And the Port Said riot was the beginning of the end for the Tantawi military junta that took power over Egypt after Mubarak fell. Not to mention the big role soccer ultra groups had in the entire Arab Spring.
Unfortunately for Carleton, ATLUTD is kind of in a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" situation with their lineup. Perhaps if he'd grown up in Dallas or Philly we'd be seeing more of him. Who know though. 10-15 years ago we'd be seeing him on the field in MLS. The days of Eddie Gaven and Mike Magee cracking the starting lineups as teenagers are going to be fewer and farther between in the modern MLS. It's tough to say if not getting PT is affecting his development or not. Maybe it turns out his ceiling is a Bradley type player, but it also could be a Jack MacInerney too. I'm not going to blame ATL if he doesn't pan out. Two decades of watching MLS has made me neutral to pessimistic about youth prospects.
Your eyes should be enough to tell you that they are two very different players. You’re probably right that he would have been playing in years past. But that doesn’t mean he’s not good enough to play now. At the very least, they could have loaned him out for this season.
There are more kids 7-17 years old playing soccer in the US than there are people in Croatia. How “massive” is their culture compared to ours?
Eh, all I'm saying is that we really can't know how a youth prospect is going to turn out once he reaches the full adult pro level. He was at least previously getting some minutes with ATL2, no?
It's not about Carleton per se. It's about Soto, Llanez, Ledezma, etc. The fewer minutes Carleton gets, the fewer prospects that will forego foreign opportunities to stay in MLS. Broken record, I know, it's just important.
I'm as big an MLS fan as can be, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing anymore. A decade ago I'd want them to stay home, but the league has changed. Nowadays I think the better path forward for our top tier prospects is to go hit up the Eredivisie or 2 Bundesliga or wherever.
I mean, I, and plenty of other kids in my area played soccer every damn weekend from the time I was 4 to 14. Doesn't mean I ever had coaches who knew what they were doing and could teach me to play properly. Plus, it was pretty rare to find kids who actually watched the game when I was growing up. At practices we'd small talk about the Detroit Lions more than what the USMNT was doing, forget the Dortmunds of the world. We're miles ahead of where we were, but probably still have a ways to go.
Depends on what you think the endgame is. In our lifetimes, soccer will not be the number one sport like it is in a soccer-mad country. It just won't. Soccer is everything to a lot of countries. In the US, it has moved from being a sport on the extreme periphery, to being mostly mainstream. Perhaps it can attain "Big 4" status, and be as culturally-relevant as a sport like Baseball or the NHL (NHL in a Canadian province or cold state). It's highly unlikely to be as popular and relevant as Basketball and football. And it will never dwarf all other sports in the same way.
It's certainly a bad thing if teams scale back academies because they aren't seeing a return on their investments, will all the best players leaving on a free after getting 5-10 of free soccer education. And no team will continue in perpetuity to expend resources on something that gives them no return. Then where is development here? Yours is a shortsighted view of looking at this issue.
Why? What if the leftover players (which will probably be at least 75% of the total) are perfectly suited to have a long-term career in MLS? Clint Eastwood would know better but isn't FCD already overflowing with youth (i.e., not enough playing time for their homegrown players) even though they didn't sign an abundance of talent that moved to better programs? Or, you know, MLS could negotiate with the union to get T&SC payments like the rest of the world......
So you are saying that MLS will/should be happy losing out on their biggest money-makers because they were able to get a few mediocre lifers? Ok. Thats just silly on its face from every perspective, so I will simply let this go and allow you to have the last word.
Yeah, that's kinda my point to leftbacks. Lots of kids have been playing soccer for years in the US. That doesn't mean that people actually cared much about the sport until the last decade or two.
As you probably already know, that's not what I'm saying. There's clearly a well-used mechanism that allows firms all over the world to profit from training players that become better than their senior team but MLS/union have yet to avail themselves of this. I hope that this changes in the near-future. Also, a player who stays with a club for his career shouldn't be derided as a "mediocre lifer" IMO. Furthermore, your original statement is that investing in academies would "give...them no return" and I'm simply pointing out the return from an academy may still be above their minimum investment threshold even if they lose out on some top players (which hopefully they won't if they adopt the global standard.)
The problem that FCD has is that they waited several years too long to start a USL reserve team. In order to keep the pipeline of talent moving you need talent moving in, then you need opportunities all the way thru excellence with the first team, and then you need to sell the players on in a timely fashion. Right now in Central Midfield FCD is giving substantial playing time to two homegrowns. One a USMNT pool player (Acosta) and one a capable MLSer (Ulloa). They also have rising draft pick and USMNT-eligible Jacori Hayes and a capped Ecuadorian international (Grueso). So there's no opportunity for Brandon Servania, a US U20 international. They have to loan him out to Tulsa. Pomykal can also play as a #8, and no opportunity for them there either. Then in the U19s they have two US youth internationals in central midfield. US U20 Chris Cappis and US U18 Thomas Roberts. Both are of homegrown signing quality. Then you go a step down to the U17s with capped and developing USYNTers (Tanner Tessman, Diego Lateyf). We can keep going ad naseum. What needs to happen there in order for the conveyor belt of talent to operate properly? 1) You need to sell a Kellyn Acosta to Europe. (probably should have tried last summer, but we know the reason they didn't) 2) You can then move Brandon Servania up a rung into the FCD first team. 3) You need a USL team firing on all cylinders. You can then sign Cappis and Roberts and have them develop there for a year or two. We can continue. By the way, what would have happened to that central midfield logjam if they'd signed both McKennie and Hyndman? So I think its OK that a kid like McKennie sporadically leaves for Europe early. Its just not healthy for an entire crop to leave like is about to happen to RSL. That doesn't help at all. What you're left with is the roster filler (which is something) and not the "difference makers." The challenge is that the primary mission of MLS coaches is to win games. Finding that balance between winning games and being a developmental conveyor belt is really tough for a young league. NYRB is doing the best so far. Then again, NYRB loses early in the playoffs every year. Most teams are struggling with that. Cuz MLS is a wealthier league than people give it credit for. Compare Serie A spending in the last window to MLS spending. Not so different. You can go out and buy a high quality South American if you want. FCD had the money to sign a right back. They didn't need to hand the job to Reggie Cannon...................
Clint, Isn't the (well-described) conveyor belt challenge one felt by clubs across the world? One would hope that a team that has an abundance of internal talents coming up would be in a good position rather than a poor one. Again, I think that some of this goes back to what you stated: MLS doesn't view itself as a developmental league and therefore the top end of the conveyor belt doesn't work as intended.
I'm not talking numbers, I'm talking passion. The whole country revolves around the success of their national team and there's national pride at stake. How many Americans cried when the USMNT failed to qualify for the World Cup? Mexico can attract 80,000 fans when they play a friendly in the US, but the USMNT could barely attract 10,000 during the latter days of JK.
FWIW, I was speaking from the perspective of the USMNT player development in the short term. The long term is another story, but right now MLS teams are still feeling out what to do with that player who graduates from the youth team, but isn't quite ready for the first team. Ultimately it's up to MLS to figure this out and it's their own damn faults if they can't do so. Players are going to do what's in their own best interests.
As recently as circa 2005, there were still rookies being drafted into MLS who had literally never seen a professional match until they were playing in one. It wasn't until some time between 2005 and 2010 that soccer really took off as a spectator sport among American teenagers. By 2012 or thereabouts, it was the #2 favorite sport to watch. Until recently, that's been one of the biggest differences between the US and soccer-first countries. The other challenge we have is that our top players and coaches are much more spread out geographically. We haven't really had a critical mass of good players and good coaches in any single location, not even in hotbeds like LA. We don't just need well-coached kids, we need them to get experience playing against other well-coached kids.
The best indicator of where we are developmentally and as a soccer nation is not our best players but the "2nd tier" of players. The players that are solid national team players and professionals but not the "stars". Donovan and Dempsey were no more an indicator of where we were than Pulisic and McKennie are today. In Donovan and Dempsey's days it was players like Agoos, Berhalter, Lewis, Hedjuk etc. In our last go around we had our Zusi's, Bedoyas, Zardes's etc. The top players are outliers and that group will rise and fall much more erratically. The 2nd group is much more constant and a better representation of where we are. The two primary factors are quantity and quality. The McCarty's and Larentowicz's of this upcoming group of kids will really be the best indicator of where we are and if we are growing. We need more of them and they need to be better. If they are, the outliers will still arrive periodically and they will be (by definition) as good or better than the outliers of the present or past.
Sure it is. I think the issue is that the rest of the world's leagues/clubs kind of "know what they are." They know if they're buyers, sellers, or somewhere in between. There are big clubs in South America that operate solely as a conveyor belt. That's really the sole way that they can stay viable financially. [And most are still teetering on the brink. Clubs in Argentina have a tough time paying players] They've had generations to define their business model and their pathway. Anderlecht might be in the Champions League most years, but they're also a conveyor belt. They've become experts at being able to do both. But they'll never be a serious competitor to actually win the Champions League. If they actually kept all of their players, then they'd have one hell of a first team. MLS is pretty strong financially. They can pay to keep their players. MLS clubs are still figuring out what their place in the World is. How does FCD balance gunning for trophies (which included the CCL over the last several years) with providing opportunities for youngsters? It sounds easy, but its not. Sometimes I think what gets lost in all of these player development discussions................. ..................in MLS if you're strategy doesn't help you win games, then you're not doing it right. Selling players and being a conveyor belt has to be part of that. Investing money in your academy and having the kids leave on frees does literally nothing. Maybe it helps you win meaningless Development Academy games to recruit more kids. I don't know. We can look at FCD as a good example. Could they have sold Kellyn Acosta in last summer's window? Probably. We didn't hear about any concrete transfer offers, but probably. Would FCD have been a better team heading into the playoff push without Kellyn Acosta? In 2017, unquestionably not. You play to win the game! In 2018, they've built up some depth in central midfield. There's a good succession plan in place with Hayes and Servania. NOW they can sell him and I don't think it'll be an issue. The flaw now is that Kellyn missed much of the early season with injury, and still only now looks to be returning to 2016/first half of 2017 form. Now they have a USMNTer they can sell, but I don't know who's buying. Best laid plans.........................so they have a logjam. All I'm saying is that in these development discussions we must remember that MISSION ONE for MLS coaches and front offices is to win games and trophies. Its not to just develop young players and sell them all higgledy-piggledy whenever an offer comes in.
This is a key conflict between USSF and MLS - if MLS tries to win by getting cost-effective players who are better than our domestic players (which appears to be their strategy and one that has merit), it may help them win games but that's not great for USSF. In other words, should MLS try to raise the level of play beyond where our domestic pool (excluding our elite talent who clearly belong in the major leagues) currently resides? How does the USSF respond to this conflict? Assume that it's not there? Simply support MLS even if its interest herein are not aligned with the USSF?
I'm having a hard time coming up with what the USSF's responsibility would be in this situation or if they really have the authority to do anything at all.
MLS fans are two-faced in this regard too. We desperately want our teams to seriously compete for the CONCACAF Champions League. And people whine endlessly about the quality of play. In 2018, what's the quickest way for a front office and coaching staff to address these issues? Its obviously to go out and sign the Almiron's and Josef Martinez's of the world. These are high quality players that MLS teams can afford. Atlanta outbid a bunch of Euro teams for Barco. The USSF's role is to help build the pathway from academy squads (its the USSF development academy after all) to the 2nd/3rd divisions they've sanctioned with the USL, and then to the first teams. The USSF can provide that framework. But its MLS ownership, front offices, and coaching staffs that need to buy in. Atlanta has young domestic players. Its the front office that chose to sign Barco, and the coaching staff that chooses to play him instead of Carleton. What's the USSF supposed to do about that? I don't know. The USSF is a convenient scapegoat in all of these development discussions. Extremely convenient due to the USMNT's issues, the vacuum of leadership, etc. etc. In the rest of the world where does youth development happen, though? It happens at the clubs.
If MLS is actually as good at player development as assumed, then should not the domestic player pool rise to meet MLS demand for higher-level players? RSL is about to lose an entire crop of players to European teams that are better than themselves. So, clearly there are talented players in the US, and clearly there are more than just 1 or 2. So the answer is pretty simple for MLS. If you want to keep raising the level of play without fielding a roster entirely made up of South Americans and foreigners*, then you need to produce even more talented domestic MLS-level players. Because MLS-level =/= top European league level, and MLS teams can compete with top European leagues salary-wise, there should be plenty of kids to fall into the MLS-level sweet spot and play for their domestic MLS clubs. MLS teams are already producing Weston McKennie-type prospects. There's very little reason to think there aren't plenty of Kellyn Acosta and Victor Ulloa-level players they can also produce. *Which, I'd suggest, is the prerequisite for continued USSF involvement in MLS, because if there are no Americans in MLS, there's no reason for the USSF to care about the league let alone be so invested in their development.