Personally, I think he's a great dribbler. His touch might be a let down at times but he has good ball control when he's on the move.
Do you think clubs sign players to play permanently in their reserves? They sign players as prospects, so they'll be sellable or achievers by their prime age. It's exactly how Galaxy treats the U24s in their first team. It's exactly what happened with Zardes. This is basic stuff. If only Arena, Klinsmann and Trab scouts knew what you do.
How many leagues/clubs around the world are doing that, do you think? I don't think you have an informed opinion of what the expectation should be here. You mean except for the kid currently at one of the top German clubs, right? What're you talking about? Najar spent as much time in DC's youth ranks as Zardes. So did McBean. So it seems like your distinction of what counts as a "product" is pretty arbitrary and meaningless. You want MLS DAs to operate like the world class DAs you've heard about like Ajax, Southhampton and La Masia, but those aren't the typical/demonstrative cases. You're not going to see players that've spent 8+ years in MLS academies because the academies themselves are barely that old. Where did I say the Galaxy strives to earn high transfer revenues for its academy products? You seem dissatisfied with LA's academy output so far, but I'm trying to figure out what that actually has to do with the realities the club faces and its stated goals? Little right now, it seems. Zardes is a success story. So is Yedlin. So is Morris. That's progress and, it's true, those guys barely spent time in the very early versions of the DAs, so if anything we should be excited for what's coming behind them. We can only hope we go upward from here. The trick of course is to make better players earlier, but that's what everyone is trying to figure out.
I also love how people compare "top 4" leagues, but really mean "top 2-3" clubs in each division. Lots of MLSers could play, perhaps start for lower table top-level teams. As for guys that came from lower division leagues, well sometimes a player just isn't a fit at a club (think Jozy at Sunderland, Michael Bradley at Aston Villa). People have this view of European leagues like poor countries have of emigrating to the US, it's all milk and honey. Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
Werder would groom Morris either to start or to sell by prime age (24), which is exactly how Galaxy treats its U24s. Seattle is a different opportunity, but you're seeing the result of them gambling so much on him. He hasn't had a poor year at all for a rookie, but we're witnessing what happens when you go all-in on youth without a back-up plan. [QUOTE]You think MLS is always starting guys whose "caliber" is close to Top 4 league status (e.g high Championship/low EPL, or high Bundesliga 2/low Bundesliga)? There are plenty of examples of lower league talent tearing up MLS. Talent like Bradley Wright-Phillips, who went from League 1/2 to dominate in MLS. Or Kai Kamara, who could only get a cup of coffee at Championship side Middlesbrough. Or League 1/Reserve player-turned OCSC-starter Seb Hines. I know, sometimes it's just a case of finding a good situation, I'm not implying that MLS = League 1 or anything, but the point is that there's space on those rosters for DA youngsters, if they're League 1 quality. If MLS were as high a bar as you say, they wouldn't be taking lower-league rejects, and their players would be succeeding outside of MLS at a significantly higher rate.[/QUOTE] I didn't say that at all; in fact I was quite clear. I'm talking about the upper end of MLS. If you look at where the Galaxy shops for players, it's generally lower-end of top tier or upper-end of 2nd division/2nd tier leagues. That's roughly the level Zardes is at (attracting interest from a good club in a 2nd tier league) after a few years with the Galaxy. Kudos to them. Hopefully they're in the playoffs this season; they didn't make it last year. I'll stick with Zardes. Quality > Quantity is the Galaxy motto. Also: maybe you didn't notice, but Turkish clubs weren't exactly banging down Gyasi's door after he ran roughshod over the NCAA, so I don't know why you keep mentioning it like he was groomed into a finished product there. The Galaxy has the most championships in MLS. The best DP. The HGP with the record for most goals who just had a pretty good Copa. Things could be worse. Generally, players good enough to achieve at MLS level at 18 or so are going to go abroad to fight for a starting spot in a better league; it's going to be hard for MLS clubs to keep them and arguably they shouldn't. MLS is proper development track for the McBeans of the world, who develop a little later.
This post doesn't even make sense. You just seem to be having a tantrum over the reality that is, LAG's academy development has returned next to nothing and doesn't stack up to dozens upon dozens upon dozens of academies, from Europe to South America to Africa. Forget the "top 4 league" crap. LAG doesn't come anywhere near the production of Partizan, Liberty Professionals, Zagreb, Sao Paulo, Hajduk Split, Dynamo Kyiv, among many, many others. You do know there's resources which track how many players clubs have placed in top leagues right? For LAG, that would read 0, 0, 0, 0, 0. Probably means they wouldn't crack the top 200 or so academies globally. You'll probably ignore it due to WP issues. Then I'll point out all those clubs produced more top 5 league players than LAG has produced MLS level players. BTW, Haji is a Schalke reserve player. What he isn't is a Bund/2Bund player. LAG developed a player capable of playing for Schalke's U19s, now they'll try to take it from there.
I'm surpried this might be happening. But he would probably be more than doubling his salary and getting club perks. If this goes through I hope he has success in Turkey (he should be able to rack up goals on super lig minnows) and comes back to MLS for a DP deal in a few years.
On the one hand, using this chart makes sense because it covers the world's best leagues. OTOH, c'mon, do I even have to point this out? Discussion here would be better if people tried to illuminate rather than "win."
I'm not arguing that the galaxy academy is great, but this chart (which is very interesting) contains but two clubs from outside of the EU: Boca Juniors in the bottom middle and River Plate, near the bottom of the list. No Brazilian clubs, no Mexican clubs, no Russian clubs, no non-EU European clubs. Given Argentina's largely Italian heritage (and players' ability to get an EU passport via said heritage) it seems that Euro citizenship is indeed a huge barrier for everyone.
seems to be the Yank Abroad approach for the next few years "play abroad well for a few yeas and return for 2 million a year"
No. They sign players to the reserves because they think that's the appropriate tier at that point of their development. From the reserves, a small portion will be promoted to the senior roster; a small portion will find employment elsewhere; a majority will wash out of soccer entirely. It's no different than MLS Superdrafts. Go back a decade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_MLS_SuperDraft Half of the first round (six out of twelve) and 2/3rd of the second is out of meaningful football and that was when the league had only 24 players drafted.
Well, you snipped most of it so you could reply to an argument I didn't even make, so I can see how you got confused. Actually, it seems like it's you and other posters throwing tantrums over LAG not being where you want it to be. And where you want it to be isn't really based on anything realistic that I can say. Like, maybe you can explain why do you think LA should be on par with "even" Sao Paulo and Dynamo Kyiv after less than a decade? You know there's resources to track club revenues/value, right? Why don't you look up LA's yearly revenues compared to "even" Sao Paulo or Kyiv's. Maybe you think having 1 million dollars is the same as having a 100 million? When did I say LA is one of the top 50 clubs at producing Euro talent or even strives to be? This is what YOU think the LA Galaxy should be doing, which I could hardly care less about... Wright is a Bundesliga prospect. Schalke are interested in him because they project him as a player that can contribute in their squad. The risk comes in investing in him before he's proven, at which point he'd be several times as costly. Why am I explaining basic development stuff to you guys? You guys crash these threads all aggro and guns blazing thinking you're educating people who have been following this process for a really long time. For folks claiming to care a ton about development, you don't really seem interested in understanding the challenges it takes to reach the level of the handful of top DAs you've apparently heard about or seen on pasted tables from sites like Transfermarkt.
Seems we agree this is a pretty standard approach for clubs, so I'm not sure why Galaxy gets demonized for doing it with its young players, who either get loaned to reserves or elsewhere until they're ready to contribute for the first team (if it ever happens). Sounds like we agree there's no smoking gun here.
I am not sure the Galz are demonized any more than any other MLS club for their putrid development of young talent with the exception of Arena's penchant for loading up on the aging Euro veterans and giving the LA academy kids a big fat shaft. But that's been Bruce's motto all along and, given the ridiculous ease with which the "salary cap" can be violated ... I mean, bypassed, he is using any tool at his disposal. Of course, at the same time, he claims that there is no reason that MLS/LAG can't develop an elite player. It's just that neither MLS nor the LAG has developed one yet. But that's Bruce's BS routine. In any case, Arena has always been pro Europe when he was coaching the US and went as far as getting Bobby Convey the required caps for his move to Reading. Bobby didn't exactly replied in kind by returning to MLS at the first opportunity. Bob, being both loyal to Bruce and sharing the same attitude on Europe vs. MLS, promptly dropped Bobby C. from his squads. Which is the biggest difference between the coaching regimes. The old ones let their action speak louder than their words. The current, if you discard the subtleties, works in reverse.
o/t but anyone know what happened with Fabian Castillo's move to Turkey? It just died for what reason?
He's apparently still in Turkey and his agent may or may not be in discussions with MLS hq to try to work a deal.
I think he's saying Bruce Arena and Bob Bradley have always been Euro-snobs in practice, if not in words (e.g. working aggressively to get Convey to Europe and then ignoring him when he returned to MLS and relying on European veterans rather than MLS Academy products at the club level), while Jurgen is more of a Euro-snob in his words. Seems only marginally related to the thread topic, but then again that seems to be the case for most of the discussion in this forum.
Pearce and Clarence Goodson had strange experiences in Turkey. Mo Edu, Jozy Altidore and that that ex-MLS prodigy whose name I can't recall .... Fredua something ... went there with no publicized missteps. Turkish clubs also regularly shop for the EPL hand-me-downs and those relationships seem to be pretty solid as well. The next time you read it, lay off the tequila. It'll make a lot more sense.
I don't even know why I respond to your posts anymore on this subject, but Bruce has played plenty of young and unproven Americans over the years. Zardes, Omar, Steres, Steffen, AJDG, Villareal, McBean, Lletget, and Romney are just a few recent figures that pop into my mind without taking the time to research players. Some spent time in the Galaxy academy, and some did not, but the notion that Bruce is unwilling to experiment with young players is ridiculous.