It is lame. If MLS rules allow this sort of thing why not just tell the fans what's going on? I don't see the downside to saying 'we signed Cade now and he will train with the first team and will be eligible to play in the summer once he fulfills the homegrown requirement'. In fact they add these little disclaimers all the time. They will say 'he's signed but pending visa and/or physical exam'. We get it, the intention is he will play but there is still some requirements that need to pass first. No problem. The way they did it just invites suspicion.
Exactly. I think most of the fans are cool with early announcements. They announced Almeyda's hiring well before he took over. This looks very much like the Alashe incident last year. "Just give us some time to concoct a story that makes sense".
There are teams that have been unable to sign players as homegrowns because they didn’t spend a full year in the development academy. Keegan Rosenberry and Philly, Orlando and draft picks each of the last two years. Those cases all involved college grads who were draft eligible so the team had to draft them or risk another team doing so. Sending a draftable 22 year old back to the development academy for a few months was not an option. Clearly it is with Cowell who is 15 and therefore more than the six months he needs to spend in the academy away from being draft eligible. Cowell could play against Monterrey, that’s not a league match. Unsigned (amateur) 14 year old development academy kids could play, if that’s who the Quakes wanted to use. Players from Reno. You could play. It’s a completely meaningless game, MLS rosters and rules are irrelevant.
Wow, they just dig themselves deeper. Can't wait to see the guys who show up with the Cowell #44 jerseys asking "where's Cade"?
Are you sure about that? I know that trialists can play on a special contract, but I'm not sure underaged academy kids can. This isn't a scrimmage, this is a game that is about making money so it becomes a labor law situation. If Cowell is currently being paid even though he is not eligible for MLS competition, then perhaps he can play. We will find out soon enough.
I don’t quite understand what you’re saying here but I’d say the odds of the league office being the ones who screwed this up are low. My educated *guess*: The Quakes front office is ether not aware of the “one year spent in the development academy to be homegrown eligible” rule, or they think Cowell meets it. They announce the signing. They expect him to be on the roster, hence his heavy usage in preseason. When they submit the paperwork to the league office, the problem is discovered. So Cowell has to play in the academy until June to be eligible. No other team can steal him away in the meantime, so it doesn’t really matter unless Cowell was going to play first team minutes for the Quakes between March - June. Maybe Almeyda did plan to give him some minutes given how thin the roster is at forward, but if not having a 15 year old on the bench for a few months is enough to make a difference this team so is f***ed that there are far more important things to worry about (spoiler: they are and there are).
I’m pretty sure other MLS teams have used unsigned development academy kids in friendlies, and so have European clubs that come here in their preseason. For example NYRB when they beat Mourinho’s Chelsea a few years ago. Was Zelalem signed to a first team contract when he played for Arsenal in the All Star game at Avaya? We know trialists can be used. Trialists don’t have to be 18 and older. So then why would any random individual on the planet be usable, but NOT an unsigned player from a team’s own academy? That doesn’t make any sense.
I think your guess is right on. The disappointment is not so much in the fact that Cade didn't play in the first 3 games (I don't think any of us are under the illusion that he will move the needle this year), it's the fact that the Quakes underestimate our intelligence. They think we're just going to not notice he's not playing until June? Really?
My understanding is that the league is party to all player contracts, so if true, and if as well there was an "invalid" contract (Jeff Adams' premise) the league is inherently a party to its invalidity, whether or not the league "screwed this up" (a non-legal turn of phrase).
I’m going with valid contract for ineligible player. MLS site doesn’t list Cade on the Quakes roster probably because he’s ineligible. The Quakes have no such scruples to list him and advertise him as a potential player for the Quakes. My only question now - what happens to the contract if Cade leaves the academy before completing a year? It seems the contract would have to be made invalid. If that’s true, what value does the contract have at all? He could still be stolen by another club- all they have to do is ask him to leave the academy (for the right amount of money of course).
I'm not sure what you're talking about... The Quakes can't just sign some kid from the FC Dallas development academy. On what basis would we do so? The reason we're not poaching FC Dallas academy kids is not that our ownership is too cheap to buy them off! Some want to eliminate MLS homegrown territories, but as of now they still exist: These are outdated (no Atlanta, Minnesota, LAFC), but they're official from MLS. Even on the east coast where territories overlap, you don't hear much about players being poached from one MLS academy to another... I'm guessing that sort of thing is heavily frowned upon if not prohibited. MLS teams can't even sign some kid NOT from another MLS development academy. They could bring him to their development academy and sign him after a year, once he's eligible under MLS homegrown rules. And they can't even sign some random kid from college. If he's an underclassman, they can suggest MLS sign him to a Generation Adidas contract, and then try to draft him. MLS might not agree (they give out like 8-10 per year), or some other team could draft him earlier. If he's a college senior, again they would have to draft him. Cowell likely can't even sign with some Euro club, as he's not 18 and probably doesn't have a Euro passport (which would allow him to sign at like 16, see Pulisic who got a Croatian passport through his grandfather). So who would "steal" him? Liga MX teams might be interested if he was Mexican-American and counted as a domestic player, but I don't think that's the case. He could go to some lower division team, like when Haji Wright left the LA Galaxy system for the New York Cosmos for a year, before he turned 18 and signed for Schalke. But that's extremely rare and not worth worrying about. Things are bad here, but not "worry about Louisville City stealing our homegrowns" bad! Also the fact that the Quakes and Cowell have mutually agreed to a professional contract suggests that he wants to be here. He's 15 so he probably lives with his parents and isn't yet done with high school, so where else is he going to go? As of now the only other professional team within 150 miles is the Sacramento Republic.
Thanks for the informative post. I was trying to think of a reason the Quakes signed an ineligible player, but I think I overlooked the most obvious reason that Cade starts training with the team now and gets paid while doing so.
Well, you're giving them too much credit. The most obvious reason is that they had no clue, signed a contract, made the announcement and THEN figured out that they had to wait till June. But the benefits you state are real.
After all the rhetoric in preseason about how impressive he was in training and how he was getting half a game in the first three preseason games I did expect he would be selected to be on the bench occasionally and also get time in Reno.
I'm not one of those guys that wants to rush him into action. I don't have a high confidence level that he is ready for MLS. He was very good scoring goals at the U-15 level. This year the Quakes played him in their U-17s and he scored 3 goals in his first 8 games. That's good if he was a midfielder, but it's not very impressive as a forward. He also played some U-19 games and to my knowledge hasn't scored there yet. With MLS being a couple of levels above that, my expectations are that he won't score a lot but perhaps he can stretch defenses on the break and create more space for teammates to get balls in front of goal. A guy who can skin his outside defender can force teams to slide a center back over in coverage and that opens up some space in the middle and back side. If Cade has the ability to hit good crosses and passes then he can be very helpful late in games.
He played plenty in pre-season, I doubt that would have happened if they knew he wouldn't be available until June. Also it seems like both he and the Quakes social media people think he could play tonight: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=392826284631746
I am not surprised he could play tonight, or other friendlies, or the Open Cup, etc. I just didn't expect him to be MLS-ready at this point.
Jeff is right. We shouldn't be counting on a 15-year old to give us useful minutes. The problem is that we have only two legit forwards on the roster. How did we not sign another forward in the pre-season?! We desperately need more outside defenders, why the hell are we playing TT at right back?! That's insane. We need backup outside defenders and TT needs to get minutes in an offensive position. I'm pissed that we're shitty, and I'm not going to be patient with Matias. Sure he deserves it, but I deserve a team that I can be proud of, an organization that doesn't suck. And I'm not going to go easy on Super Coach. He needs to get the team performing better, now. This team has been getting worse since Jesse took over. I'm angry, and I ought to be. And Matias ought to make better use of the players he has, and not try to fit them into a scheme they can't fulfill. Go Quakesfan!! Our team is shit and that's not acceptable at all. - Mark
Having seen him play in person, he would arguably be our best player, certainly the most marketable at the moment. We may get that Sierra Mist commercial, after all.
I agree, but impatience is not a good strategy. Matias has demonstrated elsewhere he is a good coach. Giving him time is not a favor to him but to us.