San Jose Earthquakes Academy is on its way!

Stejskal: How a new Homegrown transfer rule will impact MLS

Multiple sources have confirmed to MLSsoccer.com that the league is getting ready to announce that it will allow clubs to keep 100 percent of a transfer fee when they sell a Homegrown player. Previously, clubs only kept 75 percent of transfer fees for Homegrown players, with the remaining 25 percent going to the league office. The new rule will be backdated to Jan. 1 of this year, allowing Montreal to keep all of the fee they received from the transfer of Ballou Tabla to Barcelona B.

The sources also confirmed that MLS will also increase the amount of a transfer fee that can be used by teams as General Allocation Money. Currently, teams can only use $650,000 of a transfer fee as GAM. The new rule will allow teams to keep $750,000 of a fee as GAM, with that total increasing up to five percent each year.

These aren’t exactly new developments – the changes have been reported on multiple times by Paul Tenorio over the past few months – but they are welcome bits of news for clubs.

 

21 homegrown players played 1144 minutes in MLS week 1 (5.8%).

Top 5 teams to play Homegrowns:

1) NE - 18.0%
2) PHI - 16.3%
3) SEA - 11.7%
4) RSL - 10.4%
5) SJ - 9.9%

— Tutul Rahman (@tutulismyname) March 5, 2018

 

Jesse & Oliver Bierhoff DFB Collaboration video:

https://www.sjearthquakes.com/post/...iver-bierhoff-talk-quakes-x-dfb-collaboration

 

Wow I remember Oliver Bierhoff and he was a great player. He scored three goals in his last professional game at 35 years of age for Chievo against Juve.

Funny how in all these years with Doyle’s Mustangs and his leadership as GM, we have never seen such an important former player ever make an appearance in San Jose. Not sure what will come of this partnership but it’s nice to see the club opening up to important personalities in the world of soccer. Good job Jesse!

 

Amazing! This thead was started almost exactly eight years ago and FINALLY the title actually seems appropriate. It always seemed to me before that the academy teams were simply a source of revenue for the Quakes, but it seems now that there is actually a pipeline from the academy to the first team. And, all it took was a total sweep of the technical and office management. I think the wasted years are just another example of how much time, money, and effort were expended futilely during the Doyle years. It also makes me wonder about the level of conflict-of-interest that existed between his concurrent positions with Mustangs and the Quakes...

 

https://sportsday.dallasnews.com/so.../groups-announced-generation-adidascup-frisco

GA CUP groups

Champions Division
GROUP A: C.A. River Plate, Atlanta United, Atletico Paranaense, A.S. Monaco FC
GROUP B: D.C. United, Flamengo, New York City FC, FC Dallas
GROUP C: Eintracht Frankfurt, Independiente del Valle, Real Madrid C.F., LA Galaxy
GROUP D: Toronto FC, Portland Timbers, Sporting Kansas City, Pachuca

Premier Division
GROUP A: Columbus Crew SC, Matsumoto Yamaga, FC New England Revolution, Seattle Sounders FC
GROUP B: Club Tijuana, Colorado Rapids, Montreal Impact, Philadelphia Union
GROUP C: Chicago Fire, New York Red Bulls, San Jose Earthquakes, Tigres UANL
GROUP D: CF Monterrey, Houston Dynamo, Orlando City SC, Real Salt Lake

 

I don’t know...it was on it’s way to here back then and just took awhile to get here. I think it was finally being able to sign two 15 year olds that was a milestone. And the next one would be a big sale. Maybe we need a new thread with a new title like “San Jose Earthquakes Academy has arrived.”

 

No Toronto? So much for consistency with the local talent.

(Poking fun at Matt Doyle, not you).

 

“At the Earthquakes Academy, they’ve got a great new general manager that’s thinking about technology and just signed two young Homegrown players,” Garber said. “One of which, by the way, they were competing with Dortmund, with Christian [Pulisic] as the key salesperson in trying to get him over there.”​

That's great, if Dortmund want Fuentes, they know what they have to do

 

Hello folks, my first post. I've been looking for a place to follow the Earthquakes with other supporters and I think I've found the spot. I've been reading and lurking here for a few weeks.

Reason my first post goes here is I know a bit about Bay Area soccer development in the U12-17 age groups as I have a couple of sons playing NPL club. One of the things I love about what the Earthquakes are doing with their academy is they are not only playing nice with several other area clubs, they are proactively building partnerships as much as possible. The reason this is significant is there's no way the Quakes can train the number of players they need to from ages 8-12 or so in order to fill their pipeline with prospects. But there are several clubs who have some superb coaches working with younger players and those coaches and clubs are now a direct pipeline for the Quakes.

Another interesting thing to look for: a fair number of former 49ers players are having their sons play soccer instead of football. There's some good athletes coming up who are technically very advanced at young ages. If the Quakes are strategic about it, the Bay Area should be a treasure trove of future prospects.

 

Welcome aboard. Proud to have been the first, of many I'm sure, to give you rep.

 

Thanks!

 

Absolutely right. This makes total sense. I had heard rumblings of competition with other academies but maybe those are the some of the academies with older players? And maybe that was more of a vestige from a "previous Quakes regime"?

 

Well, some thoughts. I'd say that some of the more well established area academies like Juventus, De Anza, and Ajax view the Earthquakes academy as pure competition and won't like to see the Quakes academy to gain prominence. But there are a bunch of clubs that feed those academies their top players and frankly, those academies don't play nice with the feeder clubs at all. It's very cut-throat. The Quakes have come to a bunch of those top feeder clubs and offered actual win-win type partnerships. So Stanford United, Red Bull, MVLA, Cupertino and a fair number of solid clubs (maybe 8-10 total) can get their top players training with the Quakes, mixed practices, coaching training and so forth. There's probably around 12 kids from my sons' club who play on Quakes academy squads now. My son who's a U13 plays the Quakes academy tomorrow and three of the starters for the Quakes are from our club and were trained by our coaches. Our U13 coach's younger brother plays for the Quakes U14 and has trained with the national squad on multiple occasions. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if he's practicing with the Quakes top academy squad within the year. He's a beast.

 

Welcome aboard and thanks for the post! I believe Paolo Bonomo is/was in charge of Juventus and Jeff Baicher is still at De Anza. Those two academies as well as Doyle’s Mustangs I’m sure don’t want the Quakes academy to grow into something big because they will go after their top players. Unlike other countries around the world, they will not get compensation for any of the players.

John Doyle especially , regardless of him saying that he isn’t bitter about being let go as GM, can’t be happy that he lost his job with the Quakes as well as his $400k salary. I seriously doubt he is willing to give his Mustang players over to the Quakes. Traditionally, or for as long as I remember , the best area youth and amateur players played at the top academy teams and looked down at anything the professional teams were doing. Even though the Quakes youth team is growing, I doubt much has changed in the last few years. I also doubt any of the top academies will want to hand over players that easily.

 

That makes perfect sense. The thing I see is Ajax, De Anza, Juventus and the Mustangs have to recruit their players from somewhere. Their top teams aren't made only of players they've developed but from the clubs near them that produce academy quality players. You now have multiple clubs who's coaches will deliberately steer their academy players to the Quakes instead of the competition.

I found an article that has the details of what I've heard is happening. Even if only these clubs are involved that's still a pretty big deal. Those are all places where the coaches will be trying to steer their current crop of 8-12 or 13 year olds to the Quakes academy instead of to the competition. https://www.sjearthquakes.com/post/...rs-development-training-program?autoplay=true

The group of youth clubs that participated on Monday (in alphabetic order) are Ballistic United, Barcelona Bay Area, Diablo FC, East Bay United – Bay Oaks, Liverpool Bay Area, MVLA, San Mateo County FC, SF Glens, Stanford Soccer Club and Star Academy.

 

The Quakes have the distinction of being the only pro soccer team in the area. They use that to lure the kids in to thinking that they could one day make it as a pro.

The academies on the other hand , have a lot of players parents money behind them. Most athletes parents want their kids to go to college and get a partial or even free scholarship. This isn’t something the Quakes or most MLS franchises offer. The GA deals are good but very few kids across the country are offered those deals.

Unlike many countries in Europe or South and Latin America , players are worth a lot of money between the ages 15-19. These players are then sold to bigger clubs and the player makes a percentage off of the transfer fees. This doesn’t really happen here though. I think there was a ruling in the last year or so that stated players couldn’t be sold for a fee. If that is the case, the academies get nothing for the players they discovered and helped groom and I don’t blame them for not wanting to give them up.

 

Exactly. Once they get to U15 or so most of the kids begin thinking about what track leads to D.1 and not so much MLS. Quakes have to focus on grooming for MLS. I think we'll see a bifurcation of developmental tracks become more clear in the coming years than it already is - one for MLS and one for D.1 college.

 

I have a somewhat different perspective on the establishment of all these “academy” teams (Liverpool, Thorns, Barcelona, Red Star, etc., etc., etc.). They exist not so much to funnel the top youth players into appropriate environments for coaching, competition, etc. as to funnel parents’ money into the pockets of the coaches, trainers, etc. Both of my kids (34 and 26) played youth soccer before these establishments became ubiquitous - when my son was playing, Almaden was just experimenting with the Dave Gold/Tim Martin experience.

As a referee, I get to talk to lots of parents, coaches, and players, and have to say that there is a lot of selling that goes on to convince parents that it’s OK to spend thousands a year on club fees, training fees, etc. because of this nebulous promise of “something” at the end of the rainbow. I fear that for 95% of these kids, it just means that they end up having a skewed sports experience (in many cases, these academies, for example do not allow players to play HS soccer, which is a shame because they miss out on a lot of fun.).

Also, I’ve seen a lot of heartbreak and resentment as these teams cycle through players. Because the trainers and coaches jobs are on the line, they are ruthless in terms of cutting players when a “better” prospect becomes available and are constantly trying to cull the cream from other teams and clubs. It’s not about the kids - it’s all about the bottom line.

Maybe the youth players are getting better at a certain level, but there is most definitely a price to be paid, and it’s being paid by the parents and the kids, and the ones who are benefiting most are not either.

 

I don’t blame the parents or wanting their kids for choosing or wanting to go to college. Looking at the short career span and low salaries of most MLS players , they will never make a life long comfortable living playing professional soccer. This coupled with the fact that there are only 616 players across the league including foreigners and with each position specialized , chances of making it in MLS are slim to none. The New NASL is as good as gone and if I had to choose between going to school or playing on a USL or even PDL team, I’d pick college any day of the week. Just looking at some of facilities of the local Bay Area universities and even Junior colleges, I don’t think it would be too hard to choose. At least when it comes to being a student athlete.

 

I hear what you're saying, but I'd give it some nuance.
Academy: It's the academies that are usually the most cynical in how they treat players and use most of them as roster filler as they develop stars. If you're at the top or close enough to be challenged by the top players this is a good spot for you. But to pay the bills the academies often have filler players and squads that can be treated rather cynically depending on how it's run. I've got plenty of stories of kids and families who got burned at these levels.

Club: The feeder clubs are where you'd have your child play for the overall experience and where the emphasis is on every player learning to play the right way with a much lower emphasis on developing stars or winning at all cost. The good feeder clubs are happy to let their very best players move on because having one or two standout kids slows down everyone else's development b/c the kids learn to defer to them, or to kick and chase. I know very few folks involved with these clubs, even the lesser silver and gold teams, who aren't very happy with their experience. Interestingly enough, the top teams from this tier do often beat academy teams head to head because having a group of kids from the same community playing together for a number of years grows a level of trust, friendship and commitment that is sometimes hard to replicate at an academy.

Parent coaches: AYSO is where you go if you want your kid to dominate every game and never have to pass. Or if you don't mind just sort of kicking the ball around for recreation. AYSO is quite cheap in comparison but you definitely get what you pay for - which is to say an awful soccer experience.

 

How does the academy system function in Argentina or Uruguay? These countries seem to churn out their share of quality players.

 

Why is AYSO an awful soccer experience? I have friends in downtown San Jose whose kids play in it and they love it. Of course, these parents just want their kids to have a good time, not churn out soccer prodigies.