Not to knock this: https://www.rslsoapbox.com/2018/10/6/17946826/rsl-signs-julian-vazquez-17-homegrown-player-academy (RSL signing an academy player is a very good thing) but I note that Vazquez was not any of the four players highlighted in the article about projected leaders of the academy teams RSL wrote about in August: He also has not spent time with the Monarchs that I can see. He did play for the USYNT ... so there is that.
He's got appearances with US and Mexican YNTs. If he pans out there could be a fight over his loyalty. It's unfortunate he has no time with the Monarchs so we don't know much about how he plays, but hopefully he'll play there a lot next year.
Ledezma made a few appearances for Real Monarchs this year, but generally there is extremely little integration between USL and DA for RSL. This was expected when the DA operation was in Arizona. Now that they are in Utah, it is quite odd.
Alright rubbing salt in this wound again... Sebastian Soto has been ripping the German U19 league to pieces, and is leading his particular division in non-PK goals. His last goal was a 40 yard chip when the keeper was off his line. Sebastian Soto's game-winner Saturday for the Hannover U19s over Hamburg (his team-leading 9th league goal of the season) was an ambitious strike from distance. Caught the keeper out. pic.twitter.com/N2aGUZ1dMV— scuffed (@scuffedpod) November 5, 2018 He's been so good for Hannover's U19s that he's just been invited up to train with the first team. Here he is making friends with Bobby Wood. "Das ist auch einfach eine Form von Motivation für junge Burschen, mal oben dabei zu sein. Zu wissen, wo es mal hingehen kann!" 😊 Die Premiere unserer #U19-Spieler Sebastian #Soto und Julian #Klar bei den #H96-Profis: 👉 https://t.co/DcHUBXO3Bl! ✅ #NiemalsAllein ⚫️⚪️💚 pic.twitter.com/KfsixpxNAF— Hannover 96 (@Hannover96) November 6, 2018 It's funny that Josh Sargent keeps getting called into the US National Team, but Soto might actually beat him to a first team debut. He's in one of the best youth leagues in the world, and he's dominating.
To be fair, Werder Bremen is pretty good this season whereas Soto's first team debut could very well be in the 2. Bundesliga.
Ledezma to PSV is imminent. Looks like he could sign in the next few weeks. As pointed out on the Twitter thread, Dutch teams are required to pay non-EU players a really high starting salary, which is a big barrier for most teams. German teams don't have this requirement (one of the reasons so many young Americans have been going to Germany). So basically, a club like PSV isn't going to sign Ledezma unless they really, really rate him highly. There's going to be a lot of pressure to push Ledezma through the ranks and get some return on that investment.
worth noting that the minimum salary for a non-EU footballer under 21 in the Netherlands is about $225,000. By way of comparison, RSL regulars Corey Baird, Nick Besler and Aaron Herrera were on $54k, $67k and $67k, respectively, in 2018.— scuffed (@scuffedpod) December 14, 2018 If we offer contracts at 15-17, maybe we don't have to compete against offers like this...
Ask Jordan Allen about that, or even later round draft picks in MLB. The numbers on the table would need to be hundreds of thousands to offset the loss of potential to play their sport in college. We're still in an environment where players would skip that college option for a shot in Europe, but most would want to keep a college scholarship option open when they're in that 15-17 age range.
Eh, I don't buy that for soccer. For baseball, sure. The path for a kid in the ages of 15-17 that gets a professional contract to the actual top team is riddled with a lot of really poorly ran small market teams. It's not a pretty sight. Not to mention that college baseball, while not anywhere close to basketball or football, is better ran than college soccer. I think the real thing holding those kids back from signing a professional contract - if they're smart - is that they limited their college education A TON by doing it. This is why I want this club to get a serious relationship with the U and/or BYU. Have a path figured out for these kids that signing a professional contract still comes with the education that playing in college does. In fact, if the league wanted to help its image, this would actually be a great thing to start requiring of the affiliated USL sides. Have a partnership with a respected university in your area to push the education side of things (like they supposedly do in the academy) just as much.
That was exactly the Jordan Allen situation that I was referring to. He wouldn't sign a contract because he valued the college scholarship he received more than the contract offered. Happens all the time with MLB players as well. I know a kid who was given a scholarship at the U that turned down a 1/2 mill signing bonus from the Cubs because in his mind that didn't cover the scholarship and the 4-years he'd have to give up to accept it.
Allen only spent 1 semester at UVA, and signed a contract for ~80K with us afterwards. Glad turned down a scholarship to Stanford for a contract near the league minimum. Plus, Seattle has about 12 guys on their USL roster who threw away scholarships without having a promise of an MLS contract at all. And BTW, Allen and Glad are both taking college courses right now. We can offer college stipends as compensation if we want to (LA does this). Also, 15's point about college baseball being better run than college soccer is key. There is increasingly almost no path to MLS through the NCAA - last year's number 1 pick just got traded for peanuts, and most 1st round picks this past year were depth players at best. The calculus changes for players if taking the scholarship means throwing away their entire soccer career.
Our owner has shown himself creative in regards to compensation with the Royals (apartments, loaner cars) and I imagine this sort of college path would be huge to recruit talent to the Royals in particular. @BlueCrimson do you know ifthere are rules against it, or wider things regarding types of compensation "counting" against the cap?
This is great...except if you were to have interviewed Jordan Allen when he was 16 or 17, which I did, and which is the EXACT scenario we were talking about, you would have found that when he was a year or two away from college age both he and his parents valued a college education at several hundred thou. At that time he was being offered an MLS contract reportedly in the $60K-80K range. My research at the time showed this was a common thing among MLS academy players, and if you read around you'll find it's still the case. Obviously after Jordan spent some time in college, and receiving another offer, he changed course. But the original post was about locking kids up early with pro contracts, and I can tell you that's not easy to get a 15-17 yo kid to make that decision unless crazy money is on the table. Once reality sets in and kids graduate high school or spend a year or two in college, it's a whole different story. I think the sentiment of signing kids in soccer to youth pro contracts is great from a team investment standpoint, but its very challenging in the US for a vast many reasons which have been written about ad nauseum. There are many legal, practical, and societal barriers to making this happen on a more consistent basis.
Apologies for the delay in responding. Real life got in the way. There is a cap on what teams can spend for things like housing. The numbers for 2019 were leaked this morning: Team salary cap: 421,500 Minimum salary: 16,538 Maximum salary: 46,200 Team housing/auto cap: 95,000 Team relocation cap: 11,000
I'll bet he did something where they were company cars and each player got to drive one. I don't know if that is bending the rules or what, but that's probably the only way to do it, unless he owns a car rental company or something. I actually did the same sort of thing when I lived long-term an unnamed European country (that most Americans have never visited). The guy that I "rented" my car from put my name on his company's car insurance policy and then I paid him each month for the car rental and in case you can't figure it out, it wasn't totally legal. But, it was cheaper than a normal monthly car rental and when the car required maintenance, he had another car waiting for me. He just told me if the cops stopped me, I was to tell them that I was driving the car because I was thinking about buying it. Unfortunately, when I was actually stopped by a cop for speeding, he didn't believe my story, but he let me go after telling me that the "fine" was a certain sum of money that I just happened to have in my wallet. Lucky me.
He didn't buy a car for each player. It was closer to a car for every 2-4 players. They were expected to carpool. And I'm betting they were severely discounted as part of a sponsorship deal.