He's probably a fair bit better at the moment, which is presumably why the club wants to sign him. He was first-team All Pac-12, captain of Stanford, etc. I've caught a couple Stanford games with him (not many), and he's a perfectly good player. My issue is mostly that he turns 22 this month, which in soccer/winger years isn't really young. Mendoza and Iloski are both 3.5+ years younger, and both also have YNT experience. Baird doesn't have as much upside. Probably not. My worry is more that they just won't develop much. Iloski was the best player on our U18s last year, played a lot of good minutes as a freshman for UCLA, and is now about to take basically 8 months off.
so they're ideal Monarchs players... What saddens me here is that UVU is the only place in Utah with a D1 men's program. Ignoring the (numerous) issues with the NCAA design, if the academy kids could at least get a legit D1 soccer experience here in the state at highly respected academic institution it would help the flow of Academy to first team. I'm not meaning this to be a knock on UVU, but come on. If a kid is offered a chance to go to UCLA or Stanford vs UVU the decision should be pretty straight forward. Now if Utah were to step in, it becomes at least more of a fight. I'd still likely still tell the kid to get that top rated (UCLA/Stanford) education, but you don't laugh when you say it. And before someone jumps down my throat about it: Yes, BYU would be a good option too. However, we know the uniqueness of that school given the religious identification. For an LDS kid, it would be perfect. Even for some non-LDS kids. But majority would more likely pick up the Utah jersey than BYU all things equal.
Oh for sure But if you can couple the Utah education (which is better than UVU) with the ability to stay close to the club that has invested in you and wants you to bloom into a pro... well you're gonna have a better argument than with UVU. No offense to Maas and his program.
True. I guess in my mind rejecting a school such as Stanford simply to be closer to a pro team I'm not actually playing for is crazy talk. But I get what you're saying. What really should be happening is players getting scholarships to study at Utah while playing pro for the Monarchs. I don't know how the team could organize that though.
Believe it or not, you just described exactly what the Sounders are doing. Sebastian Velasquez just signed a two-year contract with the Monarchs, and Tweeted that it was for "MLS money". So we are clearly willing to spend good salaries on Monarchs players. We're just not willing to do it for young players.
The team could just pay for it. $25k/year shouldn't prevent the team from doing so if it's an option that would really keep a better player with the organization.
So, RSL-AZ is back. RSL has partnered with the largest academy in Arizona along with a second academy as well down there. Good to see them throwing out that net. And this is the right way to do it I think. https://www.rsl.com/post/2018/01/11...phoenix-based-sereno-legacy-clubs-join-forces
I know that baseball prospects often will not accept an MLB contract unless there is a $500K signing bonus because they feel like a free education is worth at least that in the long run. To ask a kid that knows there is a chance they may never get much of a chance to start with the first team to forego an opportunity for an education in exchange for a $65K contract is a hard sell. It sounds like Soto (or his parents) may value things similarly. Last I knew, I think USL players made around $30K-$35K per year. Not sure what kind of contract restrictions that league has, and if MLS-affiliates are further restricted with how they compensate players.
Depends on the sport. I would think the U of U Gymnastics squad wouldn't have any problems with Stanford.
That's a different goal post, though. We're talking purely academics. The point being Utah can compete better with Stanford on that ground than UVU.
Certainly there are individual cases that can be hard, but it can be done. LA has had a lot of success signing players from the academy straight to their USL team, largely by offering college stipends - I count 11 players who meet that description on their USL team currently. Seattle has done that now too, and has turned Sam Rogers from a mostly unheralded CB to one of the best young talents in the country. As far as I can tell, the only reason we haven't tried this is because we want to offer multi-year deals to Velasquez, and pay transfer fees for Danny Cruz. By all appearances, it's a conscious choice that we have made to sign established, older, USL-level players, instead of young players.
I'm torn. I would love for Phoenix to join the league because I want another "close" rival, but them joining the league would be a massive loss for RSL.
Massive is an understatement. The talent that has broken through to the first team, save Danny and Bofo if you want to get lenient on "first team", that has been within the boundaries of our setup is all from Arizona.
Completely true, but up until last October we had no dedicated academy anything in Utah at all. We were 100% in AZ and shipped Utah Kids south. I’m sure UT will have better results now that parents don’t have to ship thier teenagers out of state. AZ is much larger than UT population wise, so it SHOULD produce more. But I think Utah will now hold its own.
Saw this on mls reddit (creator: SCarolinaSoccerNut). https://m.imgur.com/a/Ab7aO With how much money DLH pours into the academy, there is no reason RSL shouldn't be in that middle segment. I think it is the next logical step for the academy.
If “full academy” means starting at younger ages... the new Satalite academy centers are aimed to do just that. The new agreement with the AZ academies does too as they already start at U8. So, I believe RSL will be there within the year.
Does anyone know what the deal is with the RSL u15 academy team? On the DA website there is a link for the u15 team but no schedule. Do you know if they will have a u15 team(or younger) in the DA for the 18-19 season?
The current age groupings are: U15, U16/17, and U18/19. They changed the combined groupings (by name only) because of the birth age change is my understanding.
This makes Minnesota not signing DPs look even worse. Exactly how is that team going to compete with anyone?
I don't get that chart. As I understand it, RSL Academy is a full academy. However, I'm not aware of it being free - other than the scholarships that they provide.