In a perfect world here's hoping that your son's talent exceeds the traditional expectation of players his age. Here's hoping he continues to 'play up' to challenge him so at the age of 18-19 he will start getting some reserve team action and be good enough to get a very good professional 'starting wage' offer from RSL. And if the offer isn't what you're looking for he can accept the UCLA offer and keep in touch with RSL so when he does reach the comenserate level of play he will get a better offer and get to pursue his dream of becoming a professional player while still working on his education part time.
This seems to be the disconnect, I think everyone on here believes the DA's have had to few "competitive" games. That is why I think they did the "tests" in "ideal" markets. When running a test you need a control where everything is ideal and can be measured without outside influence (ie weather in this case). Now the real question becomes do they correct his mistake next year? If not, then that is a big problem for the DA and the 10 month schedule, one year is a learning process any more becomes a problem going forward. I do also think this leads to an interesting point going forward. People complain that DA's cost to much, but also complain of to few games. When in reality they do go hand in hand.
Good post. I have asked time and again why this is occuring. My inquiries go unanswered. What are some of the factors for a DA team to not schedule an official in season game for 3 weeks. I can't believe its the intention of the DA to limit games to that extent and has this always been the case. I don't think so. It seems there are some logical reasons to get everyone on the same page with such fundemental long term changes happening to the structure of the DA. I can only imagine that in any new business shift initial bumps in the road exist. I really would like to learn more as to why the difficulty in consistent scheduling in some of the regions exist and what mitigating solutions are occuring short term and what long term solutions are being planned.
One of PDA's top talents (and a US youth national teamer), Spencer Hambleton, has just committed to Rutgers. He's a 2013 defender. http://espn.go.com/blog/high-school/boys-soccer/post/_/id/5080/st-benedicts-defender-picks-rutgers
As I wrote I think your son is in a good place - especially given his birthday. I'm also not surprised the teams scrimmage "a ton." What the people clamoring for "more practice and less games" fail to realize is that a significant part of practice time is spent playing games. So if you add scrimmage time and reduce games you are just getting an inferior, lower intensity activity for development. Also when you factor in that older players need to spend more of their available energy weight training and fitness to play at an elite level, the proportion of practice time that goes technical improvement is a fraction of what it is at younger ages. This is why even if you brought it Pep Guardiola to a typical DA team they would play like anything that resembles his Barcelona team. Most coaches will two age similar age groups will play teams will the older team against the younger team some of the scrimmage time because it is a benefit to both. However, in my experience they will scrimmage against their own age the majority of the team since it would not be beneficial to the older players to always be scrimmaging younger ones. Your analysis of the age is port on. The U18 primarily consists of High School Seniors with a few older juniors and possible some junior college kids or high school dropouts while the U16s on most clubs primarily comprise Juniors and better Sophomores. What people don’t realize is that even though the majority of players are just one year older, it is about 2.5 – 3 times harder to score on the U18 than compared to the U16s. The one 95 that does play up from RSL is a good example. On the U16s he scores about a goal a game, but on the U18s where he mostly plays he had yet to score when I last looked. That is why disrupting a kids social life by taking them out of good high school programs where they play against more experienced and more mature players to put them in with a younger but more select group makes little sense to me – especially if you are going to give them less chance to develop with real games. Not only is it degrading the experience for many of the kids, but I strongly feel the collateral impact will end up hurting the sport. Even though your son is in a residential professional academy so you believe playing 3 months of high school soccer would make a significant difference in development? What if he were allowed to practice with his academy team if the practice didn't conflict with High school games as the U16 Galaxy kids were last year? What if he your son were one of the kids getting a minority of minutes instead of the majority like he is now?
What successful organization tests something in "ideal" markets to see if they should roll something to their entire market? What successful ones I know do is test things in representative markets. This is another example of the ineptness of how things have been handled. While you may applaud them for trying to do something, I'm extremely critical because of much the development environment for Cal-South kids has been degraded this year.
That was last year when he played a full season in the fall with West Coast and then played 1800 minutes with the Galaxy U18s and U16s. This year he's mostly a reserve and had less than 500 minutes the last time I looked.
He was injured most of this year and just came back from injury. I don't think you can compare both of these years. He has been starting the last couple matches for the u18s though and will be going with most of their top prospects to Spain.
I saw him last week against Cal Odyssey. The Gals won, 4-1, but neither he nor his CB partner, Kebe Mamidou, looked sharp. I guess that's what rustiness will do to your game. Hopefully, he gets some time in Spain against good competition and comes back to DA games looking better.
Since you are a little closer to the team than most, do you know what happened to Mendiola? I would think the Spain tourney would have been a great chance for him to show his game. Just weird for him to drop off the face of the earth like that with the hype surrounding him. Also, since you watch them during most of their home games, who do you think looks the most likely to get the next HG offer?
Mendiola? I spoke with a few parents and players, and nobody seems to know, or they ain't sayin'. Hard to predict the next HG. Funny, about two weeks before Jose Villarreal was signed I spoke with a few parents, and we were speculating about who might be able to turn pro, and they all agreed that he was the most pro-ready. Nobody else jumps out at me at this point, though I'm fairly certain that one or more of the U18s will eventually get signed by the Galaxy. I watched the Vancouver-Galaxy matchup(s), and the thing I noticed about the Whitecaps U18 was how physically well-developed they were (that's what residency, with a great weight-training program, will do). The Galaxy players weren't weaklings, by any means, but they didn't have anyone (besides Villarreal) as pro-ready as Bryce Alderson, who was recently signed as a HG. Alderson is very solidly built (among other attributes), so much so that Galaxy players were bouncing off of him in attempting to get the ball. Yep, I said to myself, he's ready to turn pro.
Fair enough. Injuries will change things. I thought I had read/heard he was out trialing somewhere. But even if you take those 5 consecutive games out his playing time this year would be nothing like last where he was in the line up and playing every week. There is a pattern of play a game sit out a game maybe play as a reserve etc. outside of the one stretch. Also, I don't haven't updated the recent games.
I was able to watch Vancouver play Dallas and agree that they were very strong and fit (very well organized too). But I can't think of too many teams with a bigger combination of CBs than Payeras, Torre and Mamadou. Also, I thought the Galaxy kids regularly do several days of stength and conditioning work each week as well.
Any idea where Mamadou came from? He looks like he might have some upside. I like both Payeras and Torre, haven't decided who I think will be better, but I do like Torre's organizational skills. Unlike many other defenders he's not afraid to be vocal. They do strength work, but not nearly to the extent that the Whitecaps do (again, that residency).
I don't think he played in CSL. Looks like he moved to LA from the Ivory Coast and was playing with Belmont High School for a couple of years until he joined the Galaxy this year.
I think for academy players in an area where there is good high school soccer there could be some benefit to playing high school when they are 9th grade or maybe sophomores. My son played high school soccer and was challenged as a 9th grader. He was the only starter on a team of seniors. They played good soccer and lost in the semis. He made all state as a 9th grader. Once again it is very hard to group everyone into the same level so yes I agree with your point that if you lived in an area that had an academy and high school and your son received token playiing time he would benefit from high shcool soccer. If you are buidling a system where you want to take the very best and make them better than three months playiing high school soccer will hurt. The challenge that you have is that you are trying to pass some rules for the whole country and there will be some exceptions where quality of high school soccer is very high but if I were making the decision I would have to agree with the 10 month schedule rules.
http://www.dcunited.com/news/2012/03/uniteds-academy-takes-next-step Interesting article about DC United's Academy program. "In reserve matches this spring, five spots will be set aside specifically for academy players, offering further proof of the growing relationship between the senior team and its future."
Check out the Whitecaps roster from the reserve game last night - including u16 DA debutant...I won't try his name!... http://www.whitecapsfc.com/news/201...s-reserve-league-season-opener-versus-seattle Compare the roster to Seattle's which had a number of players on the squad that played v. Santos the other week. I only mention this due to Bonetti's post about DCU - great moves by both clubs!
^exactly! Whitecaps are seeking to enhance their reserve program. They've got a staff person connecting with NCAA apparently to arrange regular friendly matches .... the PDL, they say, is great for the young pro's but for the more established guys the PDL doesn't do them service. They recognize the NCAA won't do too much for those guys either..... However it seems the Whitecaps were genuinely looking at NASL for a reserve squad but it seems MLS has quashed that.
Looks like Jason Kries would like to see some changes in the Reserve league set up: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsrsl/53803980-49/team-reserve-rsl-game.html.csp
Looks like Jason Kries would like to see some changes in the Reserve league set up: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsrsl/53803980-49/team-reserve-rsl-game.html.csp
Article on the Fire's U18 team from ESPN Rise: http://espn.go.com/blog/high-school/boys-soccer/post/_/id/5198/chicago-fire-u18s-light-up-opponents Also a recap of last week's academy results: http://espn.go.com/blog/high-school/boys-soccer/post/_/id/5191/development-academy-recap-march-24-25
BBC Radio had an special on English Academies today...focused heavily on whether or not they do a good job of preparing kids that don't make the senior team for life beyond the academy, which isn't quite the focus here, but thought it was still an interesting listen: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01g514l/5_live_Sport_Every_Boys_Dream/ It starts about 10 minutes into the program.
His criticisms seem pretty accurate to me. It's like they drew up a list of things that English managers don't like about their reserve setup and decided to incorporate them into the MLS version.