FYI- davies is training with the first team and bayern's head coach has already stated that davies will be in the first team; his contract specifies that he will be given first minutes starting in january- he will be an impact player just like he was for Vancouver- he is the complete package and IMO, in 2 years will be amongst the best in europe
Only one? Only Tommy Thompson? Nick Lima, Gilbert Fuentes, JT Marcinkowski, & Jacob Akanyirige say hello. That's just from this past year's team too............... The Bundesliga is carried on Fox Sports here in the US. It's not all that difficult to find........... Yeah.......in revenue..........that's not profit though..................gotta pay for that beer and the folks selling it first............. Most teams are spending closer to the $2M/yr on their academies, and some of those teams are spending closer to $1M. A handful of teams are spending in that $5M range (RBNY, PHL, RSL, SKC(?)). Hell, DC United's academy is/was still pay to play.
I imagine that younger players see that if MLS is flexible enough to allow them to move on, then they might see MLS as a starting point and not try to find some distant ancestor to get a passport to play in a foreign league. In the meantime, maybe they choose to stay because they like the environment. The MLS2 teams are probably as much about branding as development. (Yes, I know that some teams have different names such as the Swope Park Rangers, but the team has similar colors and the same jersey sponsor).
Both Nick Lima and JT Marcinkowski went 4 years at Cal and 3 years at Georgetown respectively. That is why I didn't really include or think about them as Quakes youth players. Also, Lima came up with the Jeff Baicher's DeAnza Force where he mostly played. From what I recall knowing and watching him constantly at Cal, he only played in a few games with the Quakes academy. Marcinkowski came up with Quakes former GM John Doyle's Mustang Soccer Club and the only reason he went with the Quakes was because Doyle put him on there as he was in charge of both. As a matter of fact, Doyle knew both players through his connections with his Mustangs academy in the East Bay and not really because of the Quakes and that is why they were listed as Quakes youth team players. Either way , giving them both the benefit of the doubt, only Lima is a starter. Therefore, he is one player in 9 years of the Quakes academy. Gilbert Fuentes isn't a starter either and played in one game for a few minutes as a sub. He played for my cousins Balistics youth soccer team in the East Bay until last year. He just recently signed with the Quakes and the jury is still out on him. How about that! I get FS1 but not FS2 in my area without subscription. I'll be sure and look for Bayern's games to see if Davies is starting this season. That would be a great thing to see. Averaging over 70,000 fans , I'm sure Atlanta and Arthur Blank can afford to spend $5 million on their academy. They though are a perfect example of not needing to develop a youth team as they won a trophy in only their second season without using any academy players. As far as I know, all Bay Area Academies are still pay to play. Things are constantly changing but I think until recently, the Quakes academy was also pay to play. Their academy though isn't the best or as good as either the Mustangs or the Force which is traditionally where most players end up going.
Jacob Akanyirige also came up with my cousins team, Ballistic United SC in the East Bay. He and Fuentes both signed for the Quakes academy just last year. My cousin coached both until last season and said he has potential and has speed but there were other , much better players at the club who got passed over for him. At times he would mentally check out of games. He will be turning 17 in a few weeks but still has yet played in a professional game. He is a good disciplined kid and very quiet. Time will tell if he grows and improves. The jury is still out on him on whether he turns into a full fledged pro.
I would like to see RSL start signing their top youth players into USL contracts at a much younger age. They need to be smarter and close those kids.
I'm surprised a team like Bayern offered that type of contract. As a general rule or historically, very few top teams across Europe would guarantee an 18 year old not to mention a North American player a starting spot. Davies would be a first as I don't believe any American or Canadian other than Landon's few games have ever played for Bayern. Here is the all time list form wiki.... Canada Rob Friend – Borussia M'gladbach – 2008–10 Julian de Guzman – Hannover 96 – 2002–05 Daniel Imhof – VfL Bochum – 2006–10[b SUI] Simeon Jackson – Eintracht Braunschweig – 2013–14[b JAM] Marcel de Jong – FC Augsburg – 2011–15 Kevin McKenna – Energie Cottbus, 1. FC Köln – 2000–01, 2006–07, 2008–12 Olivier Occéan – Eintracht Frankfurt – 2012–13 Paul Stalteri – Werder Bremen, Borussia M'gladbach – 2000–05, 2008–10 United States Bryan Arguez – Hertha BSC – 2007–08 DaMarcus Beasley – Hannover 96 – 2010–11 Gregg Berhalter – Energie Cottbus – 2002–03 Terrence Boyd – Darmstadt 98 – 2016–17[b DEU] Michael Bradley – Borussia M'gladbach – 2008–11 John Brooks – Hertha BSC, VfL Wolfsburg – 2013–[b DEU] [c DEU U20] John van Buskirk – KFC Uerdingen – 1995–96 Paul Caligiuri – FC St. Pauli – 1995–96 Russell Canouse – 1899 Hoffenheim – 2015–16 Conor Casey – Hannover 96, Mainz 05 – 2002–03, 2004–07 Timothy Chandler – 1. FC Nürnberg, Eintracht Frankfurt – 2010–18[b FRG] Steve Cherundolo – Hannover 96 – 2002–14 Ricardo Clark – Eintracht Frankfurt – 2009–11 Chad Deering – Schalke 04, VfL Wolfsburg – 1993–94, 1997–98 Landon Donovan – Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich – 2004–05, 2008–09 Thomas Dooley – FC Homburg, 1. FC Kaiserslautern, Bayer Leverkusen, Schalke 04 – 1986–93, 1994–97[b FRG] John Doyle – VfB Leipzig – 1993–94 Benny Feilhaber – Hamburger SV – 2006–07[b BRA] Cory Gibbs – FC St. Pauli – 2001–02 Julian Green – Hamburger SV – 2014–15[c DEU U19][c DEU U17][c DEU U16] Joseph-Claude Gyau – 1899 Hoffenheim, Borussia Dortmund – 2013–15 Frankie Hejduk – Bayer Leverkusen – 1998–2001 Kamani Hill – VfL Wolfsburg – 2006–07 Aron Jóhannsson – Werder Bremen – 2015–18[c ISL U21] Fabian Johnson – VfL Wolfsburg, 1899 Hoffenheim, Borussia M'gladbach – 2009–[b FRG][c DEU U21][c DEU U20][c DEU U19][c DEU U18][c DEU U17] Jermaine Jones – Eintracht Frankfurt, Bayer Leverkusen, Schalke 04 – 2000–01, 2003–14[b FRG][c DEU][c DEU U21][c DEU U20] Kasey Keller – Borussia M'gladbach – 2004–07 Jerome Kiesewetter – VfB Stuttgart – 2014–15[b DEU] Jovan Kirovski – Borussia Dortmund – 1996–98 Michael Mason – Hamburger SV – 1994–97[b FRG] Andy Mate – Hamburger SV – 1964–65[b HUN] Clint Mathis – Hannover 96 – 2003–05 Weston McKennie – Schalke 04 – 2016– Alfredo Morales – Hertha BSC, FC Ingolstadt, Fortuna Düsseldorf – 2011–12, 2015–17, 2018–[b FRG] Matthew Okoh – 1860 Munich – 1996–97 Michael Parkhurst – FC Augsburg – 2012–13 Heath Pearce – Hansa Rostock – 2007–08 Christian Pulisic – Borussia Dortmund – 2015– David Régis – Karlsruher SC – 1997–98[b MTQ] Claudio Reyna – Bayer Leverkusen, VfL Wolfsburg – 1995–99 Anthony Sanneh – Hertha BSC, 1. FC Nürnberg – 1998–2003 Josh Sargent – Werder Bremen – 2018– Caleb Stanko – SC Freiburg – 2017–18 David Wagner – Eintracht Frankfurt, Schalke 04 – 1990–91, 1995–97[b FRG] [c DEU U21] Danny Williams – SC Freiburg, 1899 Hoffenheim – 2009–13[b FRG][c DEU U15] Bobby Wood – Hamburger SV, Hannover 96 – 2016– Peter Woodring – Hamburger SV – 1992–94 Andrew Wooten – 1. FC Kaiserslautern – 2011–12[b FRG] Haji Wright – Schalke 04 – 2018– Eric Wynalda – 1. FC Saarbrücken, VfL Bochum – 1992–93, 1994–95 David Yelldell – Bayer Leverkusen – 2015–16[b FRG] Salvatore Zizzo – Hannover 96 – 2007–10
That's NOT what it says...................it says he'll have every opportunity to earn a spot with the first team this season. He'll be training with the first team for the rest of the 2018-2019 season. Davies, like all players, will need to earn his minutes and spot in the 18. Bayern is spending upwards of $22M on Davies transfer fee, which is not small potatoes even for a huge club such as Bayern.
It would be nice to see him play and start regularly st Bayern. After living there and knowing european coaches as I do though, I’ll believe it when I see it. I wish Davies lots of luck!
Falvo - I enjoy reading your posts and you make some good points, but sometimes you need to take a step back and think. $100M is about 3 times what the average MLS teams earned. Plus you know the Quakes academy program, how in the world could the be spending $10M, let alone $100? Also the quakes historically have had one of the worst academy programs in the league. So it makes about as much sense as basing your opinion using the quakes as basing it solely by programs like Red Bulls, Dallas, RSL, which are among the best. Juan Agudelo, Matt Miazga (sold), Sean Davis, Tyler Adams (sold), Derrick Etienne Jr., Alex Muyl are all products of their system. Not only did the make money selling Miazga and Adams, but the saved money by not having to pay transfer fees plus market rates to bring these players in. Aaron Long is product of the their USL team. But that is just on the player side. There is also the side which involves building the grass roots of the club. Each kid in the academy program has parents, relatives, teachers and friends. People that may never have heard of the team now have a reason to be interested and spread that interest to all their acquaintances. It is also why preventing kids from playing a few months of High school soccer each year (if they wanted) was such a short sighted, brain dead move by the idiots running US soccer. High profile players like Jossy Zardes, Will Trapp and Jordon Morris that stay in the league create a lot of good will for their teams. So while the academy programs are indeed a player development vehicle, they are also a big investment in brand development.
A look up down the ECNL and USSF-DA girls team lists will see that MLS teams are making a big move into top girls club soccer as well. At some level it's a lot of long term branding and marketing expense.
When the Don quotes his youth spending, I bet these costs are rolled in as well even though they clearly have nothing to do with player development as I'm skeptical anyone believes females are suddenly going to overcome their physical disadvantages and be able to compete against men.
Yeah it makes sense. I must have heard or read something wrong. Its been a hectic week with personal issues. Apologies for the mistake. I am all for developing youth team players but I'm still reluctant on whether the academy program will work in the end or how youth players will graduate directly into the youth team. The Quakes though are a horrible example at both drafting and developing. We had John Doyle running the show for 8-9 years and I heard many agents didn't want to deal with him and also, he was using his Mustang Academy as a base, wanting it to be the front runner of the Quakes academy. Whether he wanted to or not , I think he sacrificed one for the other. As it is, he alienated a lot of top area youth academies and no one currently wants to work with the Quakes. Santa Cruz, Sporting , Juventus or De Anza are all at odds with the Quakes and hate one another , fighting for players. Doyle then hired his best friend Dom Kinnear to coach and he was there until last year. They were both one in the same and basically nothing has changed since 2008. There was no way the new GM Jesse Fioranelli or the Swedish coach Michael Stahre will have done anything on the youth front this year so we have to keep waiting. The trouble is, most of us Quakes fans are tired of waiting. Knowing how Jesse worked at Lazio and then at Roma, they have few youth players on their teams. Roma had Francesco Totti who came up in 1992, Daniele DeRossi in 2001 and Alessandro Florenzi from 2010 and Lorenzo Pellegrini from 2015 and Luca Pellegrini from 2018. That is only 5 players in 26 years and Totti retired last year so now they are down to 4. If Fioranelli is using their model which I'm assuming he is as that is all he knows, I doubt the Quakes will develop many youth players. Interesting that you mentioned Zardes, Trapp and Jordon Morris as they all attended top college programs. As opposed to what some people think, college soccer provides a great road for many players. What I think MLS should do is start working with the NCAA a lot more closely. You traditionally had college players playing and competing internationally with and against other professionals on the youth national and Olympic teams but yet they aren't allowed to train or play against the pro clubs. That makes literally no sense. If they are such sticklers on not letting amateurs train or play with the pros, then it should apply at the club and international level as well but that doesn't happen because of the powers that be at the NCAA will not allow it in other sports. Looking at the college programs , fields and facilities, very few first division clubs across Europe and the rest of the world for that matter, can't match what our local campuses do. Just drove by Stanford and Santa Clara University yesterday and I'm saying to myself they are much better than most Serie A clubs I toured when I lived and worked in Italy. I think most MLS academy players I read about at least o the west coast still have ambition to go to college as a select few have a shot at getting a pro contract. The only trouble with the college season is its just too short and playing 18-20 games from September -November is terrible for the development of players coaches and everyone else involved. They should lengthen the season to say February or March or even split the season.
But those are important investments when dealing with local communities and trying to put the squeeze on them for public assistance for stadium or training center related construction. As PSV's mis-steps a couple of months ago in Austin showed when they were asked what was in it for girls. I think it's shrewd long term marketing, giving the local MLS side hegemony over the whole of "soccer" in the area. It gives families a hook into building a relationship with the "club". A lot of MLS team fanbases are starting to resemble college fan bases more than other pro sports ones. They're building multi-generational tribe-based loyalty.
Mentioned them because I know each has many articles. Now that teams are putting together USL teams I think you will see more kids coming straight to pros. Revs probably had a similar opportunity with Fagundez but probably didn't try like most things Revs soccer. On the other hand, the kids that do spend some time in college benefit from that environment and learn to handle non-soccer side of life a little better. That said college soccer may work for defenders and keepers but really hurts the development of attacking players. Coaching is not strong, practices are limited,, all teams start some technically weak players, officials let things go and teams can press all game due to unlimited subs. So teams that play simplistic low risk attacks benefit. Assuming you've prepared for it, college is a better route for life for all but a few athletically gifted kids. Even if the pay increased, I think many would be better of spending a year or two in college.
BTW here was what Parchman wrote a couple years ago about ranking the academy programs. I think he was way off with the Galaxy, but most of the other seem about right.
You are right about college ball. Players are athletic but not too skilled or tactically sound. The season ends as soon as it begins and teams just do not become cohesive units in so little time. Still some programs are very good avenues for players. Jeremy Gunn at Stanford and Kevin Grimes at Cal are great coaches. Grimes actually converted Nick Lima from an erratic forward when he entered college to an attacking overlapping defender. The percentages on any player making a roster in MLS are very low. For this league and the way salaries are structured anyway, college is in my opinion the best option. You have 672 players in the entire league who are on rosters. There are 72 GK's and the foreigners probably amount to 240. After all is said and done, you are only left with maybe 360 field players or rather what is on average only 15 domestic or green card players per club. Very few veteran starters will get unseated by rookie or academy players and therefore, there isn't much room left on a yearly basis. I lived there and I know the academies in Europe and South America. They are not really comparable to ours so when we try and make comparisons it’s not a reality. First of all , academy players are worth quite a lot of money on the open market. Players between 16-20 are allowed to go to school, play and train with the pros but that doesn't happen here. Then they can be sold for millions and that player gets a percentage. Also, not all top teams graduate their academy players into the first team and very few make it. Players are still in school and they sometimes get sold or loaned and then make their bones but other teams are close by or are in the same general area of the main team, so they can continue their studies and play. If they can’t make it, they then give it up or languish in lower levels. On the other hand, here we have players who have a chance to go to school , play and get a chance to be picked as a top college pick. I don’t really blame them for wanting to finish school and doing other things. I know of mostly west coast schools which are awesome on the academic side. Cal , USF , UW, Portland , USF , St. Mary’s , Stanford ,UC San Diego, both Oregon schools, UCLA, Loyola , UC Irving and UCSB to name a few. If you are kid and are presented with a free ride to one of those universities, you are crazy not to take it. If you are lucky enough , you can land a GA deal and leave early but then when it’s over and then you are faced with only making $54k -100k in MLS if you are on the roster and many players end up going back to school. On MLS opening day 2018, a look at some recent top draft picks who walked away young Most International players don’t have these opportunities or the options our US based players have so again when we compare Euro or Latin American standards to ours, it’s just not reality. Off the top of my head at this hour , I am thinking of JJ Koval , Andrew Weideman and Kip Colvey who went to Stanford , CAL and Cal Poly are all out of the game. Weideman had a GA deal then went to Dallas, TFC and Cincy and he just quit and enrolled back at Cal. I’m assuming the same about the east coast’s top schools. If I were a parent and my kid had a free ride , I’d highly encourage him to finish school. I think most parents of college athletes think the same way. Maybe things will change. The progress the league has made the last ten years has been incredible. If the next decade is anything like what the last has been as opposed to expansion, MLS may in fact start branching out into other areas. I foresee them giving both boys and girls academy players a chance to finish their high school and college education some time in the future while staying at dorms or apartments owned by the team and studying and training at the same time. It can happen and I’d encourage owners going that route or at least looking into it.
Not to mention expansion teams are paying $150 million ONE TIME to enter the league. Who could think they are also then paying $100 million A YEAR for academies. A billion dollars a decade...that would be quite the investment. Also, when you say "$100M is about 3 times what the average MLS teams earned"...are you talking profit or revenue? I am assuming revenue.
Unlike the earlier years of MLS or from 1996-2006, paying $5 million a year is pocket change for the owners. They will get that from Adidas , Nike and Puma or whichever other sponsors they are using now.
The problem is there are multiple areas where owners are expected to pony up $5M here and a few million there, all of which adds up to something decidedly more than pocket change. Advertising, coaching, calibre of facilities, discounting tickets... Remember, prior to the current media contracts many MLS teams were struggling simply to cover operating expenses for the main team, let alone an academy. And that main team featured a lot of players on salaries not conducive to making a living as a full-time soccer player. MLS has come a long way but we're a generation's worth of growing pains away from seeing most teams operating soundly with the type of infrastructure that we all want to see.
I love stereotypes. I hear those American players are real athletic, too. And that playing baseball, football, and basketball somehow makes for good goalkeepers.
I don't think MLS is as poor or struggling as they want everyone to believe. The tired line that "the league loses money" by now is getting old. Taking away the DP contracts, I don't think the owners are spending all that much on player salaries. Some teams aren't paying much at all across the bulk of the roster. Many starters are only pulling in $150-$200k. That's a huge savings when you break it down and I think in many other ways, they may be thriving. They may say they lose it on the soccer side but then one fireworks show and a few concerts in their own stadia puts them over the top in profits. That revenue may very well not be shown on the MLS side of things...I mean spending $100 mil per team is too much but $5 mil can't make too many dents....