. We have to admire the fact they are at least playing a decent number of HG signings.
My guess is the Quakes were more worried about him being poached by a wealthy Liga MX team for development. I’m pretty sure he could get a contract in Mexico if he wanted and the Quakes had already seen that happen with Jonathan Gonzalez. Maybe it was too early but the hype train was rolling and the Quakes were dealing with a situation where the parents/player had options. Probably a consideration in the Casey Walls deal as well. He was born in London so he didn’t have to wait until 18 to go overseas and get a contract.
What you just said there about FCD is better than any other academy in US/Canada. I would say that since Weston McKennie was at FCD for 7 years prior to moving to Schalke, we can say that they "developed him." He moved to Schalke and was playing first team games there within a calendar year. He wasn't magically sprinkled with European fairy dust. He was developed by FC Dallas. So yes academies in the US like FCD have a long way to go until they match their European and South American counterparts. That shouldn't be a surprise. They have generations of a head start on us. More than half of the league has been founded since 2011 (and that percentage will skyrocket as 5 more clubs will join soon). The early starters like RSL, NYRB, LAG, FCD, etc. built academies from scratch about 10 years ago. Just like a Boca Juniors or Dinamo Zagreb or Anderlecht, not EVERY academy product is going to have big-time Euro club soccer potential. There's going to be a range of products developed from MLS journeyman to MLS starter to MLS all-star to mid-level Europe to high level Europe. All of them can help MLS clubs reach their goals of trophies and economic success. I saw a survey this weekend that indicated that based on points/wins/trophies, FCD has been the 5th most successful US-based club since 2010. And for most of that time they were at or near the bottom of the salary spending charts. They've been a playoff team 5 of the past 6 years. What drove that success? Well, its partly the players they're developing out of their academy that can play at an MLS level. A player like Victor Ulloa will never play in Europe. But he was a starter on an MLS Supporter's Shield winner in a midfield partnership with another homegrown product Kellyn Acosta. That's what success looks like too for an MLS academy.
Cincy just opened their new facility this week and today Austin announces their training facility. We are proud to announce the location of #AustinFC's official training facility @StDavidsHC Performance Center, "a world-class facility that will be integral to Austin FC realizing its full ambition as a soccer club.” @Aprecourt https://t.co/vHHD2kgzVs pic.twitter.com/1IUMOhkJbE— Austin FC (@AustinFC) November 13, 2019
I have high hopes for Austin. The population is exploding at an astonishing rate. It is in fact the same sized metropolitan area as Cincinnati. The ingredients are perfect for academy impact. Young, diverse, etc. It'll take a long time to catch up to Dallas. Consider that Houston is nowhere close. But I do have long term hopes for that market.
I watched a game of Shattuck's St. Mary's from earlier this season to see how Roou's game is developing. He didn't score, but he's such a good playmaking CF. He's very similar to a player like Firmino. He's not the biggest CF, but he adds so much to the game without goal-scoring that he doesn't even need to score that many goals to be a very effective CF.
Hated the way Austin came about with the Crew debacle, but Precourt is checking the right boxes so far in Austin. They also affiliated their academy with Lonestar SC.
LOL. @butters59, thanks for your input. I am curious as to who provides input into these rankings. I did see their explanation but it doesn't seem true. Also, it seems they struggle to accurately reflect an accurate ranking past #20. In my opinion, it would be more credible if they reduced it down to the top 20. Anything beyond that it seem they are guessing or selecting players who subscribe to their website. To be fair, it is tough to accurate rank the best 150 in the nation. I'd prefer they just realize that and base their ranking on what they can realistically manage.
I don’t get why they rank kids who are professional in a high school “class.” Schools cannot recruit them. Hell, by senior year most of their top 50 aren’t even in school, and won’t even get a GED.
Also, their weekly standouts basically is a who's who of scorers for the weekend games. Very little insight or recognition for other non-scoring positional players. Unfortunate. They have a great opportunity and audience to do publish informative content.
Eh, it's not like there's that big of audience for them like say with college football and basketball recruiting websites that have analysts all over the country. I don't really read TDS, but I don't hate on them for what they do with limited resources. J.R. is a good follow for youth news.
FCD U19s beat Atlanta 2-1 on Sunday. Interestingly, the CB combo in this game was Carrera..................and Tanner Tessman. There seemed to be a lot of players missing from what I'd consider the "best XI," so perhaps that was by necessity. Currently in first place in the Frontier Red division, but its early. Beni Redzic was FCD's best player in the first half.I'm glad to see that as he's been as little mentally checked out the last few times I've seen him.— 3rd Degree (@3rdDegreeNet) November 17, 2019 The FCD U17s seem to be picking up a little bit of steam after a rough start. They beat Atlanta 3-2. One of those goals was by defender Justin Che. Folks will remember that he was trialing at German clubs in the summer. Seems to be back with FCD for now. By the way, two players getting a lot of time with the FCD U17s are Santiago Ferreira (brother of Jesus) and Ty Reynolds (brother of Bryan).
Only a rumor but that's how this goes on forums, I spoke to an FCD parent this weekend that indicated we would seeing quite a few FCD DA kids going out on trials in the next few weeks overseas during the Christmas break. Not sure if FCD knows about all these. Thought was some would land at pro teams as they are starting to figure out FCD can't sign everyone and there are options overseas.
Very true. If resources are tight as you suggest, I'd rather see them publish less but more valuable content, than more content that is isn't very informative. I also agree that J.R. seems to be a good guy with the right intentions.
It really is a joke, outside of maybe 10 players per year. The very player being talked about above, Jonathon Gomez is the 89th ranked player in the Class of 2022. That class is predominately made up of 2004 kids and we are talking about him being one of the best players in all of the 2003 age group.