I think MLS should implement a U-21 Independent League - a professional developement league. Instead of "B" teams, each MLS club should have a U-21 team, a talent feeding team to the senior team. With this system all USL clubs should be independent clubs. However MLS clubs could loan players to this clubs, not to a particular club, any USL club. A maximum of 2 players per USL Club. MLS clubs would have 2 alternatives for player development and formation: U-21 teams and loaning players to USL clubs. With this, all USL clubs could participate in US Open Cup, for example. I believe with this system US Soccer could achieve a higher level in a near future, close to European levels. US SOCCER PYRAMID PRO-SOCCER Level 1: MLS. No relegation. Level 2: USL 1st Division. Relegation: yes. Level 3: USL 2nd Division. Promotion: Yes. Relegation: No. AMATEUR SOCCER Level 4 and below. Not in the Pyramid: MLS U-21 League.
Do you even follow US club soccer? A MLS U-21 league is not likely to be workable in the next decade. If U-21 teams exist, they could not be professional; they would not be able to field enough players to compete. Too many U-21 players will want to maintain their college eligibility. And if they're not professional, then there's essentially no difference between them and the existing MLS U-23 teams that compete in the PDL.
U-21 or U-23. I personally prefer U-23. Why they can't be professional? I'm not talking teams like PDL teams. I'm talking about professional U-23 MLS teams. USL (D2) clubs will be independent from MLS clubs, and MLS clubs could loan players to this clubs. 2 types of player development. This is the europpean model. Professional soccer clubs have U-23 (professional), U-18 and so one. They also loan players to other clubs.
Because they won't find enough U-23 players willing to sign pro contracts and lose their eligibility to play college soccer. There will be some, but not enough to fill more than 20 U-23 teams with pros. And mixing pros with amateurs doesn't work because anyone who's already in college soccer loses his eligibility if he plays alongside pros in any team that isn't a national team. Just creating a league isn't going to immediately make enough players interested to roughly quadruple the number of U-23 pros in the US. There needs to be enough money being offered for players to be interested.
LOL What's the point of playing in college soccer, when you could play in a Pro-Soccer Team, being pay for that??!!
*sigh* guess I'm going to have to spell it out for you. The point of playing college soccer is to go to college. Despite what a number of soccer fans in this forum want to believe, the general American mindset is still focused on graduating from high school, getting into a good college, getting an education, then going pro. Overcoming that cultural bias is not easy.
My niece is a very good softball player. She is on scholarship at an elite JC, which placed every graduating team member on scholarship at a D-I school both this year and last. Currently, she's being recruited by teams in the ACC, Big XII, and PAC-12. (Even if there was a pro softball league, though, she probably wouldn't quite be good enough, or would be a journeyman.) She's measuring these schools first by her major, then by their softball program. While not every college athlete does this, wise ones do. If being a very good soccer player means getting free schooling, it's worth doing for most players until and unless they can get a real pro contract. There's nothing wrong with making $30K in the USL, but if it means you won't get free school there's good reason to pass.
Paulo PT, I will implore you, once again to PLEASE.JUST.STOP. Just stop it. Stop creating thread after thread with whatever nonsense you can dream up. Stop with the promotion and relegation. Stop with the endless and needlessly complex season structure. Stop with, well, just making shit up, throwing it at the wall and seeing if any of it will stick. It won't stick. It just stinks. So, please, stop.
Yes, that is smart....if you're playing softball. Or soccer, or any of the "lower tier" sports. If you are an elite football, basketball, baseball, or hockey player you're going to pick the college with the best sports program so that you can get scouted. That's where the money is, so that's the athletes focus. When American soccer players are able to make the massive money that their counterparts in other sports do, you'll see this too (although it could be in the form of elite athletes just forgoing NCAA altogether to stay in the academy system).
There's data that shows what it takes to get players to leave college soccer: Generation Adidas salaries. In order to get players to leave college early and give up their eligibility for free college education, MLS has to pay most of them above-median salaries. Of the 12 players signed to GA contracts in 2015 and 2016, 8 are being paid six figures and all 12 are earning at least $84k, even though only 4 of them are starters for their MLS clubs. They're not worth what they're being paid, but because of the high financial value of what they're giving up, MLS just has to offer them that much to get them to leave college. So now we get to this proposed U-21 league -- is this a proposal for MLS clubs to each carry an entire roster of U-21 players being paid at first-team salary levels? And if so, where's that money going to come from?
21-23 years old to start a soccer pro-career is to late by soccer standards. Is very difficult to jump from soccer college to top professional soccer. I don't think college players have the skills to play in professional top leagues. At least in Europe, if you want to be a profesional soccer player you need to focus on soccer not college. You can keep studying of course (high school is mandatory), but soccer must be your top priority after high school, when you become a pro-player. A good player takes years of formation to be ready to play for Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Benfica, etc. One player could start a soccer career at Barcelona (for example) with 6 years old, staying 10 years at youth level and then starting a pro-career with 16-17 years old and then reaching Barcelona main team with 18 years old.
And none of that addresses my point. BTW, guys like (just from the Rapids) Deshorn Brown, Dillon Powers, and Axel Sjoberg would disagree that 21-23 is too late or they don't have teh skills to play top level soccer. Unless you're defining "top level" as only the EPL/La Liga/Bundesliga.
There isn't enough money in pro soccer in the US to make it worthwhile to skip college, unless you're already so good that it's a can't miss proposition. Anyone who's playing in a developmental league during the 18-21 years isn't that kind of prospect.
Just to name some guys from around here: Geoff Cameron, Stuart Holden, and Clint Dempsey all played college soccer and then wound up starting for EPL teams.
Benfica B says, "Hello!" Perhaps the OP should start with the team he supports before making demands of a league he doesn't seem to follow?
Ok. So you are saying that Barcelona has an academy and the kids play youth soccer with them until they are old enough and good enough to play in professional games with their B side and if they get good enough then they play with the main club. That sounds familiar. Hmm, Auston Trusty spent years developing with the Union youth team and, when he was good enough, started playing pro ball with the Union's B team and earned a first team contract at 18. In fact, I see quite a few players that have done that in the past year or two in MLS. So you use Barcelona as an example of how to produce players and your proposal is the exact opposite of how Barcelona produces players. What you are proposing is the same thing basically as England. And England has been trying for the past few years to implement a system that is similar to that of Spain, Germany, and the US in order to better develop youth players. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/03/19/will-premier-league-b-team-plans-rise-from-the-ashes/ The top 5 European national teams right now according to that stupid FIFA ranking system are Germany, Belgium, France, Portugal, and Spain. Three of those have B teams in the pyramid. One has B teams at the amateur level of the pyramid (France). Only Belgium has a system somewhat like what you are proposing but only up till the U19 level (best I can tell). You switch to the ELO ranking system and you swap in Italy for Belgium and you are stuck with the same results. The best teams in Europe right now are the ones that have a system that is similar to what we have started building in the US. And you want to blow it up because... Which it isn't in the leagues of the top national teams in Europe.