MLS needs to start caring about the USMNT again

Discussion in 'USA Men' started by adam tash, Jun 9, 2019.

  1. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    Don't you know that Tyler Adams is a RB?

    As for the rest, we'd have to see them with the NT to know. Remember all the hype with Kitchen, Canouse and Trapp not long ago?

    Kitchen flopped, Canouse was pigeonholed as a CB for whatever reason in Bochum and flopped, and Trapp never left.
     
  2. Mahtzo1

    Mahtzo1 Member+

    Jan 15, 2007
    So Cal
    I hope I'm right too!

    I think it gets back to one thing: We aren't any unluckier or luckier than any other country in terms of injuries or players that just don't pan out. What has been different is that other countries have had far more top prospects than we have had. Nobody in Germany bats an eye when the majority of their players don't make it because there is another to replace him.

    We still don't have near the talent density of the top soccer countries but we are starting to take advantage of our huge population base. In addition, our median level of talent is steadily rising. As a result, the top percentiles now are much better than they were in the past. As you touched on earlier, there are more parents that grew up playing the game and the U-little player is better than he was 5 or 10 yrs ago and that is true all the way up the tree.
     
  3. Chicago76

    Chicago76 Member+

    Jun 9, 2002
    In certain respects, they control the game via single entity, but in many practical respects (and the most relevant ones IMO), the soccer landscape in the US is far more decentralized than in other countries. This is down to geographic footprint and coverage. Between MLS and non-reserve USL Championship sides, we have 47 clubs for the entire country, many of which haven't been around for a decade. Japan has 40 J1 and J2 clubs. In a country roughly the size of California (and 3x CA's population). The comprehensive nature of the reach is something that can't really be matched (quickly) in a country of our size with the population here as decentralized as it is. Which means standards and approaches are more difficult to mandate.

    As was alluded to elsewhere, there was a hurdle re: proof of concept, SSS, and academy type systems. The one area where I think the US really whiffed on wrt youth development is this faith that the marketplace of ideas was going to solve the problem for MLS. Remember all those European club "academies" that were supposed to sprout up to teach our kids? The Ajax, Celtic, Panathinaikos, Arsenal affiliations? How did those turn out?

    You mentioned FCD doing what they started doing last year ten years ago...not getting that. You know they started the ground up youth development scheme back in 2008, right? It takes time to get the kids from the young ages up through the system. And we're only now seeing some of those fruits. The approach they decided to take back in 2008 was in direct response to the lack of a decentralized approach being able to sufficiently reach and produce kids here. Because of that footprint/coverage/culture issue. There's plenty of good early returns to suggests it works reasonably well. Well enough to know that if that were the template for every club, we'd be creating much, much more young talent. And it's built on the same approaches that are best practices in UEFA.

    It's interesting you mention Japan, because their development has a great deal to do with the concept of shifting the entire talent distribution up the curve a bit in the earliest ages to facilitate talent ID and to allow kids to sharpen the technical ability earlier.

    Two points on that. One is residential density. If we have 10 rec 7 year olds in your standard low density American suburban neighborhood of average ability or better who can get together and play and challenge one another, that means there are only 1 or 2 +1 sigma type kids. This is stifling because kids only progress as much as their competition permits. Ignoring the relative popularity of the game, in Stuttgart, or Yokohama or an exurb of Tokyo, you wouldn't have 10. You'd have 40. Because residential density. Which means you'd have 6 of those +1 sigma kids. They have opportunities to branch off and more challenge on another in their own small sided games. They're going to look like +1.5 sigma kids soon enough compared to the lonely American suburban advanced kid without this opportunity of free play with friends. And if you combine that with a method to elevate the entire population, they could even be better, which leads to 2.

    2-the guy who changed youth soccer in Japan is from NY. He started clinics, which turned into some anime/ninja soccer footwork stuff that a lot of the kids got into. Basically coerver type trick/beat your friends with soccer ninja stuff. Voltron/Power Rangers/Pokémon meets soccer. It was a great way to reach a lot of kids in a monoculture country. The entire idea was to shift the entire distribution of kids up the curve...to facilitate better schoolyard quality...and to make it easier for kids of a certain ability to find other kids of a certain ability.

    https://slate.com/culture/2013/02/t...cer-a-player-on-the-world-football-stage.html

    We need something like that as a cultural touchstone for the sport in the US. Because advancing everyone up the curve early to form greater talent density to strong feedback loop with both free play and organized play at a certain standard is key. But almost as importantly, I think clubs are beginning now understand that nothing is coming in to fill the early development vacuum. You can't count on other clubs to do it right. They want to win. Not develop 6-14 year olds. You can't count on UEFA club X to do something here either. It's a branding/scouting exercise for them. Same with some of the half hearted MLS attempts at player development you rightly called out. So the only way to create the appropriate player densities via best practices grassroots development is to build their own comprehensive network.

    In other words, the game and expectations at the younger levels probably need to be more centralized. Not less. I don't think those are the actions of a magnanimous benefactor. They're a union of having the resources (as a now more established league), having some semblance of brand value that didn't exist 15 years ago, and being pragmatic about how much help is really needed from U little to U14 if MLS clubs will have any hope of having the numbers to pull off the U14 to reserve to first team bridges.

    It's really nothing more than a process/industrial engineering problem. The major screw up along the way is that we didn't appropriately consider the environment/resource/density issues here and how they influence that process.

    But again, this has basically zero to do with foreign player allocations and the like at the MLS level.
     
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  4. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Also worth noting, as I've mentioned many times before: FCD is a few years ahead of the curve. Most of MLS didn't have ground-up development systems until after it was mandated in 2012, and some teams took two or three years after that to get it fully set up while piggybacking on existing youth clubs in the interim.

    A player who entered an academy system at age 11 in 2012 is 18 years old today. This means 5 times as many cohorts have come entirely through the FCD academy system than most of the other MLS academy systems.
     
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  5. Clint Eastwood

    Clint Eastwood Member+

    Dec 23, 2003
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Yup. A player like Weston McKennie was training at Dallas for 7 years before he moved to Schalke. FCD develops players, but they're also great at scouting and recruiting. Any MLS club could have signed Edwin Cerrillo, Thomas Roberts, Brandon Servania, Chris Richards, Ricardo Pepi, etc. They're not from an MLS "homegrown territory." They recruited Paxton Pomykal and Reggie Cannon as teenagers from the Texans and Solar. Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Ajas, etc. do the same thing. Its an investment in scouting and player identification as much as it is day-to-day development.

    All of that comes down to Oscar Pareja. He's the reason FCD has that academy. He built it, was a huge advocate for it as youth technical director, and then when he returned as coach he used those players.

    FCD started their academy in earnest around 2007. More than half of MLS didn't exist in 2007. Most of MLS right now is still figuring out their first team culture. They're investing in youth and player development, but are still going thru the growing pains that FCD went thru a decade ago. FCD signed a whole bunch of kids early on, but really didn't know how they were going to develop them. Didn't know how to give them the right opportunities. Didn't have a pathway worked out. It was almost like they were signing young players because they wanted to sign young players, not because they thought the players would be impactful first team players.

    Its taken Dallas quite a long time to figure out WHICH players to sign, and how to put them of a pathway to success. They're still figuring it out to some degree. They could have done even better with players like Cannon and Pomykal.

    But when I look at younger clubs like Atlanta I see a lot of problems that FCD went thru before. Atlanta signed a cohort of young players (Carleton, Goslin, Kunga, Okonkwo, etc) but they don't really seem to know what to do with them. Bello might be playing more if he wasn't hurt all the time.

    I would also add that in no league around the world does EVERY club have domestic youth and player development as a critical aspect of their business model. Manchester City has one of the best academies out there. The facilities are amazing. They probably spend more on youth development than all of MLS combined. And yet, how many homegrown youth do that have in their squad. Foden and...………………..

    So we can't expect EVERY club to do what Dallas, NYRB, RSL, Philly, LAG, etc. are doing in terms of investing in youth and player development. I don't know what the right percentage is. But I do see a lot of clubs investing a lot in order to catch up (Seattle, SKC, San Jose, etc.). If a couple of clubs (like say Portland) isn't particularly interested...…………..…...we sorta have to expect that. They've made it clear they're going to go out and try to acquire the best player they can in every position with the money they're allowed to spend. They're interested in trophies and not much else. And that's just the way some clubs are going to be.
     
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  6. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    You said MLS isn't giving us any capable DMs. Literally the best player out of MLS development is a DM. Yes, you get your snark in, but I think MLS is actually pretty good at the DM market.

    It's attackers we haven't seen a ton of. Which isn't surprising.
     
  7. Baysider

    Baysider Member+

    Jul 16, 2004
    Santa Monica
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    I agree that while there is some reason for optimism, it's still too early to tell. But the thing is, we probably don't even have a common definition for what success is.

    On the U-20 team, there were two Galaxy produces: Alex Mendez and Ulysses Llanez. Was this a success? From the point of view of the USMNT, this is a success. It would be great if every MLS academy could produce one or two quality U-20 players per cycle. From the Galaxy's point of view, it was a failure.They both signed with other teams. The Galaxy received no benefits from the '00 and '01 cohorts.

    Jose Mourinho once questioned the value of Chelsea having an academy; they sign the best players from around the world and what's the chance that the best player is going to come from a particular neighborhood in London?

    In some ways, America isn't a good place for soccer academies. Even the cities are pretty spread out which makes it hard for players to get to training if it's far from where they live. Costs of running an academy are high (land, buildings, labor) while the rewards to being a run-of-the-mill professional soccer player aren't that great compared to other employment opportunities available. There is a world of MLS-quality soccer players who could do just as well as domestic players.

    Everything MLS is doing now should be considered an experiment. My sense is a third of the teams don't really want to do it and a third of the teams aren't that good it. The good news is that there are a bunch of teams trying different things. We need to find which of things they are doing will actually work out, and make sure there is an incentive for other teams to follow.
     
  8. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    FCD is also not above recruiting players from Houston, let me throw that in
     
  9. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    i think vancouver is the one MLS team that has a residency academy like a prep school like a serious big club would have, or like bradenton used to be. when you offer a boarding school then the distance issues go away and you offer a tangible other thing (free private education) to those who might not make the first team eventually.

    on a related note, everyone doesn't usually make big club first teams from the academy, but there is more of a culture elsewhere of ok, if i don't sign "here" i will sign "there." you were at arsenal academy but go sign at doncaster and start there instead. my impression is we instead go to college.

    i would argue this is not a real academy thing so much as the hyper-professionalization and local pro branding of select. that could be a step up from the old ways, but is not kids training twice a day in a residential boarding environment around an education. i think some assume the training is superior but it is not delivered by the first team and becomes a question of the effort and money put into the youth staff. locally the dynamo are no better than the sort of team i grew up playing for in traditional club.

    i also think there is a certain naivete where our players are in more demand abroad, but abroad is an affection lottery, and increasingly domestically there is less room for domestic youth players in first teams too. we are now both in the business of spending money on veteran imports, and even bringing in foreign U20s. so exposure to professional environments goes up and up but i don't know if opportunity does.
     
  10. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #210 juvechelsea, Jul 16, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2019
    MX I believe has rules requiring a specific split on who dresses, and that youth players get x minutes per season.

    EPL is behind the work permit curtain. No roster rules but you don't even get in without meeting certain criteria.

    B.1 requires 12 Germans on the first team roster and 8 trained locally.

    Most leagues have some rules protecting domestic players. There are few if any pure capitalist utopias.

    Most leagues would also see that intangibly, they benefit from the buzz around the NT, in terms of their own interest and attendance.

    I don't think "business" would suffer if one of the DPs had to be domestic, if you got a free DP for domestic youth internationals, and the overall foreign player count per team dropped from 8 to 5. I bluntly think many of the people who whine about those limits, and pro-rel, and so forth, don't tend to be big MLS fans anyway. Their whole point tends to be why isn't this like EPL. Except they tend to have blinders on the protectionist games those countries play. So I don't think much real business would lost if there was tinkering with roster and cap rules to promote the domestic player. I kind of doubt that having more Americans to watch would actually scare people off.
     
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  11. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    FWIW, MLS has historically been liberal about

    1. letting players go to Camp Cupcake instead of their preseason pro camp
    2. letting players go to World Cup and other camps earlier than the release rules might demand

    so the idea that their business plan is premised on a European model of "you get your players when FIFA makes me" is kind of bunk. They have always been fairly cooperative.

    Now, in recent years DPs and international slots have gone up and up, and the NT has suffered. The pendulum has swung too far over and all you have to do is let it go back middle someplace, a little restraint.
     
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  12. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    #212 juvechelsea, Jul 16, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2019
    Baysider: surely you might see the connection between the risks of not having an academy and CFC's transfer ban? yes, some incredibly funded team can buy its way out of the need for local players. but i'd be curious how long a strategy of buying players is economically sustainable. the implication of the ban is CFC is constantly infusing money from their rich owner as opposed to running an accounting profit.

    also, it's just bad business. academy players can be cheaper signings for the first team, and income from sales, at the introductory rate.
    or
    you can go around paying the veteran rate for everyone and watch your payroll skyrocket. cycle back around to my argument on economic sustainability.

    i mean, does no one notice how few EPL teams are locally owned anymore? these are vanity projects. You harrangue the rest of us about "business" but few of them are run as precision projects to make an accounting profit in a fenced off fashion. This is rich billionaires from Russia and UAE and America writing checks.

    At least some of this is big club snobbery talking. There is a whole type of team that lives off training up and selling players. That includes some big names in smaller leagues like Ajax. That is economically profitable and sustainable. What is more financially dubious is the current big club model of veteran signings aplenty to the point of having a second team to lend out.

    FWIW, as a Houston Dynamo fan, we focus on veteran signings at market cost and have 2 HGP who ever dress, only one of whom sometimes starts. And we are currently in the bind that a less ambitious "buying" team who gets the idea to sell players, or has players who want out, runs the risk of ruining its season if it sells its key players on, but may also lose their passion by keeping them. Only teams that spend beyond their means and can redundantly sign get out of this, but it cannot be economical to do that.

    Also, by buying veterans and trying to sell them, it becomes harder to turn a profit. Geoff Cameron who is drafted, starts off at $60k/season, pure profit. But if we spend millions on Cubo or Elis, they then need to be worth more to make money as sales. It becomes asset flipping.

    The way people look at MLS amuses me. Seattle and New England are basically the same business model. Daddy NFL team provides rent free home, and team provides supplemental income to offseason stadium. But one is great and the other is the end of the world.
     
  13. Chicago76

    Chicago76 Member+

    Jun 9, 2002
    Clubs in soccer dense regions vs. MLS is a good illustrative contrast. If you're Chelsea, you're buying players from everywhere. Because you can. But all of those players are coming from clubs (or towns) where a critical number of players performing at a particular standard were present. Players tend to elevate and develop together. Someone like a Hazard could not afford to spend his youth playing on (or against) teams/players where most of the players weren't within 1-2 notches of his ability. If the majority of his teammates/opponents were worse that that, then that imposes a ceiling on his ability to develop 1-2 levels worse than where he is today. And in a lot of Europe, the ecosystem is rich enough to ensure that even if a club (or many) clubs with lots of cash decide they will simply buy what they need. It's not dependent upon single clubs because there are so many redundancies in the system.

    We don't have that luxury here. Not even in the soccer hotbeds that tend to produce the most talent via their pre-existing club pool. The knowledge gaps at the grassroots level are still far too big to produce a sufficient number of 9-10 year olds from U littles. Ditto he U10 to U14 path. So while a club may take a 15 or 16 year old from another club via scouting, one of the biggest assets you can provide that player is the ability to play with a sufficient number of age cohorts of a certain ability. Clubs need to actively build that. And you're only going to get that is through a large network of players being monitored and developed in house from the U8 or so path up.

    We can contrast that approach further with the approach other clubs like the Fire have taken with their satellite club model or Sporting KC and their affiliate model. If the Fire are simply taking the best 15-20 players in an affiliate market like Indianapolis whose talent would have coalesced at pre-existing club X and they aren't offering them something appreciably different in terms of training, they aren't developing players. They're reshuffling deck chairs on the Titanic and selling crests as a brand signal boost. Or maybe even more cynically, they're trying to lock up "territory" before Cincinnati, Detroit, St. Louis etc can. I'm not saying this is the case, but even if it weren't, they aren't getting the player boost they would if they were building from the grassroots up. My sense is that it's a bit of both. Lock up territory. Seed them with some teams that are collections of the "best of" from area clubs. Give them <something>. They'll figure the rest out as we go and build something out...eventually. Probably when they see what is successful elsewhere.

    Regardless of the approach, for the league to perform at any particular soccer level sustainably, it's going to need to insure that roughly 50% of its players are domestic. That's long term. Looking around the world, England is about the only place it's appreciably higher, but the club standard is so poor in Ireland, Wales, and NI that their players functionally part of the English domestic pyramid. Hell, Scotland too by this point. There may be stretches where quality improves appreciably where that's not realistic until the development footprint and pipeline catches up. That doesn't mean every club will need to adhere to that 50% threshold either. If spending is allowed to diverge further, bigger clubs with more cash may be lower. Smaller market clubs may also find it hard to mine talent in their smaller regions. But I'm not particularly concerned with mandating that level. The market will get there on its own. Because at some point, reasonably priced imports from other parts of the Americas won't be good enough to add value and the next price point is a lot steeper.
     
  14. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    I think we are starting to see some teams build second locations (RSL in Arizona is one) and work out relationships with non-MLS programs which I assume come with mutual benefits.

    A smart team will create a spiderweb in its area.
     
  15. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    Philly has a school and boarding situation.

    The best programs absolutely do train with the first team, moreso as the players get better.
     
  16. Baysider

    Baysider Member+

    Jul 16, 2004
    Santa Monica
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Actually I don't. After a year they'll resume buying expensive players and will be careful with young players. I don't see this making much difference at all

    I think this is Dallas's view. They are one of the lowest spending teams in the league and are trying to avoid spending their own money. Their hope is that they can run a bunch of youngsters out there, stay moderately competitive, and fund the academy out of player sales. I think it could work and it's certainly one way to approach MLS.


    I think there's a couple different levels here. The rich teams want to win and so will buy the best players. The poor teams want to survive and have to rely on players they develop. Some teams may be good enough at development to fund some of their operations from it. (You also raise the issue of "oligarch" teams such as Man City and Chelsea and the ordinary rich teams like Man U and Arsenal, but I don't think that matters much for development).

    I think there's a chance we could see this split in MLS. Rich teams buy top foreign players to win, poor teams develop their own where their goal is to just make the playoffs. I don't think we're there yet. The idea behind MLS is that every team can potentially win, and currently the rich teams are doing as much development as the poor, but it wouldn't surprise me if the splits got larger.
     
  17. Chicago76

    Chicago76 Member+

    Jun 9, 2002
    A lot of them have multiple locations. The Fire have one in Indy, Evansville, Grand Rapids, somewhere in Northern Indiana (I think), and on and on. I think there’s even one in TX. KC has several too. One of them in STL.

    The big question to me is what they’re doing with these locations. Are they merely a co-branding exercise or is there something of value being provided?

    A club in TX that was now getting its ass beat by FCD might want an MLS crest too to recruit. And the Chicago Fire don’t really care if you don’t develop players in TX because it has zero brand impact. It does give them another set of eyes down there for player scouting. So nothing really changes.

    The spider web approach is good if the investment and value proposition is legit from a development standpoint. The deep roots approach (10-20 u10 or whatever teams with a solid development curriculum) will always work.
     
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  18. jaykoz3

    jaykoz3 Member+

    Dec 25, 2010
    Conshohocken, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    A lot of this gets lost in these conversations. It was only 6-8 yeaars ago that MLS teams were signing Home Grown Players for the sake of saying that they signed youth players. Most teams didn't have a plan to develop these players once they were signed to first team contracts. There were a few exceptions (Yedlin, Hamid, Najar, & Trapp to name a few). I look at Philly's first Home Grown Signings...........they had ZERO plan to get them integrated into the first team at that time. The FO at that time didn't even OFFER Steffen a contract!!! It wasn;t until just before they hired Earnie Stewart to oversee their soccer operations that they really built a true pathway from YSC Academy to the Union.

    Red Bull gets a lot of flack in MLS circles. Some of it is warranted, however, when it comes to youth development.........they are miles ahead of everyone in MLS, including FC Dallas. Philly's academy bares watching now because of Red Bull as well. They hired Ernst Tanner to take over for Stewart, he was formerly at Hoffenheim (who have a one of the better Academies in the B1), and was recently the head of RB Salzburg's Academy (which has quietly become one of the best in Europe).

    It'll be interesting to see what Te'Klosse does at LA Galaxy alongside GBS. The two LA teams are sleeping giants. Chivas USA was a bonafide Sh!t Show in MLS, however their youth Academy was one of, if not the best in the league. Te'Klosse was overseeing that as he was at Chivas at that time overseeing both teams.
    Philly has a Soccer Prep School. They also have a residential program for out of town players. The Prep School is tuition based, however most of the students receive substantial financial aid (scholarships).

    https://www.yscacademy.com/

    https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/philadelphia-union/inside-look-unions-ysc-academy

    https://phillysoccerpage.net/2017/01/24/teaching-self-responsibility-at-ysc-academy/

    https://phillysoccerpage.net/2016/12/20/a-day-at-ysc-academy/

    https://phillysoccerpage.net/2016/11/16/ysc-academy-opens-its-doors-three-points/

    https://phillysoccerpage.net/2017/05/10/the-academys-future/

    https://phillysoccerpage.net/2017/03/28/union-pre-academy-gets-it-right-a-parents-view/

    Those are some articles about the Academy itself. Some good insight into one of MLS' Academies for those interested in what is being done.

    MLS has made mistakes along the way, no sensible fan would argue that. Most of the league's teams have a long way to go when it comes to youth development. Some teams are just not going to get to the level that the Academies of FCD, Philly, RBNY, etc. have. For a variety reasons. Right now, more than half of the league is less than 10 years old.

    It's taken Philly 10 years to get their youth development where it is now. They haven't even scratched the surface yet and have a long way to go, which Richie Graham (owner of YSC Academy and minority owner of the Union), Jim Curtin, and Ernst Tanner have said repeatedly. Philly spends more on youth development per year than any other MLS team does. They're spending 5-6 million dollars per year. Ernst Tanner when he arrived said that the Academy is on good footing, but he's raising the bar of expectations as he feels Philly can and should be producing many more MLS level players than have.

    It bears repeating: La Masia wasn't built over night. It took Barca decades to build and hone their youth academy. Ditto Ajax, West Ham, Southampton, Lyon, Sporting Lisbon, etc. People lose sight of this all the time. Throwing money at youth development isn't going to magically change it into a conveyor belt overnight.
     
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  19. Chicago76

    Chicago76 Member+

    Jun 9, 2002
    I think it’s worth pointing out that Philly is in an advantageous position too. From day zero, they take possession of a location that already produces a pretty good base of 14 year olds in Eastern PA and NJ. So they had the luxury to focus on identifying and elevating the games of relatively old age cohorts that were at least decent before they ever got their hands on them. And that still takes time to get right.

    The problem in a lot of markets runs much, much deeper. There are good players everywhere. But there must be enough of them before they ever hit an academy for the academy to have any chance of functioning quasi-efficiently.
     
  20. jaykoz3

    jaykoz3 Member+

    Dec 25, 2010
    Conshohocken, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Exactly, Philly dicked around for years and squandered their opportunities at the best players in the area who never signed with them. Their Academy didn't start to bear real fruit until around 2015/2016 when they had a plan and path way to integrate YSC with the first team. Their USL team (Bethlehem Steel FC) has been a real key for the development of their young players.
     
  21. coachd24

    coachd24 Member

    Feb 22, 2013
    Club:
    RC Lens
    I think a lot of the issues come with how big the country is. Let's take London for example. There is 5 EPL teams and 5 Championship teams in that city alone. That means for each age group there's about 200 players that are in a top professional academy. All of those kids are playing for free based on the revenue the Senior team makes. In the US with the DA you are looking at a group of 20-25 players representing a large area of talent (100's of square miles for 1 team and sometimes much more).

    I think the Academy system is off to a great start but there needs to be a second level to it. USL has done great things at the pro level by letting some MLS reserves develop and if they can produce their own academies you are doubling the player pool. Even in a dense population like the NY Area, if a kid lives in the middle of NJ he has to travel either 1 hour to Philly, 1 hour to Harrison, or just stay with his local club. I think US Soccer needs to recognize tiers of leagues at the youth level too so kids have a pathway to making an MLS/USL Academy (preferably with a schooling system set in place). While adding so many teams so quickly in MLS has hurt the product on the field professionally, theres no question it is going to help immensely in terms of player development if they can find the best kids in their area and put them in a professional setting as soon as possible.
     
  22. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    to come at it from the other direction, the houston dynamo academy is buried in south houston where someone in the northern suburbs where the best soccer is played would have an hour drive. whereas i could play for a better select team than the dynamo and have a 5-10 minute drive to the practice fields and home games. now if the team is a lot better, or i have a dream of pro soccer, maybe that hour is worth it. but otherwise, my club and the other good club have produced first team pros (eg Shea and Holden) in bigger numbers and impact than the Dynamo (eg Deric and Memo).

    the solution is either multiple academy teams geographically dispersed -- which starts to sound like it's turning back into traditional select -- or boarding school like a real academy. or they scholarship kids to private schools in the area of the academy training area. or you train and perhaps play locally for periods and then like ODP a few times a year The Full Academy meets. maybe goes to the big tournaments eg Dallas Cup.

    i feel like the convo got too far into the factual weeds -- ok, philly is news to me -- without getting at the practical concern i am expressing. that some of the solutions would reflect the fact that I am not sure we are far enough removed from the select way of doing things, really. it still sounds like many teams are just branded select -- and i know at one point the dynamo literally acquired a set of select teams.
     
  23. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    i get what you are saying re Philly USL but some teams may be using USL as a means to hide foreign players away from MLS limits. and i want to say most USL affiliates are either owned by someone else -- the Dynamo provide RGV players but RGV owns itself -- or literally just an affiliation agreement for 5 players or something. i say this because if it's not an integrated whole then the focus is not necessarily development. an affiliation agreement team is mostly not yours and wants to win now for financial reasons. a team you don't own but supply may still be a little more concerned with finances and winning than development.

    personally i felt like Houston's strongest development (eg Wondo) was under a reserve team concept coached by first team personnel. the team is no longer intended just to win, or to be used as a place to hide your 9th, 10th etc foreign players, but is part of your team. you no longer have to get 2 staffs right, just one.

    in short, i'd prefer the EPL reserve team approach to the B.1 imitation of separate second teams we're increasingly implementing. i think a reserve team comes with an inherent warning it may be used for development. i think a farm team has interest conflicts about am i paying to watch development or is this team supposed to win in its own league, including against non-affiliate teams who can field 30 year olds and don't care if their players ever see MLS.
     
  24. juvechelsea

    juvechelsea Member+

    Feb 15, 2006
    i mean, a smart USL type team truly trying to develop players might emphasize technical growth, athletic fitness training, stuff that doesn't build towards winning the game that week, but might make you a more valuable first teamer in 1-2 years. but one thing about looking to league participation is there is winning pressure.
     
  25. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    The clamor about MLS not letting our talented youngsters go to Europe would be deafening.

    That would work a lot better if the Euro leagues respected us more and were willing to actually pay decent money to get one of those DP youngsters with international experience.

    Sadly, they don't. And the moment they are making enough here, no one is going to come offering anything better.
     
    gogorath repped this.

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