IIRC the Philly school is actually a charter school. It is not Philly's money being used. There was some sort of deal made where it only gets soccer players however.
Pretty certain it is Philly's $$. Read about how they set it up somewhere. Even if they don't fund the whole school, certainly they are paying something for kids to go there. I have a relative who had an academy player on their team leave and go to Philly academy. Crazy story that I don't have time or recall all details to share, but let's just say they have a number of kids (young) basically living on their own (together). Not the controlled environment like RSL.
Alternatively, we could then also be pissing away more money ineffectively. If that's all FC Dallas is spending on youth, are they just getting lucky right now or are they doing something different that is affecting their results?
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports..._developing_future_American_soccer_stars.html You are right~ish. It is owned by one of the part owners It looks like they pay tuition of $28,500 a year with scholarships. They don't say how much they save but it seems significant ($1.7 mil of the $2.1 mil).
Columbus doesn't exactly have the same talent pool as Texas. Also, I wish we had more affiliates so we could get more people into the network. I can believe that we spend 2.5 million. Precourt seems to have allowed a lot of resources to be put into the Academy. We need better results though.
@Kayak anybody know anything else about this guy? MLS article rates him (Daniel Wright) as our best academy prospect. I'm assuming he's a striker.
Not that it's always a good indicator but looking through the players they listed I was surprised at the lack of YNT players represented.
That's an interesting destination for Ahinga Selemani https://t.co/Yb8OhfpV8P— J.R. Eskilson (@JREskilson) March 31, 2017 Be interesting to see how he pans out. Wonder if Crew ever made an attempt to sign him?
I guess you're too good to write any of that out Selemani went to Greece and is now with 11th of 16 teams FC Panetolikos.
I don't know anything about him; he's going to Duke so I'll be interested to watch how he does there.
If we can produce a homegrown player who is worthy of being drafted #4 (Ebobisse) or put up 13+ goals+assists/season in multiple MLS seasons (Grella), I'll be happy. Even a Wenger-esque player would likely be our 3rd best homegrown (after Trapp and Crognale).
Well.... Wenger is garbage. Like, total garbage. Grella is ok I guess, but NY keeps bringing in players to start over him. Ebobisse is proven nothing at the pro level, so can't judge yet. I get what you're saying, and I agree having HGs that contribute is a plus, but guys like Wenger are Barson or Speas level. Grella is Josh Williams, servicable, but easily expendable.
Random Academy update: A few years ago before preseason in Bradenton, the Gregg invited George Braima, who was in residency, to hang out with the first team while they were there. Braima committed to Ohio State in 2016, but never made it there. He landed at Tyler Junior College. He was a starting central midfielder on their undefeated national championship team this past season, adding 3 goals and 8 assists. Tyler produced current MLS players Dom Dwyer and Oniel Fisher. Glad to see he hasn't completely disappeared off the map
Wondered where he went. U16's held their own against Chivas. Lost 3-2 but it sounded like a good back and forth game.
Never heard of this kid in local soccer community, but if he is as good as this article indicates, looks like another miss by Crew Academy. http://www.thisweeknews.com/news/20170411/arnold-set-to-chase-soccer-dream-in-spain
Gotta wonder why someone like him and Emmanuel Sabbi were never involved in the Crew Academy system. Arnold was an All-State player his junior year and was good enough to get an offer in Spain (though to be fair he is paying to go into an academy...but still, I'd be shocked if he truly isn't good enough for the Crew Academy). Sabbi is on the u20 national team and is with a club in Spain now (though I'm not sure things are working out great for him on that front). It's bad enough that we may miss out on kids in Ohio/Michigan, but how are we letting talented kids slip through the cracks in our own backyard? I'm not saying these guys are going to be good professional players, but to not even have them in our system is a little embarrassing.
On one hand I agree - Crew are missing. But on the other, I think there are very good reasons why some kids are electing (on their own) not to join academy. I think that was case with Sabbi. In some cases, kids just might not like the environment and/or coaches with Crew. They may also not want to be tied them as far as MLS/pro rights go. Shoot it could be as simple as the kid can't get to Obetz for practices. Or they may want to play for their highschool. I find the Stephen Milhoan thing to be interesting. They brought him down from Challenger Crew jrs. to play some with academy and then Challenger severed Crew ties and Milhoan stayed with club in Cleveland, played high school and is headed to Xavier as one of top rated prospects nationally in his class. But I also think the Crew do miss on kids or maybe have a set profile they look for. Sometimes it may be they are loyal to kids they bring into system at younger ages and won't make room for new kids. On some rosters, it looks like they are trying to maybe find the diamond in rough - like a first generation american with immigrant parents or maybe a young immigrant themselves. It's not as simple as all the best kids want to, are able to , or are invited to play for the academy, just because well - it is "the academy".
I'm pretty sure that their rights aren't tied to the clubs academy. The MLS team just has rights to sign them and bypass the draft. But they kids can still decline and go through the draft, which is what will happen to them anyway if they're not part of an academy.