I can't say I even know what this post means. What does "reach their potential" even mean? How are you measuring? Is Kenny Cooper's potential higher than what he reached? Would Dallas have lifted him "higher" than ManU? Was Kirovski's higher than what he reached? Would the Galaxy have lifted him "higher?" Would Aron Johannsson's upside have been "higher" if he'd stayed in the US? Would Rossi have had a higher upside if he'd stayed in New Jersey? First of all, the sample size for US players who went to Europe as a U is pretty small. But even within that sample, guys like Rossi, O'Brien, Kirovski all show that it certainly, at worst, going to a Euro academy does not kill all careers. The MLS/Europe argument is a false dichotomy. MLS is better for some players. Good Euro academies are best for others. There is not only one way, or one place, to learn football. It is impossible to argue that any of Ajax, Clairefontaine, Lille, La Masia don't turn out more better players than all MLS academies combined. And it's not hard to see that MLS can also contribute to bringing up some good players as well. Perhaps players should try to pick the good situation, not the "country" or "league."
Better players, sure. UCL players, not really given what the team have already done with few such players Correlation but not causation. The players choose to leave or to stay. No one is holding them back.
It certainly appears to be significantly over-weighted by Klinsmann, and others too. Completely agree. That's the need for the player(s), and it is keenly the need to have MLS grow/improve to the point where it actually is seen as a "league of choice" (for everyone), rather than a league that should not be considered a worthwhile or helpful destination for players' careers.
Completely agree, and that likely is what many/most players are in fact doing. What's frustrating is when people in positions of authority are apparently giving career advice that seems to primarily be focused on "not picking" some specific "country" or "league."
I get that the academy system is young. I also think they can't get to their goal until that system is developing lots of players that can play in leagues at that level. If they want to set an aggressive goal, I think they should take aggressive steps in this area to get there. I'd provide every team as many incentives possible to get them to take it as serious as possible.
Yup. And I'd also hope that a USMNT or U23 manager would not actively disincentive or work against MLS's academies and their senior club teams.
Why is that frustrating? Do you mean Jurgen as your "person in position of authority?" Dees every US player hop to Jurgen's random quotes? Do you think Bob Bradley begged Mikey not to go to 'veen? Has reality even followed this fiction? Since Jurgen has become coach I would bet the number of MLS key players on the USMNT has increased. Mikey, Jozy, Demps came back. Again, it is just dishonest not to admit that the best players in the world come disproportionately from top Euro academies (and some top SA club academies too, of course.) So it would be silly to suggest that, given the opportunity, any US (or anywhere) player, should not seriously pursue and consider a chance to train at Ajax, Feyenoord, Arsenal, Clairefontaine, Lille, La Masia, Man U., etc. etc. etc. (there are many more to be sure.) And just like any decent college counselor would encourage your 2350/3.9 kid to at least check out CIT, MIT, Tsingua, Stanford and Zurich - while at the same time pointing out that Cal Poly SLO or Penn State or Virginia Tech might be a better fit, any decent coach/adviser should be suggesting a promising talent look at Bayern, Southhampton, PSG, or Sevilla, if they have the opportunity. I know people like to bash Jurgen with this trope, but it's been around a long time - and it's hard to argue that at the very least, top Euro academies should not be considered if they are an option.
It just makes MLS compete with the clubs/leagues they say they want to compete with. It's just handfuls of players. We need hundreds of them. I'm not convinced it is bad for MLS. Was the path that Bradley, Feilhaber, Altidore, Kljestan's path bad for MLS?
11, So is it fair to say that you think the US should try be the sole exception to the correlation between WC success and UCL play?
3 of those guys started professionally in MLS. Two of them netted MLS nice transfer fees. That's the business MLS wants. MLS would certainly prefer it when/if players like Feilhaber or Twellman or (potentially) Morris didn't sign their first pro contract overseas.
Why do you care so much about what is best for a large for profit corporate entity. MLS does not care about making better soccer players. It cares about making money and paying as little as possible for its players. I am on the side of our players. I want them to become the best soccer players they can be while making a good and fair living playing soccer. For our top talent, that does not require MLS. MLS has no more "right" to a transfer fee for Jordan Morris than Stanford has a right to his Senior year. If anyone involved in US soccer thinks Jordan is good enough to play right now for a Bundesliga club and they advised him to stay in MLS for the good of MLS, they should lose their job. You want young US kids inspired to play soccer, let them watch a US player on TV against Bayern Munich.
m Brasil and Uruguay had plenty of success during the era in which the majority of their internationals did not play abroad. Even as they continue to improve in quality, US players face natural barriers to making UCL KO level teams.
Ultimately, we (fans) or the USSF and the USMNT have absolutely no say in the matter. I believe that the goal, set by the owners, is to be as profitable as possible and the way to do that is to be the top league in the world. Is it a short term goal? Definitely not but we may be top 20 now, and in 10 years top 10 or better. We may be on a 20 or 30 year plan but I have very little doubt that the US will become one of, if not the major players in world soccer. (My money is on us becoming top dog). I would guess that the league (most likely MLS) will become the top league before the USMNT is at or even near that level. As you said, at least in the short term, MLS may not prepare some of our best players as well as Europe but I definitely see it as the best initial step for all but possibly* a very few players. at this point, Europe has a terrible track record of developing our talent. That being said, some of our players have moved to Europe and refined their skills considerably but they have not gone as youngsters. Dempsey and Bradley come to mind. At this point an ideal compromise, which I think you alluded to, is for our better players to go to Europe as young pros to play, gain experience and develop for a few years and then return to MLS where they can then benefit MLS and the younger players. As MLS improves, this step of travelling to Europe will become less and less important for the development of American players. *The few players that possibly may be best served by going to Europe at a young age, I believe, are some of those that already have a strong tie to Europe through family or, at the very least those for whom the families will be travelling with them. It's one thing to put pressure on a kid in a soccer environment but adding pressures of language, separation from family, friends etc makes it much more likely that the player will fail completely or have their growth stunted.
Yes. Because all of the current great players who were inspired by previous greats just got passing looks at the TV while they were training.
Seems to be the case. Similarly, Spain, Germany, & Italy all had strong domestic leagues, with a couple of dominant teams, when their national teams won the most recent World Cups. EDIT: Where the majority of their best players plied their trade.
Obvious and previously answered, but for your benefit, I will do so again. 1. Some of us like watching live professional soccer of the highest possible quality - in the US, that's MLS. 2. The USMNT can't be competitive without MLS at a decent level - no team has done well in the World Cup in modern times without a decent domestic league (while some World Cup contenders have most of their National Team players playing outside the country, none of them have even more than 10% of their players not start their professional careers with local clubs). To put it another way, it may be possible to be an elite soccer nation and outsource the last stage of development for your super elite players, but it is unsustainable to try and outsource the entire process without a decent domestic pro league
According to FIFA rules Seattle is due training compensation, not sure if Stanford trading education for Soccer eats into their end. That will be the interesting B plot, if Morris breaks open the training compensation impasse.
You might've missed the bulk of my diabribe, but this was precisely my point, and one that in other posts I'd explicitly stated. There is one caveat to this, though: USSF should be throwing as much weight as they can muster into bringing American player development up to snuff, because relying on foreign clubs who have less reason to be particularly invested in our players is not a good long-term solution. How that gets done is another very involved discussion that we do elsewhere, obviously (with little headway, usually). Probably the only thing that we probably all would agree on is that what has been done is not yet sufficient.
Yup. Without question. The growth of MLS is critical for the long-term grown of the USMNT. Part of that growth, of course, is that you need to retain high-quality players. In the past a good percentage of USMNT-eligible players went abroad because the pay was so much higher abroad. As time has gone by the league has found ways to retain those UMSNT-quality players with big paychecks. Matt Besler, Graham Zusi, Omar Gonzalez, and on and on had opportunities to go abroad. They chose to stay. That's a good thing overall for the league. We also tend to forget that these players have families. Perhaps their wife has a job. Perhaps they want to raise their kids in the states and in American schools. As others have stated, its also very difficult for many Americans to go to Spain, Italy, and England. Germany is the easiest option of the bigger leagues, and we've seen that play out. It used to be that MLS regulars were going to Scandinavia, Austria, Belgium-level leagues. [The Wade Barrett, Adin Brown, Nate Jaqua level players.] That's almost completely dried up. Why go there instead of MLS? You wouldn't. [Mexico has become a destination for Mexican-Americans, and that's great.] Basically, a player with that magic ticket of a Euro passport has so many more options than most American players. Will Trapp, with his Greek passport, can really explore the opportunity that's best for him. Matt Miazga has that crucial Polish passport. And on and on........................ Bill Hamid can get a Sierra Leone passport. Sierra Leone is a Cotonou country, which means he also has a few more avenues available to him. He may not count as a foreign player in Spain or France, for instance.
So let's take the one who didn't start in MLS and the one that didn't net a fee. I don't think their time away from MLS harmed the league at all, benefited the player, and are great players for the league now. Sounds like a win to me. Again, it's not about a few players, it's about hundreds of them. I'd put Lee Nguyen in a similar category as Feilhaber. The really showed LN they wanted him, and Vancouver made it clear they didn't. If Morris goes abroad, has an amazing career, and never plays in MLS, I think the league still benefits. As for the business MLS wants, you'll have to explain it to me and why they are right and it is good for our players. They seem want all our top players but they don't necessarily pay them like that. I'd be curious how much Morris offers have increased every year. I think someone mentioned Acosta is on less than $100k. It looks like they botched Miazga's contract, such that they are likely to not earn as much for him they could have or he'll play out his last year and they'll get nothing. kitchen, Gill, Agudelo, etc is not good business. The Agudelo situation was horrible. They turned down north or three quarters of a million (4 to 5 times his annual salary) for four months of play.
You're free to think that. But from a very simple perspective, MLS "benefits (far) more greatly" as a league if Morris (and other players like him) starts his D1 pro career in MLS and then goes and plays abroad, or alternatively never does sign with a foreign club -- yet still goes on to have an amazing and productive career (and scores a few goals, or several goals, at future World Cups, or whatever). But, it of course is the player's decision as to what to do with their club career -- and he will make the right one(s) for himself -- and it will be made in context of many factors and the consideration of many voices of advice/guidance. Good on him for having multiple options currently available.
Acosta just signed a new deal, so he's making a lot more than that. The minimum salary "homegrown" and young players get keeps rising. The most famous example was Stuart Holden, who I believe was on 35k his entire time in the league. I know from an FCD perspective, their unproven youngsters are on upwards of 70k guaranteed to start. Then when they prove themselves, they re-sign for big money. Each player and case is different. NYRB signed Miazga to a contract as a teen when nobody had a clue if he was any good. Matt Miazga never played for the US U17s, and only had a couple token appearance for our U18s. And presumably no offers from abroad. He had ZERO leverage. It was NCAAs or NYRB for Matt Miazga. [Unlike say........................Luis Gil, who was on a hefty contract when he signed with the league.] NYRB were able to sign him to a deal that had little impact on their salary cap. People think too much about these profits clubs make when they sell players. Garber and the MLS office has said repeatedly that selling players for profit is not part of their business model. Clubs/leagues across this hemisphere have to sell players to stay afloat, so they are obsessed with maximizing profits from these sales. The MLS league office isn't. They may in fact believe that keeping Miazga with NYRB for another season (as they gun for another trophy) is more valuable to them than the money they'd make by selling him in this window.
I'm not saying MLS is "right" (in all cases of salary/contract offers or what have you), but I am saying that on the whole -- and within the scope of the global club football game and business -- the domestic league is good (actually "great") for US players, because that league is here and available and consistent in its efforts to improve and it will produce players. You're looking at examples of Acosta or others on their first contracts. You're not looking at examples like Donovan, or Beasley, or Dempsey, or Bradley, or Gonzalez, or Altidore, or Beckerman, or Zusi, or Besler or Hamid -- or other "top" players who have been well rewarded and paid by MLS with contracts (beyond their initial one). I'm also not convinced MLS wants "all" of the USA's top players. But MLS apparently does want all of the top players who are interested (even slightly) in playing in MLS. There are some, or a lot of, top players who are eligible for the USMNT but who have shown no interest (yet) in playing in MLS. MLS wants to become a league of choice (for players and fans and media partners and coaches and everyone) and it definitely wants to be a "destination" league for (top) players and a league in which they would want to play (some of the most-productive years of their careers, ideally). So, I don't see a problem with what MLS is doing, on the whole. And I don't really see a problem with some individual player like Morris opting for a club like Bremen, but I would certainly think it would be more beneficial for MLS if he signed with Seattle now that he's decided to leave Stanford early.
This is a reasonable viewpoint and was well stated. My concern about your proposed path is that it creates a ceiling for an American player where they miss out on something crucial in their late teens that prevents them from being a UCL star player. For example, would LD have been our first UCL star if he had found a better fit in Europe? Who know - but as per my discussion with Tab, it's impossible to prove that a moot question is wrong! Marko72 makes an excellent point in that the USSF should be working to improve domestic Academies so that they're not world's behind the leading programs. I would argue that other areas that could be worthwhile as a USSF investment would be to provide an infrastructure so that Americans who do decide to train at the leading international academies minimize the non-soccer dislocation issues you cite (i.e., set aside funds for family to join them overseas or at least visit, create a path to two/three leading foreign programs and work with them to make sure they have Americans on staff and a nexus of Americans that our kids can interact with). This would be a pretty cost effective way to go forward. Another option would be to co-opt some of the leading programs by bringing them over to the US for [four - six] months at a time during their off-season. In other words, set up a program so that ManU brings its entire developmental academy to the US for a large percentage of the year. Perhaps this would work particularly well with European teams owned by Americans.