I think now with Los Dos that's less of an issue because we can offer them a professional contract at a young age if they aren't ready for the step to up to MLS, but that would sway them into staying with the club. Along the league getting better every year, I think LigaMx will have a harder time luring our academy prospects away. We'll inevitably lose some, but I think that will start to happen less and less. I heard on some podcast that Haji Wright (kid who left our academy to go to Europe) got pulled up to the first team at Schalke for their winter friendlies. Glad to see he's actually progressing there.
It's so very mean making me read Will Parchman: But fine, I'll plunge my thermometer into our academy to gauge its..., no, wait, that just sounds so wrong. When evaluating our academy, we're really thinking about two different things. The first is that it simply serves as a net to catch any talented youth that happen to be in Los Angeles. The second is the Kleiban experiment; if we choose players based strictly on technical skills, will we get enough who turn out to be good-enough athletes that they can make it professionally in MLS? Our biggest success was Zardes who certainly fits the first category. He's talented, we have him, but I'm not sure it's because of our exceptional training methods. Alvarez (that midfielder) is the perfect example of a Kleiban player. The first Kleiban class with numbers is graduating in 2018 and the one after that is likely even better. Llanez seems like the star of that class (so far, they're all still young) and he's the one Gary Kleiban pointed out was playing up two years. Given our youth focus, I'd expect to see more academy players at G2, but given where we are, I think we're going to have to wait for another year before we see a lot of movement. I believe the academy director position is still open. I wonder if Gary's mad because Brian got passed over for that job.
When I say "really, really good" this is the kind of player I'm talking about. Seems like a raw deal if a European/Mexican club can just come in and scoop up our highest ceiling kids w/o significant compensation to the Academy. As far as the league getting better every year and becoming more competition to LigaMx - I just don't see much of this happening since the 2015 CBA. The players didn't want to lose their jobs so they accepted a small immediate salary cap increase to 3.5 mil with only 5% annual salary cap growth for the 5 year duration of the agreement. That is a 3.5% increase per year after adjusting for inflation. Worse it's almost certainly an actual decrease per year if you account for worldwide player salary inflation over that time period. In fact over the 5 years of the agreement the average salary for senior non-DP players was expected to only reach 200k by 2019. Note we are only talking senior players on the team, and we are talking average so many will have to be significantly under that mark. That's ridiculously low and why LA and other MLS teams have had to dump good players every year. Sure the league has worked around the edges with the different allocation $'s and with DP's but we still can't afford to even hold onto even to relatively low wage players like Juninho, Sarvas, and AJ. Even with our TAM, GAM, and whatever other tricks we pull out. To stay on our growth rate and our promise as the next big thing happening in US sports our 2015 cap should have gone up to 4.5 mil+ in the last CBA with annual increases in the 7-10% range (that adds up over a few years). Keeping really good 300-350k senior non-DP players should have been make easily doable. Add in the DP allowances and we would have been a soccer league truly on the upswing and increasingly competitive with LigaMx and the like. But we kind of blew it with the last CBA and it killed a lot of our momentum. Once you add in player dilution due to increasing # of clubs we are seeing little improvement going on now from year to year. Yes club prices are going up exponentially (which to me is evidence that we could have afforded a faster growing salary cap) but the on field product has stagnated imo. MLS is more and more of a niche league. Not what I had hoped for.
http://www.lagalaxy.com/post/2017/0...-academy-defender-aristotle-zarris-named-us-u What's interesting is that Zarris is listed as a midfielder on the academy page and has 7 goals this year. Sounds like he must be a wide player. He's an October 99 birthday which I believe means he graduates next academic year, although since we've already offered Lopez a pro contract there's no reason we couldn't offer him one as well.
I figure if anybody knows it would be you guys... Is BJ4 the first player to play in MLS who was born after the league started?
Alphonso Davies of the Whitecaps is the first player to be born in the 2000s. Born November 2, 2000. I believe he is the youngest player to feature in the league
don't know for sure, but i imagine he has to be close. first appearance was as a substitute on 7/19/2014 @ SKC. age 17 at the time. he's credited with an assist too. IIRC, he got his head on a cross in a bunch of traffic and the ball fell to someone.
http://www.lagalaxy.com/post/2017/0...mit-universities-national-signing-day-insider 4 commit to universities, but not great programs. I guess if you were going to one of the top college teams, you might lean towards signing with Los Dos instead. The article says that the remaining seniors have not committed so hopefully we'll hear some other news soon.
Maybe not great soccer programs? But, Dartmouth? Now if that's not an educational sales pitch that LAG can make to any parent thinking about allowing their son or daughter to attend the academy, I can't think of a better one. Hopefully a rep like that will ultimately pay soccer dividends too. I know not immediately, but over the long haul I think that is actually pretty great.
Ateno Ajeakwa is training with G2 currently, so it's entirely possible he signs pro. Signing day for academy players anymore is pretty irrelevant. Plenty of guys our guys commit but sign pro instead.
Tri le gana a la US Soccer una nueva promesa, que pretenden clubes europeos https://t.co/MwJC1Adm9S vía @ESPNmx— Iván Cañada (@Ivanjo88) February 3, 2017
@LAGalaxyAcademy player Efrain Alvarez is currently in Qatar with the 2002 Mexican National Team. pic.twitter.com/flXcmhpSet— LA Galaxy Academy (@LAGalaxyAcademy) February 4, 2017
Sign him to Los Dos and let him play with the U18s. Pull him into Los Dos if there's injuries or whatever. Let him know he has a future here if that's what he wants. I have no idea what the rules are for transfer fees for kids under 18 are, but we should find a way if a team from Europe wants him to join their academy we get some form of compensation.
Seems like this is the type of kid the organization should want and prioritize-- local kid, talented and perhaps a future Mexican or USMNT player.
LA Galaxy Academy @LAGalaxyAcademy 8h8 hours ago @LAGalaxyAcademy U12s beat @LAFCAcademy @LAFC 2-1 in the first game of the day.
A full weekend of @LAGalaxyAcademy soccer is coming up!Academy Preview: https://t.co/w7NjJU1KLj pic.twitter.com/x6IeaWummh— LA Galaxy II (@LAGalaxyII) February 17, 2017
Championship bound! 🏆#GalaxyAcademy U-16s advance to the Generation Adidas Cup Finals: https://t.co/iHav1Z0H0q pic.twitter.com/9W6iOAFmg2— LA Galaxy II (@LAGalaxyII) February 22, 2017
http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/the91stminute/2017/03/nine-mls-clubs-told-grant-wahl-how-much-they-spend-on-their-academies/ Pulled from each individual questionnaire, here’s the ranked list of the nine who submitted figures on how much they spent in 2016 on their respective academy setups. New England Revolution: $1 million D.C. United: $1.5 million Montreal Impact: $1.5 million Chicago Fire: $1.75 million Columbus Crew: $2.5 million FC Dallas: $3 million Portland Timbers: $3 million LA Galaxy: $4 million Philadelphia Union: $4 million
On topdrawersoccer.com, there is a scouting report for John Hilton. If anyone has a membership, can you post a synopsis of it?
Interesting. Not at all surprising that Cheapo Kraft is short changing his academy. Teach 'em young. Some of the differentials though may relate to the operational costs in a particular area. Hypothetically, $3 mm spent in Dallas might buy you the same thing $4 mm spent in Los Angeles gets you, particular if you are allocating part of the fixed facility costs to the academy. I don't have any real numbers to support this but I think it would be interesting to see an analysis of it.
2002 Efra Alvarez currently with the U15 Mexican National Team in Mexico City for a domestic camp. pic.twitter.com/y4QeAZvjYT— LA Galaxy Academy (@LAGalaxyAcademy) March 13, 2017