Dynamo hire Holocher to as academy director LOL, I knew he wouldn't last.....Guess he couldn't implement the "Barca style"......
Could also be his wife wanted to move back to Houston and an opportunity presented itself. Could be him and fioranelli no seeing eye to eye. Could be him leaving a sinking ship before it goes down.
While this isn’t Academy news, I think it fits here. Salinas El Camino United (Boys under 14 2004s) just beat a Alabama team in the final game of group play at US Youth Soccer’s National Championship in Frisco Texas. That win qualifies them for the semifinals against a team from New Jersey. I believe they are the only Northern California team, boys or girls, to make it past group play. As far as I know, not a single kid on the team has been scouted by the Quakes, including the captain who is a Region 4 ODP all-star.
As I have said before and Jeff alludes to here, it seems the Quakes think their fanbase and scouting opportunities end in Gilroy.
Salinas lost 3-0 in semis, but the captain was named on best 11 team. His dad told me Pachuca of Mexico is interested in him coming for a tryout. This just pisses me off so much that the dysfunctional Quakes can’t even pay attention to great players in their own backyard. This kid wears number 8 because of Wondo. He’s been a lifelong Quake’s fan and has many Quakes autographs. I’ve worked with him since he was 7 years old and I know his dream was to play for San Jose, than USMNT and finally Real Madrid. I’m really gonna be bummed if he goes down to Mexico to play because the Quakes don’t give a ****.
Why don’t they utilize Ramiro and his academy and his ties with the club? He lives out there and I’m sure he could use a job at only 41 years of age. They gave Holocher a job and he wasn’t or isn’t that much more knowledgeable nor was he involved with the game more than Corrales. As a matter of fact, there isn’t one former field player who has the experience Ramiro has.
Have you reached out to the Quakes about him? Because their scouting apparatus is underfunded, the Quakes brass cannot be everywhere at once. Beitashour was drafted because a high school sports journalist sent a video to Frank Yallop. Otherwise, the Leland High kid would not have been known to the organization in the first instance (let alone under-appreciated when here).
I didn't personally, but the technical director of his soccer club talked to Paul Holocher earlier this year and Paul had no idea who he was. Paul told him "maybe he can come by an academy practice sometime". Huh? That's how you determine if players are good enough? You don't bother to go out to games and watch for soccer IQ? Not even an offical invite for a academy tryout? This kid has played in many top level soccer tournaments in Northern California as a guest player and won with different teams. He's been to all the ODP tryouts (which are open to the public and apparently the Quakes don't bother to watch) and he's been on Nor Cal ODP team for the last 3 years and has been named to Region IV ODP team for the last 2. His name is on all-tournament lists and video of his games are on YouTube. Liga MX teams can find him, but the Quakes can't? My bigger point is the Quakes are sitting back and expecting talent to come begging to play for them. While they wait, other teams are recruiting talent in their backyard. That irritates me.
Part of this is because, AFAIK, the Quakes organization has an ingrained, utter contempt and disregard for the local soccer community. That was pretty evident with the "no grey heads" policy of the reconstituted Quakes and went across the spectrum. The entire organization exhibits an air of arrogance that is totally at odds with its performance, both on and off the field.
This feels correct. I thought maybe Chris Leitch would thaw that out, but he seems to get bounced around quite a bit. From the beginning of Major League Soccer I held out the hope that the league would be a place where young American players could play and develop into world class players, instead of just watching a bunch of former foreign world class all-stars on the downhill sides of their careers.
I agree with Don about reaching out to the Quakes. If you don't want to do it yourself, ask Angry Mark to contact Jesse and request that it be passed on to the right people.
This falls in line with my main hopes for the quakes. If they don't win the cup, I'd hope they'd be a feeder organization so i can cheer on LOCAL kids on the Quakes AND in the top leagues. the quakes are failing us on both areas.
I was in a talk with a successful VC the other day and one of the other folks asked him what he had learned about identifying successful startups. He was adamant that, in addition to expertise, they must be high energy and have passion. The Academy is essentially a startup, and it seems they are selecting for expertise. But I don't see any evidence of passion for it. They need to be combing through all available players. No stone unturned like a crazed prospector snugging for gold. Stories like that one make me sad. I don't care that there are five thousand kids at that level to sort through. That is the first step: the raw ingredients. Skimping there makes the baker's skill and the bakery's equipment useless.
Here are the USSDA standings for the most recent season: http://www.ussoccerda.com/sam/standings/league/ For NoCal teams, SJE U-15 finished highest of six teams. U-16/17 finished fourth of five teams. U-18/19 finished second of five teams behind Sacramento Republic. None qualified for the post-season. In general, the NoCal teams lag behind the Pacific Northwest ones.
I understand, you're irritated. The Quakes are incompetent at scouting local youth talent. So stipulated. (They don't even use Joe Cannon, their former-player color commentator who runs the Mountain View league, to direct youth talent their way. One of his U-15 teams was in the Surf Cup final earlier this week. Think maybe there are some prospects there the Quakes are missing out on?) Now, what are we going to do about it. Whine on the internet, or rub their faces in it. Holocher's gone, right? Call up Chris Leitch and get an audience with him. Or go to Jesse Fioranelli. Not calling you out in particular, but I have no sympathy for complainers who won't take action on their complaints. (We wanted valet bike parking; well, I am going to get us f*cking valet bike parking, eventually.) It's OUR f*cking club. The Quakes don't have to sign your budding star, but they can be made to see him. And the next one, and the next.
I repped this, but the word "entire" is out of place. Not everyone is arrogant. Neither Leitch nor Fioranelli are arrogant.
As an aside, if I was hired to be a youth scout for a professional team, the very first thing I would do is call and find out who the referees are for the best tournaments and leagues in the local area. They are usually the most unbiased people to ask about the best players they have seen. I imagine I could have at least a dozen teams and maybe 20 players to watch after 2 days of phone calls and emails. Seriously, how difficult is that?
I was thinking about this. I wonder if a volunteer scouting org could be made? Literally just Quakes fans out in the world whose lives put them in a place to see young talent, and then an official way for them to get their suggestions into the right ears. I know volunteer scouting sounds, literally, unprofessional, but it is also a little outside the box. With the advances in technology it would easily be possible to submit clips and summaries in a half-digested way for the professionals to look at. And the professionals could send requests back to the amateurs like "can you send video of them doing X"? I don't know. It seems like it couldn't hurt. But I can also see it stepping on toes, running into crazed parents or coaches, or generating lots of junk. I think it wouldn't take too many well-placed volunteers to cover a bunch of under-scouted areas.
I suggested this to David Alioto back in 2007. So, I think it's a great idea. I would help identify young talent, but I'm not qualified to evaluate high school age soccer players (or players at any level, so I'm told ). But we do have lots of Quakes fans who are eminently qualified to offer volunteer assistance. The team could help create the structure and develop non-disclosure agreements, so we're not inadvertently helping the competition by posting every lead on BigSoccer or other social media.
I really like the idea too, and it is out of the box and innovative - exactly the kind of thing we should be doing. It is kind of "scouting by crowdsourcing". Since we can't expect people from all around the world to be invested in the Quakes, we could offer some reward if a player winds up getting signed or enters the academy or gets picked up by Reno. I remember Doyle saying that people call him up all the time about player x or player y, and he viewed it as kind of an annoyance. But what if you had someone in your "scouting department" assigned to sorting through this stuff?
I don't doubt it would be easy to get annoyed with randos hyping up their nephews or some kid they saw in the park.
Yeah, but Steven Beitashour and Rafa Baca, two of eleven starters on the Quakes' 2012 Supporters Shield winning team, each of whom has gone on to even better things after leaving the Quakes, were effectively obtained in such fashion.
Right, that's the thing. There's going to be a lot of noise. So you have to find a way to filter that out. That's where the innovation may come in. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it .