Btw, the only teams to play in MLS that haven't made the playoffs are Chivas and Atlanta. We are in the bottom tier of performers sine 2010
Sorry, Thanks! BTW, the Red Bull team that we've slagged for no cups. It made the playoffs every year. I also left of NYC who made the playoffs in 1 of 2 seasons.
Hell, even the Tampa Bay Mutiny and Miami Fusion made the playoffs and won trophies. Although we were USOC runners-up more times that the Fusion.
Impossible to "trust the process" when the people running the process select these players to play that system. That has nothing in the world to do with what a dumpster fire two years ago was, this is their mess. Year 3 of the five year plan depends upon dumping the mistakes of years 1&2. So next years Alberg's and Ilsinho's make 650-800 instead of 350-500. Whatever happened to Earnie's ability to buy low and sell high ?
Good point. The MLS player acquisition model isn't aligned with selling high. It's goal is player retention and raising brand awareness. You just don't make enough profit off the middling talent here (not disparaging, it is what it is globally) after MLS takes their cut and how they attach strings to the proceeds. These are still the training wheels. I get a lot of the fan base has swallowed the hook that the academy will attract enough potential talent, the senior team will develop and enhance those players and then sell them on for profit to reinvest in the senior team, but the aggregate costs of running an academy large enough to produce sellable talent to become self funding after MLS' vigorish is greater than just buying already developed talent. Let's say they sell Blake for $5M and net back $3M. What's the organizational cost for 100 academy kids? Right now it's $0 because they are pay to play and Uncle Richie drops cash on it like I do at a Vegas craps table. Neither of us make money. It's a nice story. I hope Trusty makes the 2023 MLS ASG and I can't wait to wish him well when Vitesse picks him up for €2M. We can say it's a success. Every other player just ages out of their contract and leaves on a free. #MoneyBall #$tewart$tyle
The academy is not pay to play. There are fees associated with the high school, I believe, but that's sort of a different beast. A $3m payday funds the academy for a year. The reports on it note about $3.5m as the annual cost. While I am very down on the direction we are going today, the academy isn't really my problem at all. Its supplementing it with proven talent to bridge the gap between now and the time when it reliably produces first team players and MLS rules catch up to the realities of that development model. From all I've read about this, the Union are ahead of the curve on player development. If we quibble, and maybe it is primarily Graham's money going into the academy, its that we are willing to spend a large sum on what amounts to lottery tickets and not on players who will make an immediate impact on the field and energize us as fans. Ideally we do both things. With a couple exceptional talents, their example funnels down and inspires others.
The school "fees" are $28,500. I'm not down on the academy. I'm pointing out (perhaps overly snarkily)that the narrative that the team will "profit" is creative accounting. No doubt MLS will Calvinball the development model rules at some future point. This whole strategy hinges on more capital invested and that isn't happening at the senior level. The FO talks about the glorious future when sell on transfer profits will get reinvested, which is way past when academy players make the first team, are deemed valuable enough that other clubs pay for them and we use those acquired resources to improve the team. You're 5-7 years off from the first fruits of that success. Next year LA comes in. The other expansion teams behind them will also be raising the sea level of player salaries and investment and as ATL demonstrated,poaching players for their academies. If you're the parent of a talented 15yo, which academy do you want your kid in? The one with the $ or the moneyball approach? The Union model is easily copied and improved on by every club we compete with by means of more cash. I'm not down on the academy. I'm down on the story that this method is a panacea and will position this club to win championships. We still don't buy players in the market, Bedoya and Edu not withstanding. Everyone else washes up under the Barry Bridge on a free. We're bringing a butter knife to a gunfight in MLS 3.5.
I don't see that school fee being out of line with other elite specialty prep schools. You play for an academy team without going to school so I don't see that as pay to play. Its expensive but its also prepaying college to a degree. Most kids get scholarships if they go to college and MLS has a tuition program if they go pro. You certainly have a point about the model being copied. I genuinely don't see the sell on as a profit thing being something coming from Earnie and applicable to the Union. Its been mentioned as the way he operated in Holland. At the town hall I attended, I got a different message. If he develops players in certain positions, then he can sign those players at a lower price tag, get on field value and then buy at positions to supplement. Lets say he takes an academy kid in at a $100k hit when filling that on the market costs $300k at similar skill, that gives an extra $200k somewhere else. Its still moneyball but not really the buy low sell high strategy yet. I am more concerned that we are not filling holes and that the horizon on the academy is 5+ years away if it comes off. We need something now too. Hard to believe in a process right now when there's little progress.
Here is an example of why one can not rely on the Academy being a reliable source of talent: Philadelphia Union lose talented youth prospect to Atlanta United https://www.brotherlygame.com/2017/...ion-lose-top-youth-prospect-to-atlanta-united
How's this going to work? He's clearly spent a large amount of time with Philly. Now he's with Atlanta. Who gets the "Home Grown Player" rights? Can the Union pull a Sporting KC on this and force this kid into the Super Draft when that time comes?
If he's good I'm pretty sure MLS will figure out a way to make sure he gets to the team with a future.
Time to revisit this. After tonight Atlanta will still have 1 game in hand on us and will be 13 points ahead of us (unless they seriously blow the game tonight). As of the 43rd minute of this game they have 61 goals scored and have conceded 4 less. They'll need 4 points from 6 games to go to 50 points, which is something we have never done.
So when they roll us in the Palace that Arthur Built, will that get the Curtin Closed? A 7-0 A$$ Whipping by Atlanta got Heaps the boot after all...........