I remember this being asked by someone at some point when the club was founded but I can't remember for certain. I think the answer was as far as MLS rights go, we have dibs on the pick of the litter (assuming we knew how to ID such a player) though the RGV academy is run by them and not tied to ours. Maybe @DynamoManiac can remember exactly?
I don't know the relation between the RGV Academy and the dynamo academy, but I would anticipate there is none. 1. RGV aren't listed in the teams under the Dynamo academy page. 2. 0.0 Houston or Dynamo reference on RGV Academy 3. Houston set up a South Texas Academy team in McAllen which I believe is up and running. In MLS early days, the teams split up portions of the country and gave certain teams dibs over certain areas of the map. I believe Houston asked for Louisiana and South Texas and got both. I haven't seen much reference to the map in a while though and I know Dallas was pressing for a Rio Grande Valley type of presence also. So IMHO, no relation to Houston - but in theory Houston may be able to tag the kid and convince him to come to Houston or McAllen and the team may get the dibs on the player at that point. But right now, I don't believe there are any dibs.
I think branding would be one reason one might have an "academy" system for your affiliate that is not under your umbrella. In that area RGV is the team whose tickets and shirts you want to sell. I could also see a scenario where you brand the intended top team in each age in each development area "HD" and then brand what we used to call the "blue" or B team for that area "RGV," I assumed this was within our pyramid and something we could dibs when it works out.....which is the whole point to this......develop players, and sign the ones who excel or show promise, without them being free agents because they are outside our claim. Now, nominally they would be part of RGV, but if we don't have dibs on that it's unenforceable, it's like academies before HGP became official. Fine, prepare to draft him if someone else doesn't first. But I don't understand having a literally separate RGV academy system. This is our Barca B. If Barca B has different youth roots, they all lead to Barca B and the first team. Barca B isn't developing its own set of players over whom the first team don't have rights. Barca B or Chelsea U21 or Bayern II doesn't have its own separate feeders. In the instances where it's in another city, it's run like MLB minors. OK, we're shipping you to Peoria this year. Maybe you'll move here and be in the bigs next season. I mean, I thought the Mexico and south Texas teams were creative ideas where we could maybe find under-tilled soil to farm. Find areas where people like the game but have rarely been coached up well. But if we don't have dibs on them.......
I also think if RGV and HD academies funnel in the same pool of dibs players, at some level, as long as one (or both) does well, who cares. it then is more of analytic interest if the south Texas team outplays the home academy. But if we have dibs on the players from the hypercompetitive city market and the teams are not even as good as RGV, for whom we then have as many rights as Texans kids, ugh, someone needs to be canned. I'd also say that, and this would have to be sorted with MLS, we are not England, where there could be 10 academies in London or 3 in greater Manchester, and you hop a subway to the appropriate one. You could live in North London and be Chelsea academy and it's just a longer subway ride, but that's your choice. Or they may have live in residencies. I mean, if it's a 7 hour one way trip, in a perfect world there is some residential setup at the top, but maybe until then how about it culminates in a RGV team down there for U19 for whom we have dibs too. I mean, we've talked about this in the Houston area much less Texas, that if someone has to drive an hour and a half in rush hour from the Woodlands to Pearland maybe they just join Texans instead. So maybe you're better off with Dynamo E/W/N/S. I think there should be periodic camps and showcases where the various strains come together, but separate local teams, except for maybe one showcase team, but with rights to all, until they can grow to the level of residencies, which is ultimately how you deal with having a McAllen recruit who you want to work with for Houston. The player moves to boarding school makes more sense than trying to move what may be a poor family from McAllen here, get them jobs, housing, etc.
I see the Dynamo Academy is prepping the young ones for the combat present when playing Mexican teams in the Charities Cup http://mobile.twitter.com/jcneese15/status/984942488174645248
https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018...s-competing-head-head-academy-talent-far-home "The race for unclaimed academy talent has prompted some clubs to increase the resources they’re pouring into scouting. Kansas City have a network of six freelance scouts located around the country. They’re regularly in touch with Parry and travel to major tournaments to identify talent. Dallas have affiliate clubs in El Paso, McAllen and Tyler, Texas and in Eastern Tennessee that they use as feeders for their main academy. As of this year, they also have two full-time youth scouts that search around Dallas and in unclaimed areas for academy talent." what's does our scouting department look like I wonder
https://www.houstondynamo.com/post/2018/07/09/three-dynamo-academy-players-earn-end-year-honors Three Houston Dynamo Academy players were named to 2017-2018 U.S. Soccer Development Academy Central Conference Best XI teams. Heriberto Soto and Marcelo Palomino were named to the U-17 team, and Jesse Ortiz earned a spot on the U-19 XI.
The Dynamo kids finished 4th and 9th of 11 in the central division of the U19s, with only the first Dynamo team in the playoffs as a wild card. They then finished last in their group in the playoffs. The U16s were 4th and 6th, again, only the first team made the playoffs as a wild card. They squeaked out of last place in their playoff group with a single tie. The U15s were 5th and 7th, the only Dynamo age group teams to finish ahead of another academy in the USSDA leagues. Otherwise it's a broken record of Dallas-Colorado one-two each league. We managed one solitary tie in the whole national development playoff scheme across all age groups. We finished ahead of one academy team in any of our divisions. I get the idea nominally is probably more to produce players than teams, and Palomino has been touted in various places. However, my experience is winning and having players progress on are not antithetical.
But according to Jordan our U-10s are beating Germany Bundesliga academy teams so the arrow is pointing up!
All of this back patting by Jordan means absolutely ******** all if we've only brought up Memo and Deric successfully in the history of the program..... We've all agreed that he should be playing more and possibly starting because we see something in him the team is missing. WB sees it too, but is slow to throw him into the fire and keep him there. ------------ Side Bar ------------ I sit and think sometimes if the FO think we fall for some of the shit they say... Like the U-10's are beating German teams and that some how is suppose to excite us about the youth players they have done a shite job about preparing them for the call up to the show. Yet they go out and buy kids from other countries (Tomas, Manotas, Pena) and try to play like he have a young players that will carry the team into the future. Fuuuuuuuuuuk you! Those guys will leave at the drop of a hat to go play in Europe! Elis is bidding his time until Europe comes calling. Soccer may not be a super popular sport in the US, but most fans who attend Dynamo games are actual fans of the sport and knowledgeable when it comes the ways of how teams operate. Obviously we as fans a opinionated and can be stubborn about what they want for their club, but in now way are we foolish enough to believe we (Houston Dynamo) are in the business of bringing up the youth and building a team around said players. Why, because two players have made it through Teams that are in the business of bring up the youth Ajax, Barca (at times), Man United (at times), Dortmund. Phili and RSL are really trying to do this with the Union's school and RSL just finding gems. Hell Dallas, at one point, had half a fielded 11 of guys from their academy! I hate Dallas with the up most passion (like most of you), but I have to respect that! I have nothing against players like Cameron and Elis who did and will respectively leave when Europe comes calling. It's the FO who piss me off. Ok, I'm done.
In Europe there is a budget team type called a "selling" team. It's a programmatic response to being in a particular budget niche. The team does keep its veteran salary budget down. But the team endeavors to develop its own players and to bring in young foreign talent, with the idea of selling them on, and while they're here, we chase trophies. So they do put some money into the academy. Ajax. One thing about Ajax people ignore, is that it's not solely premised on the academy, part of the idea is that they sell on their players to bigger budget teams, and make a profit on the academy. I don't know if I want to completely embody the "way station" concept, but broken record I don't understand why we as a budget team don't put more effort and money into what is basically cheaper player acquisition. You make your own and their domestic acquisition costs are nil -- you have the rights -- and their initial salary is high 5 or low 6 figures. You go sign Torres and it's a $7.5 million fee plus high 6 figure salary each year. Ditto Elis and a list of others. We not only pay salary, we're paying routine fees to acquire. When you sell the Geoff Cameron we bring in millions. So are we going to be the team buying players or the team selling them. Cause to me, if we're a veteran buying team we have a little light of a checkbook to win that way.
Simple - that approach (Dallas like) requires real investment and work which I don’t think the Dynamo want to undertake. At one time you could argue some of the homegrown rules and what a team got from selling made that approach tougher but yeah, if you aren’t gonna spend Atlanta money you should develop. But this all presupposes that winning actual matters to the ownership. Making the playoffs is a nice dessert to running a low investment, moderate risk, positive cash flow club that pays down debt service. You’d think the FO would see the future and try to get ahead of the curve but that might actually mean making a tough decision on investment rather than just finding ways to cut costs without losing more customers than they already have. Someone might actually have to stick their neck out. Instead, we get the same half-assed academy and USL team set up at minimal cost and no real prospects
The thing is... right now we aren't buy "veteran" players. We are buying 19-23 year olds and hoping they become amazing players. Dom was in the business of veteran players.
Every youth national team camp announcement I read through the list of invited players -- eagerly hunting for Dynamo academy players among the many FCD, PHU, ATL, etc. academy players. I rarely, rarely find any. This is an objective metric of oru academy and the assessment says the Dynamo academy is failing miserably compared to the other academies around MLS.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018/07/16/houston-dynamo-hire-paul-holocher-academy-director The Houston Dynamo have made a change to their academy set-up, announcing on Monday the appointment of Paul Holocher as director of the club's academy.
At the very least it's a guy who is familiar with trying to teach kids to play soccer with zero bucks in his bank account.
Our city oozes with U-19 talent. Been coaching for 18 seasons now. Inner city and suburbs. The fact that our Dynamo do not pick up on said talent confuses even the most ardent of us coaches.
I do the same. But I also think how they stand in the Development Academy league is telling, because you have a mix of pro academies and traditional clubs, and where you fit into that mix says something. We typically are the last academy team in the table of our regional division, in each age group. We may not be worse than mid-table overall but the teams we finish ahead of are the traditional clubs (and not all of them). Bears noting Colorado, Dallas, KC, the academies in our division, these are not big budget teams. And the other thing to me is it's not like there is variability, like some years we have a couple, three stars, and the team wins the division, and I'm just talking about an off year. The results are pretty consistent across age groups and across multiple years of play. And they tend to show FCD and Colorado consistently at the top of the division in each age group. And while Dallas is a historical hotbed, that doesn't explain the rest, or why we aren't at least second. And then people sometimes suggest that maybe we have prioritized development over results -- how to play as opposed to winning -- but that doesn't show up in HGP signings. Personally I feel like trying to win has a disciplining effect on player selection, ie, "I keep getting better players in to try and win." I feel like learning how to win is itself a skill. And my experience producing pro players is not antithetical to winning. In youth and young adult soccer the wheat tends to separate from the chaff whether winning is emphasized or not. If you have talent, even if you encourage it to play in a certain way and less to win, you probably still finish top 3 -- because of the talent. If you play the "right way" -- and I think this is vague and debatable a concept -- and you finish mid or low table then the talent and the "play" fostered actually is no good. My memory was the Texas HS playoffs were paved with a mix of teams with talent but no drilling or drilling but no talent. The saddest ones to me were the teams that had some people who could ball but the team wasn't well coached and we'd drub them. Some random team in the playoffs with a couple great technicians and talent but no fitness or team concept. The idea of liberating the player at the expense of structure to me doesn't wash. It's a balancing act. At least part of this is personal, I came from a club team that was top 2 about every year in South Texas and often 1 in EDDOA, and would likely have advanced to this sort of league. I don't see results from the Dynamo any better than I think my club team would have managed. And if we had an off season, players were shipped in and out to change that. That's at least one way the lack of variance bothers me, is once you finish 6th one season it should be, woah, go scout around town and see if we can't do better. If that happened to us we were off grabbing Texans and Hurricanes and Conroe kids we thought could help.
This long winded response.... I actually like. We have a backyard and entire state of kids that we should be pulling in regularly! Kids who have played their entire life and WANT to be professionals footballers! Go to the high schools and see the talent oozing out that is waiting to be groomed at a higher level. I really feel like (barring any legal hoops you have to jump) should be easy as: Guy is Houston Dynamo Polo: Hey kid, we have been scouting you for sometime. Would you like to join the Houston dynamo academy where we can groom you to give you a shot at signing for our USL team and if you put in the work and prove yourself making the Pro Team. Kid: ******** ya! or no thanks Maybe it's not that easy. ******** if I know.
I mean, the way my club team basically worked was the kids on weaker or equal teams who gave us fits were invited over. Typically we operated by guest player invitations at tournaments. Trials essentially. You filled in for a player on vacation. Scouting to me is overrated. Once the pool gets small enough the kids can probably tell you who to get. They play the league schedule. They play HS. You'd know just from your own team's games. Scouting to me is more like, is there some kid trapped in the second tier or on a crap HS team no one knows about. But you don't need to scout the Texans. You see them a few times a year probably. We need some offense. OK, those two guys drive us nuts every year. We can't score on that team and every few games they upset us. Not rocket science. That's how we did it. Very rarely was it like, "who?" It was usually, ah, he's gonna play for us? The couple problematic things I'd say are (1) it's hard to sell the HGP thing when they don't work out enough and (2) HGP is uniquely what we have to offer. If you're selling college any club can do that. And then (3) winning breeds winning. My team routinely made state in club. So if you're on one of the permanent also rans in our wake, and you want that success, you come to us. If we're mediocre, less of a magnet and you may have to start selling intangible "system." I understand we hired a new Houston academy head so we'll see if fortunes change. To me at least some of this is creating a self perpetuating winner. To do that it needs to get the results and then get HGP signed.
If there was "scouting" value it would be primarily you go down to the Valley or El Paso or West Texas, someplace untapped, and basically find raw players and build up something there. Either that or you go find players at La Escondida or off brand leagues or less fancied HS districts. Otherwise, like I said, in the "gold" league we knew what was what already and it's simply having the guts to annually tweak the team. It requires some hint of ruthlessness. Some of the kids cut I liked personally. That's probably one reason I blanche at too much personality discussion. You were brought in because you were esteemed and expected to play hard the way we were coached. If you didn't make an impact and play how you were expected you were gone the next year.