I think all HG's (or the vast majority) are 3 year deals with 2 club option years after. They are generally very restrictive for the players.
I really hope that these 5 year contracts go away due to player's increasing market leverage. I'd like our elite players without European passports to have the flexibility to push for a transfer very close to turning 18, while allowing MLS to get compensated for their early training. The only thing more I'd like as much is if (1) MLS ended territories and (2) the USSF pushed to allow waivers of the rule prohibiting 16 years to transfer between G7 countries.
Those deals are terrible for young players, and faced with an extra option year, even the strongest among us might have turned to social media and partied the night away. The guy I feel for most here is USSoccer97531, who poured everything he had into defending Carleton, doubling down and doubling down again, time after time. Carleton has to live with the consequences for his own actions - life can be cruel - but there's no doubt in my mind that (1) Carleton was poorly advised, when he signed that contract; (2) Carleton was poorly supervised - he was still a minor when he signed in 2016, and didn't turn 18 until June 2018, by which time much of the damage to his reputation had likely been done; and (3) Carleton has been poorly treated by Atlanta, even if Atlanta can claim that Carleton in their view has been appropriately treated.
I'm hoping some of this is resolved in the new CBA. That said, our kids have to be willing to not sign, if they don't get the terms they like. I am interested to see how the Jonathon Gomez situation plays out in Dallas. There could be more kids that follow his lead if it proves to be a smart move. For the life of me, I can't figure out why these HG's don't have a release clause in their deals. There has to be something I am missing. I'm with you - the biggest step we can take from a development standpoint at the moment is getting rid of these stupid HG territories. If we can't have an open system as a league structure, at least we can have the Academies compete and let the cream really rise to the top.
part of that competition would likely be shorter terms and an understanding that they need to let talent move up the ladder (while retaining sell-on clauses hopefully). This would be anathema to MLS owners but I think they were taken off guard by the level of interest in players moving directly to leading programs and the success that our youth players have had there.
Also, if you look at the historical transfer prices paid by European clubs for International players, you will see that they dramatically decrease with age. Gone are the days (or just not as often) of bringing in 23 year olds and older on huge fees. MLS clubs need to realize that they will get more for their players at 18, 19, 20, even if they have not fully proven themselves. Part of the big money transfer fees are hype and the league needs to do a better job promoting these kids in order to get higher fees.
Andrew Carleton's problems have nothing to do with his contract. I would argue, though, that Carleton signed his contract before Atlanta United even existed. He was venturing into the complete unknown. He had no clue what their first team philosophy was going to be. I believe he signed before they had announced a first team coach. So that was a complete unknown. He had no idea what their development programs for young players were going to be. If a young player is at the LAG or Phi or SKC or RSL academy, they have a good idea of what the roadmap is going to be for them. They know what they're signing up for. If they choose to go overseas instead, so be it. But let's also understand that going overseas is fraught with a whole lot of other challenges. There's a high propensity to be treated like Shaft Brewer or Zyen Jones or Isaiah Young or countless others were treated. We focus on the success stories on these boards. The Weston McKennie and Cristian Pulisic stories. Most kids don't experience that at all. Most kids experience whatever the hell has been going on with Luca de la Torre for the past 4 years. Would you rather be Luca de la Torre or Paxton Pomykal today? One is playing first team games, getting paid $600k, and is currently at USMNT camp. Call me in a couple of years as we compare where Thomas Roberts and Blaine Ferri are. Something can be said for staying at a club that actually gives a damn about you as a human being. In every league around the world there are hundreds of kids that were considered good prospects..................who just didn't make it. You can look at Brazilian U17 WC winning teams and see a bunch of kids who just disappeared. We talk about kids like Carleton endlessly because our pool of good prospects isn't that deep. But in reality, Andrew Carleton is not unusual. Prospects fail everywhere.
the conversation bpets15 and I were having wasn't really about Carelton but about 5 year control for MLS teams - that's way more than FIFA allows and I believe MLS is one of the only leagues that allows that for youth players. Separately, if we're going to compare apples to apples, don't compare the best of MLS to the worst of those who push themselves abroad. Compare success to success and failure to failure How does Adams/Davies/Pomykal/Yedlin/Alvarez compare to Pulisic/McKennie/Reyna/Ledesma/LLanez/Richards? Likewise compare Lletget/Hyndman/Ferri/Zizzo/de la Torre to Carelton and other unsuccessful MLS stories. My assumption is that going to the best academies is high risk/reward - not for everyone but we need to have a good amount of elite prospects in that high volatility queue in addition to having the depth in MLS DAs.
I will reluctantly chime in on this subject. Things I believe: Andrew Carleton has talent. Andrew Carleton is immature. Andrew Carleton made some dumb mistakes. American fans invest a lot in potential prodigies. American fans - in any sport - don't respond well to uber-talented kids who appear to squander their opportunities. This is mostly because we all did stupid shit as kids that likely undercut our potential (not just in sports) and deep down don't want to see it happen to others. We don't always process this emotion well. None of us want Andrew Carleton to fail. All of us want him to maximize his potential. I also think a rich white kid trying to be gangsta while seemingly squandering oodles of talent and opportunities most of us would kill for makes it very easy to mock said kid and even treat him with disdain. That's human nature. Often, playing in your hometown is a good thing. But for some kids, it's the worst thing. I believe that to be the case here. I think getting out of ATL will be good for Carleton. I think getting a clean slate at a new club will be good for him, too. I think that if he puts his nose to the grindstone and just plays hard that he still has the ability to turn into a very good pro. I mean, I am all sorts of excited about Daryl Dike and Carleton and Dike are the same damn age, both born in June of 2000. Carleton is younger than any player taken in the draft this year. So it's way too early to give up on him. But, he has to show growth, as a player and as a person. I am pulling for him. I hope he tears it up in USL, embraces Indianapolis and uses this season as a springboard for a great career. But to do this, he needs to admit his role in the mistakes that have short-circuited his career to date, address them and work to avoid repeating them. He does that, and I think we're gonna be all good. Best of luck to the kid.
The 3 (1) (1) deals are standard for younger prospects, but certainly HGP players can and do sign a wide range of contracts with clubs. Atlanta wouldn't pick up a ~$100,000 option year in December only loan him out a January for the remainder of the contract to a team that isn't going to pay the entire salary. So it can be deduced that Atlanta has another option year in 2021.
No, I mean NOW. If he is US' best talent ever, Europe clubs would try their best to BUY him and there would be tons of rumors on the media. How expensive is him under the contract? You think he wasted most of his potential these two years?
What I see there is a whole bunch of kids that were highly successful with a whole bunch of different pathways. To be honest, the vast majority of the pool can't be compared to Pulisic, McKennie, Reyna, or the absolute top of the top of the top of the prospect chart. You can't compare Pomykal to Pulisic. Or at least I don't. Anyway, I would argue that Andrew Carleton just hasn't developed yet. It happens if kids go to Europe or to Mexico too. That was kind of my point. And yes sometimes kids go to clubs in Europe or Mexico that just don't seem committed to their long term development. Just like Atlanta here with Carleton. It sucks, but really isn't that unusual. The failure rate of academy player in England is over 90%. We have an American fail there and its a big deal. I don't know..........Kyle Gruno. He's just one of thousands of kids that failed that age group. Andrew Carleton is 19. Not 35. Still time to turn it around. He needs to view Indy 11 as a chance to go somewhere with a clean slate. Cuz if this move fails he'll be working at Home Depot with Shaft Brewer. Harsh, but true. The world of football moves on without shedding a tear for former prospects. The world of football doesn't care how great Danny Szetela's performance was at the 2007 U20 World Cup. Without performance, you slowly slide down the ranks to obscurity.
Perhaps. The US U17 program and youth programs in general are means to an end.................not an end to themselves. Sometimes kids don't progress, and you struggle to explain why. His performance for those teams is at this point totally irrelevant. No Euro team is going to sign Andrew Carleton now based on his play with the US U17s in 2017. So he does what other youngsters do. Move down a level, excel, and then hopefully another opportunity at a higher level arises. Maybe in his case its also show a level of professionalism and maturity that flies in the face of his public perception.
Like you say, apples to apples is the only way to compare. The real difficulty is deciding what the apples are. The apples to apples part must be determined based upon raw material. (Potential) and not on result. It wouldn't make sense to compare two doctors on their patients life expectancy if those patients had significantly different health histories, (ie one specializes in addiction and one is an dermatologist). In the same way, it is the raw material that the different systems have to work with. My example is pretty obvious and simple but it applies to development as well. Determining the potential of a player is far more difficult. The other part is when a player has significant time in two or more systems. If you look at Lleget, for example, he went to Europe and failed to find success. He returned to find success with MLS and has subsequently turned in to a moderately important player for our national team. Now the question is how is he counted? Success or failure? My definition of success would be how much his potential was maximized....but how do you count that?
I'm not sure what example you're talking about (maybe Lletget) but back to the OP, I don't think that comparing Pomykal to de la Torre is apples to apples. Pomykal is on track to be an MLS soup-to-nuts success story of which there are two that I can recall: Adams and Davies. Yedlin also went through the DA program in MLS and made it to the major leagues. Wrt Lletget, I think his story is that if you go to a high level academy and come-close-but-still-miss making the senior team, you can have a good career in the minors. Probably the same for Green, Nyugen, Hyndman and Parks and we'll see about Haji and others. Would they be major league players if they had stayed in MLS? I doubt it but impossible to prove.
I agree that Pomykal is on track to be a success but even he is far from a sure thing. My comment, more than anything was meant to highlight the extreme difficulty in determining which players to compare objectively. If two players from different academies turn out exactly the same (success or failure) it doesn't tell us that the two academies did equally well (or poorly as the case may be) unless the potential was equal at the beginning. What it comes down to, imo, is that until we have far more numbers (both domestically and abroad), this will remain largely a subjective argument. There will be certain things that most reasonable people will agree upon but there will be significant differences as well.
No, I'm not sure about that. Whatever AC did or did not do, it is undeniable that Atlanta has not developed one kid. They have been given quite a few top talents, all have failed to develop, not just AC. So, how can you blame AC 100%? You can't because there is no proven track record to say Atlanta can do anything right. Atlanta actually admits they didn't do it right. The Atlanta academy goes back to 2010, so it isn't new. Miles Robinson was a draft pick that never spent time in the Atlanta academy; so not really an example of youth development. But, if you display this logic on social media, Atlanta fans (and there are a lot of them, in this thread too) will die before admitting Atlanta could have possibly done anything wrong. I don't doubt that these fans would rather never hear about Carleton again than see him go to Indy, resurrect his career, and make it abundantly clear Altanta F'd up. AC signing with Atlanta is one of the giant career mistakes in the history of the USMNT.
Well, if any true fan of US Soccer and young Americans is actively cheering for him to not succeed, then they can feck right off. We can debate the merits of why he hasn't succeeded and lay blame to all parties involved all we want. But to actively hope a young American doesn't make it is disgusting.
Atlanta as an organization is also only 3 years old. 2017 was their first season. We can't expect them to have developed a youth development culture in the way that some of the other franchises in the league have. It takes a while to build up these types of youth development structures. So when we say that haven't "developed a youngster"............its true, but also slightly unfair. What are we expecting in three years? Worth noting that Carleton was one of Atlanta United's first signings. Very few of the other first batch of domestic players is still at the club. Junior Burgos? Alexander Tambakis? Jeffrey Otoo? What I would say about Andrew Carleton, and I think what others have said for a while, is that he's done fine when given a chance at Atlanta. Did he look like the second coming of Arjen Robben? No. However, the kid showed he can play. What he needs is a clean slate and fresh start. Indy II may not be the best club on planet earth, but its a chance for a fresh start.
They absorbed Georgia United, a DA club. So, their youth set up goes back to 2010. That is where they got Carelton. If Atlanta doesn't come into the league, he could have signed anywhere. What they didn't have was anything beyond the youth set up. They didn't have a plan or even know they needed a plan. They had no path to the first team. Carleton might have even been better off going to college and signing GA after a semester than signing with Atlanta. Bello is next up. Supposedly, Atlanta learned from ruining Carleton, Kunga, and Goslin and are hopeful they will do something right with Bello. Let's give them so more great young talent!