There has been much talk recently against college soccer and its structure. But i reiterate that is the least expensive and most efficient pipeline for developing talent. The money spent on GA and academies can be spent on better salaries. A player turns pro and makes as much as the average first year attorney makes nowadays. Instead of pumping all this money in to developing Luis Gil and Eddie Johnson who are average over-hyped players, the funds could be better served on paying players like Luke Mulholland and Luis Silva their just recompense. Well the academies might serve some purpose in creating better players for college soccer it is very expensive. I actually think the college soccer player is better now than before. More and more four year college soccer players are becoming the leading players in MLS. Look at the success of DC United ex. Luis Silva, Birnbaum, Korb, Sean Franklin, Boswell etc; or Sporting KC ex. Zusi, Sinovic, Olum etc. Furthermore, even international teams have discovered how much better a player like Bright Dike is better than anything a European academy can create for Nigeria.
Well, I follow UCSB men's college soccer and they launch lots of pro soccer players....Luis Silva, Chris Pontius, Dan Kennedy, Eric Avila, Rob Friend, Sam Garza, Tony Lockheed, just to name a few... The Big West conference where UCSB and UC Irvine, both reside has grown and raised its level of competition to be one of the strongest leagues nationally. Personally, I'm very tired of the NFL and it's refusal to adjust the game. It's getting harder to back where the game is headed with all the recent facts about brain trauma. Anyhow, I find soccer more exciting with less commercial breaks and fluid continuous action. I think parents are feeling the same as they are steering their kids away from football and into soccer as a Fall High School sport. Numbers prove declining enrollment in Pop Warner football programs as soccer participation in rec/comp leagues are booming. So, I think it's safe to say that College soccer has a bright future ahead.
Hopefully more teams follow the dc united model of mostly American college soccer trained players. If dc wins mls cup it will have repercussions on how to build a team. The future is in the colleges.
No it is not, the future is the LA Galaxy II, Real Monarchs, etc. in USLPro. Not going to find anybody that would say Bradford Jamieson would be better playing at Cal for a few years than with the Galaxy II. While college will certainly play a big part in the future going forward, it's impact will be less as time goes on, but it will still have an influence for sure just from the fact we're such a large country. The other very important thing to follow with college soccer is the impact of the eventual paying of football and basketball players that will certainly cause some schools to cut some of their other athletic programs.
I think some college kids can play with the USL Pro teams and not lose eligibility. Correct me if I am wrong. Harry Shipp and Chris Ritter are products of both college soccer and the academies..
You're mostly wrong. Before a player enrolls in school they can play on a professional team as long as they don't receive any payment and still retain eligibility. Once a player enrolls in college, they can no longer play on a professional team, even if they don't get paid, without losing college eligibility.
Yeah, that's kind of what the PDL and NPSL exist for in this day and age, a place for college kids to play in the summer that is amateur enough to pass muster with the NCAA.
ok, so the PDL is there to give our college kids a competitive summer environment. This coupled with the academy experience has produced much better college soccer players. The level of the four year college soccer player in MLS is improving just look at guys like Geoff Cameron, Luis Silva, Matt Besler, Gyazi Zaredes, Chris Korb, Seth Sinovic, Birnbaum, Graham Zusi, Sean Franklin etc. We can build a USMNT around guys like these.
Uhm, it was founded 19 years ago with that purpose and really started expanding from 1999 onwards. The PDL we know now is a lot bigger. So yeah, this day and age.
Its been doing it since 1995. That is not this day and age. Just because the league has grown, does not mean it was not acting as a place for College players to play during the summer and retain NCAA eligibility. I was watching it in 1995 in person. I was watching local players play in PDL, I was watching players I also played against in high school play. I had a few of my assistant coaches on the teams I played on play. I know what the PDL was in the 90s.
But it wasn't a particular focal point because before that, the league had no real focal point and was fishing around for it's raison d'etre.
The PDL has been great in giving college kids a place to hone their craft in the summers. Everybody wins with PDL, MLS and the colleges.
College will always be an avenue in the US because middle classers want our kids to attend college and develop a profession when the %s dont work out with sports. But the truly elite young talents are going to filter towards the academy system by and large. It could be a great dual pronged system as it matures. Other countries probably lose a lot of the middle and upper class kids with college options. If (as it further?)the NCAA cess pool continues to degrade, other pro sports may start to look at academy systems to supplement or supplant. Maybe the college presidents reassert power and have a come to jesus after the huge class action suits come around and threaten the actual institutions.
College Baseball still has a role to play for Major League Baseball and since it looks like we are headed down the MLB minor league development role there is no reason to think College Soccer will do anything but get more popular.
I totally agree. Also as more and more MLS teams sign HGPs straight out of college rather than developing these so called teenage phenoms who don't amount to much, i see the level of college soccer improving. Some of the most talented players in MLS are four year college soccer players ex. Zusi, Luis Silva, Birnbaum, Sinovic etc.
I have been doing a lot of research on the youth development system in Hockey and how it compares to soccer. Frankly speaking, I think that the soccer development scene will probably end up looking very similar to the one in hockey. While ideally a majority of top of the line players will come through the academy system, college will still be a considerable pipeline. Everyone already knows how important scholastic sports and college attendance in general is in America. I think these are the key questions though. What happens at that 16-20 year old bracket? Most euro afficionados argue that by that time, the best of the best should be playing in high level professional environments. They do this in Canada with the CHL junior hockey set up. I've heard arguments that our best talent stalls in development around these ages. So technically I guess USL would be like the CHL? Knowing the draconian NCAA rules on "amateurism"; It would have to mimic the USHL (as far as age limitations and payments). When will college soccer "get with the program"? Seeing as how right now we can't have an exact CHL set up, colleges will still pay a huge role in creating those late bloomers. This is something I have heard repeatedly in hockey circles, vis a vis the strengths of college hockey system as an NHL pipeline. College Hockey has strong links to the NHL. I don't know about the links between college soccer and MLS/NASL/USL. I have long advocated that if people really want to see America become some sort of "soccer nation", it's foolish to think you can ignore scholastic programs as part of some large "growing the game" approach. Even our olympic sports many times have benefited from the presence of strong school programs. College Hockey is a major force regionally. College Soccer could be as well. But that depends on whether or not the NCAA is willing to radically adjust the way it governs the college game. (I.E. bring it more in line with international rules, lengthen the season, etc.) It also depends on if the finances jibe well enough to at least have college soccer break even (or at least not be TOO far in the red.) If that happens, then you have the potential to turn even MORE unwashed masses into fans due to school loyalties and popularity bleeding over. Just read about the success of Big Ten college hockey (especially Penn State), a recent newcomer.
Another thing is, and the guys who wrote Soccernomics did a great job showing this, that many existing academy systems outside the US have a strong predilection towards lower class/lower education players and that those with academic aspirations are outright mocked and shunned. There's a ton of players that are missed just because academy life is skewed strongly in favor of those with no ambition other than soccer. Our system, where college is either the development location or the carrot dangled as part of the contract offer, could easily be better than anywhere else in terms of reaching a larger swath of potential players.
I think it will be more like baseball where you either go right away when drafted/signed out of high school, or you go to college for 3 years before being eligible again. Maybe couple that with being drafted/signed, but playing a few years in college, to be a hybrid of the NHL and MLB systems?
You can't serve two masters. As long as expensive club soccer and the current college structure are producing our talent by and large, our domestic players will be behind the rest of the first world soccer powers. The problem with soccer is the same thing that makes it so appealing for parents. It doesn't take ridiculous size or speed to become a "good" player. In most of our domestic sports, the players are physical freaks, the exceptions being hockey and soccer. I believe Hockey will always be regional because of the natural ice access and equipment cost issue. Soccer can be played for cheap by pretty much anyone. The thing is that it does take extraordinary talent and skill to play at the highest levels and domestic players who are just turning professional at age 22 are already far behind international players of their age-group. The academy system must become the default path for serious young talents while the college system can still provide the occasional diamond in the rough. SO many people are invested in the club soccer and college soccer system for their livelihoods that they will fight early professionalism tooth and nail but that sifting process which produces world elite players exists for a reason. Not eveyone is cut out to be a pro athlete. Little Trevor and his parents need to understand that you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you want to attend 4 years of university and expect to be competitive in the global soccer marketplace than you are deluding yourself.
I disagree. The academy system can work together with college soccer to produce players. We just need the NCAA to change their rules to allow college soccer players to practice more. Harry Shipp is a great example of an academy product doing four years of college and then flourishing as a pro.
Imagine how much better they would've been had they signed MLS contracts when 18/19 years old and played 25 matches against better players/teams. Your U18/teenage phenom "flames" out because they're not in a competitive environment. They've been stuck sitting on the end of a bench in MLS instead of training and playing at an U21 (I'd settle for U23) level that is better, arguably, then NCAA D1 Now don't get your panties in a wad (speaking to anyone in general). I've always thought top college programs (UCLA, Maryland, UCSB, Akron, etc) are stocked with talent. They've traveled to other countries and have played very well against U21 (or equivalent) during offseason trips. They're some really good players in college. And, I'm not bashing coaching/training in D1 soccer. But these players would be better served in a professional environment. But just intensify the level play year-round and you'll get a better product. NCAA D1 programs carry around 27-30 players. And they're, at the D1 level, limited to 9.9 scholarships per team, talent is diluted. That is a lot of dilution of talent. I would rather see MLS clubs sign 4-6 players each year out of high school then for these players head to NCAA D1. With Galaxy paying for college education of, at least one, players MLS is headed in the right direction. It's something that should've been long before. Where the USNT has suffered--and MLS when compared, in particular to Liga MX, to other professional leagues around the world--is the lack of development from U18/19 to U21/22. It's why our U20s and U23s have been mediocre regionally.
We may have to wait and see what happens with regard to the NCAA lengthening its soccer season, as it seems to have agreed to do. I'm not expecting more games, but even spacing the games out out over a longer period should help significantly. It'll stop back-to-back games cutting into training time, and lessen the impact of offseason team training limits.