This strikes me as what you call professional jealousy. Do those coaches you talk to have a great track record at D2 level like Ian? IMO, it's hard to argue with demonstrated success.
Wish the club would make a move to improve the roster. There is still time if the desire is there. Give the fans some excitement and a reason to come out and watch.
I see the evolution of much of USL to become reserve teams for MLS. Wondo was able to hang on and break out because he was scoring a lot of goals for the Dynamo reserve team. Since that is gone, MLS teams have started to move towards placing players in a lower level professional environment like their USL affiliate. I think it’s Dallas FC that has fielded a majority of their USL team with homegrown players. There has also been talk of creating a separate U-19 MLS league where the team would accompany the main squad on road games and both teams have games in the same city. Perhaps the U-19s could get paid but not as homegrowns or count against the roster. Maybe they even allow a few overage players to play as well (like Olympic teams do) so guys coming back from injuries could get game fit or guys on the bench for the main squad who didn’t play could get some minutes in a competitive game.
Also, from what I’ve read it seems like Ian’s recommendations on players to draft have had an impact on the Quake’s selections. He does his scouting homework and the guys that have played for him in Reno generally look good there. Throw in heavy roster churn and the fact that players yo-yo up and down between SJ and Reno and I would say that Russell has to have some coaching skill to handle the changes.
MLS is definitely turning the corner in using 2nd division teams to build their rosters. But it seems like the USL teams in turn are getting a lot of players from outside the US, in addition to the academies. So sadly, I don’t think this trend is going to help the American college players, it’s probably going to work against them.
Correct. Soccer will be following more of the MLB model than the NFL model now. College soccer will be reduced to 1) good players that prefer to do something else with their life, and 2) 2nd rate players who have no hope of making it as a professional anyway. This is a good thing. College soccer is so dysfunctional it's held back player development for a long, long time.
I sadly must agree. In fact, these days, I am aware of more than a couple higher-level clubs (i.e. at the NPL, ECNL, MLS Academy, etc.) that stipulate players on their teams not play high school soccer. Paradoxically, while that likely helps the development of their soccer skill, I fear it may hinder their social development, since high school sports can be a key factor in cementing friendships and camaraderie that are important for the development of confidence and personal skills.
I said "can be" knucklehead. Please don't put words in my mouth. I was NOT a jock in high school and by most accounts turned out well-adjusted.
Would like to get Juan Agudelo over here from New England given our complete lack of attacking options. And if NYCFC and Orlando are going to let Mueller and Jonathan Lewis respectively rot on their benches, throw them our way. Id say keep trying for Hollingshead but I think hes finally cut into the Dallas starting 11 as the left back. Maybe try for Christian Dean again from Chicago?
I would also submit that if a freshman or sophomore is good enough for varsity playing high school can help their development. Varsity high school ball is U-19 and if you play for a decent team then the speed of play and physicality can help your development in ways staying in your age group on club cannot. Landon Donovan played at Redlands High before Leverkusen John O’Brien played at Brentwood before Ajax. John Thorrington played at Chadwick before Manchester United. Playing up as freshman helped them to be confident at a key time in their development. I saw the same thing in a player I have trained over the years this season at Monterey High. He started the majority of their games all the way to the division one final. Today he’s training with Hugo Perez as a defensive midfielder and is likely to join the Quakes Academy during their next cycle.
The reliance on college for MLS has always been shaky, so a hard shift to academies and lower level soccer leagues as a sort of minor system makes a lot of sense. There's just no way that collegiate soccer could fill the demand for players that MLS now requirements. There simply aren't enough good college programs to fill up the increasing number of teams, and college soccer never made the kind of money that fueled its growth the way it did for other sports. MLB can still get a lot of great players from college because they still also have the minor system to put them in if they aren't quite ready for the majors. Player careers can be longer, so they can get called up a bit later and still have long careers. MLS might still get a handful of players from colleges, but due to the age differences, the vast majority will likely be coming in from academies or affiliated USL teams over the next decade.
As it is today, only at most the top 10 draftees from college even make the first team. Maybe even top 5. These numbers will dwindle to top 3 and those will include the undergrad players (current called Generation Adidas players). So yes, there will always be a few. But a small number.
I think there are a percentage of Academy players that don’t sign homegrown contracts because they want to keep their amateur status and get full ride scholarships so that they use their soccer abilities to pay for college. Nick Lima and JT come to mind.
This seems like a bunch of nonsense... a pro soccer player who comes out of Barcelona's La Masia doesn't "cement friendships and camaraderie" or develop "confidence and personal skills" because the missed out on high school sports?
This is an utter non-sequitur. A player coming out of Barca has never gone to a 'normal' high school. Other than the USNT academy in Bradenton, FL, there is nothing at all that is remotely comparable in the US. You are comparing apples to elephants.
Plenty of MLS academies are trying to do something similar, RSL, Philly, Vancouver... In any case, how are you quantifying "cement friendships and camaraderie" and "developing confidence and personal skills" to show that high school soccer is doing a better job with those things than MLS academies? Usually when people have to justify something with a bunch of "intangibles" it's because there's really not much there.
I’m with bsman. Kids get social and cultural skills and experiences by playing for their high school. Representing more than just a pay-to-play factory is a good thing. Plus, I always encourage every parent to have their kids play as many sports as possible as long as possible. As a result, 2 of 3 are my kids are still athletes in their 30s - healthy jocks if you will.
I gotta ask - do you have kids? I do - both of them are adults, and still have close friendships with the people they went to high school with. If you don't think that's important, more power to you, but if you feel friendship is an intangible, I feel very sorry for you...
I think you may be tying it too heavily to sports. I am with you on the social and cultural skills angle, though. Schools in America are largely socializing programs. You go to school to learn, but you really do it to learn how to navigate the social world, deal with peers, all those kinds of things. You don't need sports to do it, though, they are just one avenue. I have mixed feelings about kids who go into a profession at a young age versus going to school in the standard way. On the one hand, if a kid really loves what they are doing, then I think enabling them to do it as much as possible would be hard to deny. It's certainly not like people can't be developed socially if they don't go to school. However, the demands of performing that kids like that go through I think can be have some negative unintended consequences.
I don't have kids... not everyone here is from the same generation. It's even possible that some of us aren't Boomers who miss how things used to be in the good old days and are not resistant to all forms of change! I said the reasons given for why high school soccer is preferable to development academy soccer are intangibles, there is nothing measurable. On the other side, we have ample proof that development academy players are performing at a higher level than high school kids. I asked: how are you quantifying "cement friendships and camaraderie" and "developing confidence and personal skills" to show that high school soccer is doing a better job with those things than MLS academies? Your response: My kids made friends in high school sports, I feel sorry for you that you don't value friendship. Do you have any kids that went to MLS academies? Do you have any reason to believe those kids DON'T "still have close friendships with the people they went to MLS development academies with"? You feel "very sorry for me" over some straw man you've created that I don't value friendship? In that case I feel very sorry for you for not having the ability to comprehend that just because people are now doing something that's different from what you're used to based on your own experiences (or those of your kids) means they must be missing out on something. Maybe some person went to prison and made close friendships with the people they met? Would that mean it's only way to make friendships? I feel sorry for you that your kids missed out on "the prison experience"! Maybe these kids who are missing out on high school soccer should join street gangs for the "camaraderie"! So yeah that's great for your kids on a personal level, but sorry, your anecdotal evidence is pretty much meaningless. 1. MLS academies are not "pay to play" 2. Again there is zero evidence that the non-HS-sports kids DON'T get "social and cultural skills and experiences"... 3. There's a difference between your kids and professional athletes. These days professional athletes are specializing earlier and earlier. The kids that do so have a better chance of making it than the multi-sport athletes. Maybe that's not what your kids ever wanted, and that's fine. But we're literally on a board that is for discussing professional soccer players, so it's sort of relevant. The US Soccer development academy system was only formed in 2007 (that's around when JOB *retired*)... As with most new initiatives, it took a few years to really get going. The "no high school soccer" rule is only a few years old. As of the last half-decade or so, it's pretty clear that the development academy system is producing players who are at a much higher level... that's pretty obvious when you look into any of the top young players the US is producing. Yes it's possible for some kid to play a year or two of high school soccer and then join some academy, and still be fine. Just like it's possible to play a year or two of college soccer before turning pro. But the number of four year college players who turn into above average MLS players (forget about the US national team) gets lower by the year, see how irrelevant the draft is becoming.... Based on that it's tough to say those few years "are helping their development", it could be that they're hurting their development but fortunately they're getting out of a bad development environment early enough to have some chance to salvage their careers.