You're right you didn't say "useless"..But you kind of inferred as much. At least I'm reading it that way. You're saying that without full control, Pittsburgh can do whatever they want with the guys we send them.... Play them out if position or not play them. That without full control our guys won't develop. None of that is true, you are just drawing that conclusion on your own. The only problem I see is without our own team, we aren't casting wide enough of a net. We have less young guys with a chance to develop. If we miss on Swanson or Hooch or Hollingsworth, we have no internal pipeline. One criticism I have is the notion GGG has thrown out there is that we aren't deep enough of an organization (academy grads) to field a full USL team. That to me is mularkey. Most (if any) B teams are not stocked purely with homegrown talent. Some of the guys mentioned above are good examples of non HGs that get a shot in a II team and then get shot at first team. I'd rather them just say they don't want to take on that big of an investment and that the affiliate route all they are willing to do.
With less of a pipeline, there is less room for error on the guys you do identify. This makes the issue of control even more important to the players development, especially as more and more teams move towards a B team model.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but MLS teams don't own the rights to players who are on their USL teams (Team X 2), except for the ones actively on their MLS roster. So they don't really have a wider net. (this is not an argument against having a Crew 2 team)
Most sign USL contracts not MLS contracts. To me that is a better situation for club and player anyway. More freedom to move without MLS draconian rules.
That's what I am saying. (Yeah - we agree!). BUT Pittsburgh situation is not end of world and certainly not as detrimental as your original post indicated.
I'd rep this a million times if I could, because ultimately what you've said is what all of this boils down to. Thanks for condensing and articulating it so well.
Speaking of USL... I love their new Match Center setup (see: http://www.uslsoccer.com/pittsburghriverhounds-newyorkredbullsii-905436). They've got the game broadcast and all the Opta data, including detailed player info and heat maps (sadly no longer available on MajorLeagueSoccerSoccerdotcom), on one page. I think it's pretty impressive for a minor league organization.
It boils down to cost. If the Columbus Crew SC is struggling to stay out of the red, how can they field and operate a B team? Forbes put us at a -$2m operating income last year. Whether the B team would operate out of Pittsburgh or Cleveland or Columbus or wherever, it isn't cheap to operate a second club. We'll ultimately have a second team, likely in the next 2-3 years.
Look through the placement of Crew Youth Teams and the kids we send into the college system. We aren't doing a good enough job there. We are also not doing a good enough job identifying prospects outside our system and trying to develop them as well. Both are true.
Crew wouldn't need to run the business side of a farm team. They could just run the soccer ops, like the Dynamo do in RGV.
Yeah, everyone seems to focus solely on our academy when it comes to filling out a hypothetical USL roster and that we dont have enough strong prospects to make it worth while. Thats probably true in and of itself but as others have said, you also grab up talent elsewhere around the world and stash them in your USL side like your Romain Galls, Cristian Martinezs, and Abuchi Obinwas. Then fill out the roster with decent guys from other NASL and USL sides, and maybe add one or two guys who are reaching their expiration date in MLS and barely getting minutes that should probably be in USL to have a veteran presence. Hell, SKC have Latif Blessing (the 2016 golden boot in Ghana) at Swope Park Rangers now. I would feel good about our future if we had someone like that in our B side, preparing to be unleashed on MLS.
If they sign USL contracts the MLS team obviously doesn't own that, however MLS added some roster rules either this year or last year that helps the MLS team protect some player rights on their USL affiliates- https://www.mlssoccer.com/league/official-rules/mls-roster-rules-and-regulations USL Priority Players In addition to Homegrown Players and College Protected Players – clubs may have priority for up to three players from their USL affiliate. In order to retain priority on any additional USL affiliate players, such players must be added to an MLS club's Discovery List. -edit- So in addition to Hollingsworth, Swanson, etc. it's possible the Crew have the rights to a couple other Riverhounds players.
Swanson and Hollingsworth both started and played 63 minutes in a 1-0 loss to Cincinnati. Gale Agbossoumonde got sent off at the end of the first half, which I assume didn't help. If I have time, I might go back and watch the game to see how they played.
Where do you watch the gm, YouTube ? I know Cincinnati game was on tv when I was in Cincinnati last weekend
Perhaps USL operating a new D3 league will help. No size & lower stadium requirements. Regional so less travel.