I am a little unclear on all this so bear with me, but doesn’t IMG just host the US U17 men’s team residency program which is separate and unique from the IMG’s regular USSDA program? Yet, IMG seems to get “credit” for players that attend either…i.e. a lot of those big names may have actual been in the U-17 MNT program and not the IMG USSDA program???
I always had a similar understanding. I actually talked at length with Kevin Allston who attended with Bradley etc. but it sounded like he was NOT separate and did nothing to clarify. When you had posted a while back regarding Lederman I wondered if he is listed there only because he is maintaining his natty team commitments..
Lederman is listed on IMG's U15/16 DA team…and game logs a few months ago showed him playing; but recent games show him MIA…looks like he was rostered for the U-17 MNT games in FL a couple weeks ago…so maybe things are fluid…
Oh no. IMG is a huge sports oriented private boarding school. Not just soccer. Google it. Crazy expensive. Lederman was at actual IMG before going into residency.
When boys go into residency they stay on rosters of home club and still play games with them when available such as school breaks or if they don't travel with ynt on a trip
A Kyle Beckerman would be a good example. I don't think he was associated with the natty team yet he attended, did his parents at the time fork over significant cash money for hopes of one day making very paltry MLS money.... Kevin Allston on the other hand chose to attend college post IMG whereas I believe KB signed with someone...not sure if it was Colorado at the time.
No I get this...Its been around for years but I don't think Tiger or the Williams sisters paid their tuition bills....Ever... And A larger question for me is how do they compete now at least from a soccer perspective ??? Or any of these....Nextgen, Escola, overnight it seems the landscape will be flooded with what exactly ???? What is a "sell" of these over the MLS residential programs etc....
The just was reference to just hosting the U17-MTN, not just as in that’s all they do…I know what IMG is…
And more importantly probably IMG used to be virtually the only name in specialization (not long ago for soccer)..Tennis etc. golf. Now Florida alone has a bunch of these. So my limited understanding was that IMG being a business they were vested in the athletes just as the clubs will be with their Academies..That being a very very loose understanding... Like I assumed for a time they represented Tiger and the Williams sisters ....I really have no clue though.
Right, but the question is who is “credited”…even if unofficially, with their development…. Say for example, a player from Chicago Sockers DA and goes into residency with the U17-MTN based out of Bradenton/IMG…does that player end being considered as an IMG alumni even though he wasn’t actually part of the IMG DA? I think the answer might be kinda yea…which is why so many big time players get associated with IMG, even if that was never their actual club team…
Not in my experience. The players from our club who have gone into residency do not say they went to IMG. They say they were in residency. And in YNT rosters they are listed as our club. There's even a player from the YNT who is new to our club, but had been in residency and on the latest YNT roster he's listed as our club. Maybe a long time ago it was a more fluid arrangement but not anymore.
Ok, but that’s in part my point…even if it isn’t necessarily true, perceptions can persist long after reality changes… Normally Wikipedia might not be a great source, but in this case its prefect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IMG_Academy_alumni#Soccer Just look at all these guys claimed as IMG alumni….did they all really go through the IMG DA or were they just on U-17 MNT are some point?
Well, in the case of Michael Bradley, who is on the big wiki list--he only went to residency in Bradenton. And his wiki bio even states that. So inthe IMG wiki they've got links to people that they cannot claim. Same appears to be the case with Korey Veeder. His bio states clearly that he was from Chargers and then went to residency. The error seem to be coming from the box to the left, which says IMG Academy (but even there the years overlap with Chargers)
But Bradley is hardly the only one…quick, random sample seems to show a lot these guys only went into residency in Bradenton….yet in public perception IMG claims them all…and I am sure IMG goes out its way to correct these misconceptions…lol, not likely...
https://www.imgacademy.com/sports/boys-soccer/notable-alumni I don't know what makes these guys more alumnists than your list but I don't remember IMG coming up in Tim Howards book...Not that he was never there but I don't think he was in school there.
talk about football culture http://usatodayhss.com/2016/voters-...s-most-expensive-high-school-football-stadium when we care about soccer as much as texans care about football, then the US will be a world power.
I don't know, I see that kind of obsession with high school sports as a form of mass insanity and lack of priorities, but maybe that's just me....
I imagine if I knew this place was not wanting for anything else that I would be ok with this, I read the book "Friday Night Lights" and remember quoted teacher salaries being abysmal to just name one facet of blight. Sure South America has its extremes with soccer violence and such, but this behavior, not to mention the gambling rings busted for betting on youth football, mass insanity indeed. I don't think American Football could be analogous to soccer, because it IS in those countries what it is largely NOT here. The amount of unstructured play that those kids do with soccer may never be possible here. Basketball here can be unstructured and perhaps that is why we produce the most creative superstars in that sport. I think the US might think about taking a look at whatever Columbia did to get its program back. Years of not qualifying to suddenly being a force, what did rebuilding look like for that country ? Their "B" guys are some of the most exciting in MLS.
True. Personally though I think a huge and related factor is that soccer just isn't generally in the collective consciousness of this country as a spectator sport. Like my son plays for a premier level club team, and yet at his games I mostly hear the other dads talking professional football or basketball rather than soccer. Our sports media pays very little attention to the sport, and the general level of involvement and engagement just isn't there. So soccer just isn't in kids' blood the way it is in most other countries, even if they happen to play and watch it, because it's a niche sport rather than front and center.
I don’t know what is or isn’t analogous to what…but in general, the more familiar, the more intimate, you are with something the more likely you are see its faults, its negatives, its dark side… And things seen from a distance can look all shiny or at least aseptic… I am sure Columbia doing some great things with regard to soccer, but I am equally sure they are doing some downright shitty and insane things down there as well…too much passion, money and glory for them not to…over 30% of Columbians live under the poverty line, but shit, they got their team back in the World Cup…hooray for Columbia!
It most certainly is not, BUT every major sport here has had a turning point, and without a doubt I firmly believe that a turner could someday be turned and we could all someday reference where soccer used to be...Lets face it I can point to some attendance numbers\viewership that is totally amazing compared to the 90's...I don't think we are going back....Follow the money. Its pouring into soccer infrastructure here. The domestic league needs history. It needs characters and it needs rivalry, which I see a fair amount of each forming. Couple this with exciting international competition and I think its all possible that a seismic shift happens. There HAS definitely been a steady creep, I just think people are not completely reasonable with what we can point to as tangible progress. Today we have Tim Howard's performance against Belgium, we have Landy Cakes scoring against Algeria...Maybe I'm kidding myself but today people can actually name some of our players, which is a start.
Yes I know I am responding to a month old post while I agree that kids need to be allowed to be kids I disagree that we are a country that better understands that idea. Is this country we have 12 year olds getting Tommy John surgery, young kids with fitness coaches and personal trainers, Little League World Series on television, we have had several gambling scandals involving Pop Warner Football. Where I live there is literally two indoor baseball facilities within less than a half mile from each other. Than when we get to High School Football we have the Friday Nights culture which leads to something like the 62 million dollar stadium someone else on here showed. Than in High School basketball we have some teams that play a national schedule including Findlay Prep where the only kids enrolled in the school are the guys on the basketball team and then we have the craziness of AAU where one team takes private jets to all their tournaments. No country treats young athletes like professionals like we do. And I personally do not expect that the US would be one of the elite Soccer nations in my lifetime and I am perfectly content. But, to make ourselves feel better about that fact some try to make it seem like the elite nations put all their focus on Soccer to the neglect of everything else. That their young player do nothing but, eat, sleep, Soccer. But, most of the top European academies promote education, promote free play, promote multi sport participation, do not put too much focus on results for their younger teams and try to limit structured practice time for their young players. And it can be a cut throat environment but, so is our system.
Gambling scandals involving pop warner football? My friend played pop warner when I was in high school. Could not imagine him playing football he as only 130 lbs. I was in shock when I saw his whole team was about 130 lbs. I was 190 lbs in HS I was one of the lightest players in the league. I played against adults when I was 15. It was hard to take pop warner seriously when I was a kid. So what was the big scandal they sneaked in someone 140 lbs a ringer is on the team parents bet on a game? This is 2016 our training for sports is 100 times better now then when I was a kid. We have more money behind our games now. We know how to train the whole body now except under our national team under Klinnesman when will we get rid of the bozo. But we do have some problems now like we need three bathrooms in every shopping mall now instead of two. Most of my friends are dead now. If they lived they would not believe what's going on here now.
I never said we were prefect nor the embodiment of the idea…and I never say everything "they" are doing was terrible… Many the examples you cite are parents going nuts…individuals, or groups of individuals, taking things to a crazy and outrageous extreme… and whereas , I am not going to say such examples are isolated aberrations…they aren’t necessarily that typical either (like private jets or $62 million dollar HS stadiums) or in and of themselves bad things…we have two indoor soccer facilities within a couple of miles of each other…is that a bad thing? The problem I have with how other counties treat their young athletes is more institutional…it’s not the off-the-wall isolated crazy; it the casually expected normalize of it all…. Most promising 17 year old football, baseball and basketball players are going to prom, and are still a good 3-4 years from being really being treated like an adult (college is not real life)…Most promising 17 years old soccer players aboard are already under a pro contract and haven’t lived at “home” in years….we may treat young athletes like professionals in some cases, but in many other counties they are tuning their young athletes into actual professionals in many cases… I am wasn’t trying to make us feel good or better about ourselves…or to completely trash everything everyone is doing...there is a lot we can and should learn from them…I was just trying to interject a little balance, a little perspective…remember, that the time of that post, the context/argument, at the time, seemed to boil down to everything we do is crap; everything they do is wonderful…maybe a bit simplistic and ultimately inaccurate, but that’s how the debate seemed to be playing out at the time…