I don't know how you can judge Munoz without knowing the directive of the front office. There was clearly a directive to focus on youth simple due to Los Dos drastic increase in minutes for youth players. Beyond that we really don't know. The line-ups were so scattershot rotating in different youth players from week to week in a constant juggling of lineups and so young at time that judging off results is unfair. I think for starters it is pointless to put a team on the field that isn't competitive. It doesn't do anybody any favors if a team can't play cohesive soccer and create chances offensively. The team doesn't need to be a playoff team, but they need to be able to compete. I think it behooves a team to focus on their most highly promising prospects and build around them at the expense of the second tier players even if their are some quality second tier players. This guy is our top forward, midfielder and defender and all are going to start 85% of the games. Fill in with veterans around those guys that compliment their style of play. Have a plan to get regular scheduled sub appearances for 2-3 of your next crop of guys. Galaxy II along with other MLS USL teams this year were too poor to really develop players and tried a shotgun approach versus a more pin point approach with selective players at least in my novice opinion.
Perhaps the only thing this issue really exposes is the idea that the leap that, for most developing players, the jump between academy-level and weekly professional matches in a professional competition (whether USL/NASL or MLS) is still going to be too big, and there's consequently a gap for pretty much everyone who isn't extremely precocious. It wouldn't matter if we always picked the right players every time and moved them ahead quickly, but guess what: If it were that easy, everyone would do it. But what it creates is a situation where you either create a veteran lower-division program that is too competitive to offer enough opportunity for enough high-potential teens, or a youth-heavy team that offers loads of minutes but gets whomped each week. The easy answer is -- throw it down the middle! But then you still have to make almost perfect player choices, which is impossible. There's still a missing rung or two in the ladder, it seems to me. Right now it's kind of a College/DA gap year/NPSL/PDL patchwork.
I'm still more interested in investing in the 12-18 year old age group. By the time college rolls around no offense but I'm not really interested. Sure we'll get a few Matt Besler's but if we want to take the next step the emphasis needs to be on the u19 u17 levels. By the time USL comes into play it's a question of if a guy can make an MLS career for himself. Not a national team one.
Los Dos didn't have a good season but a lot of young players got some experience. There is at least a handful of players that look like they are gonna be MLS level or better. They are are gonna be a much better team next year. Also, Efrain Alvarez is one of those Blanco types, sucks that he isn't playing for us.
USL should eventually have enough teams that MLS Academy teams should be U19 and have their own division like they have in Germany. If you age out of that without breaking into the senior team you could be loaned out to a regular USL side to get more seasoning and a last chance. Take ideas from the leagues who develop the most/best players if possible.
If the kids age out of the u18 level as things stand now, they can - 1. Sign with the 1st team (home grown contract) 2. Sign with the USL 2nd team (becoming more common) 3. Play in college and continue affiliation with the club through the PDL 4. Move on from affiliation with the club (which means moving on from MLS or awaiting college draft). If this model is executed well, it is a good model. I think the question is in it’s execution - some of the questions are extremely fair.
I think a bunch of MLS clubs got caught up in wanting to sign homegrown players, so signed who they could. The success rate of early homegrown signings at most clubs has been shockingly poor. And to be honest, we didn't rate many of these youngsters as 'difference makers" in the first place. We were hoping to see advancement and development that didn't really come either. Part of that might be opportunities, but part of it was probably signing a bunch of kids that were unlikely to ever be MLS quality. And in a salary and roster capped league, if a youngster doesn't advance...................the next generation of kids will get the opportunity. That's probably what's happening to Coy Craft. FCD needs to make a decision about re-signing him. But they also now have Paxton, Ferreira, Reynolds, and Reid that are in the queue. So as of now where's the playing time for Coy Craft unless he's starting MLS quality? I don't know. He might be back with FCD for cheap depth I guess........................ The team that's done the absolute best job over the last two years has been NYRB. They've signed kids, trained them up with NYRBII, and have promoted a bunch to PLAYING TIME with their MLS squad. And they haven't dipped in quality either. They gave TFC everything they could handle in the playoffs. [If this TFC team wins MLS Cup they should be considered one of the best teams in the history of the league.]
Indeed. He played in 20 games and was near the team's first XI in terms of non-GK minutes, so it's not like he just couldn't get on the field.
He had some niggling injuries but really Colorado are just in major overhaul. I think he could get picked up somewhere but just sad to watch a player fall like that
This is an old tale that is been repeated many times. Superfast kid rises really quickly only to get lots of niggling injuries and frustratingly drop out of sight without reaching his potential. One could call it the ballad of the quick-rising speedster. Too much emphasis on speed as the central tool in his game leading to inevitable injuries. Speed is great, but if it is your primary tool, injures are almost sure to follow.
Four years or so ago Colorado looked like they had one of the top groups of HGPs in the country. Now it's all frittered away. Maybe because Oscar left?
Well Dillon Powers just got cut. Shane O'Neill is I dont even know where now. Serna is still with them just not very good
O'Neill's career took a turn for the weird after leaving Colorado. I don't know who was advising him, but he signed for a super sketchy club in Cyprus that basically serves as a loophole for third-party ownership and then was sent on a series of pointless loans. His last loan, to NAC Breda, was useful and he did well in the Dutch second division. Despite NAC's promotion, they couldn't come to terms with Apollon Limassol so he wound up in the Eredivisie with Excelsior. He's been injured, though.
While injuries were obviously the worst thing that could have happened to Gatt's career, I also feel like they were the best thing that could have happened to his reputation. He's one of those guys who increasingly is a "what might have been" because of his tremendous speed and because a high level career is now purely a hypothetical. As such, it's increasingly easy to celebrate his speed and forget a little about his technical and tactical limitations.
He was quite a star in the Norwegian league which no doubt helped his reputation because A: nobody stateside can watch it, B: the level is so low, C: combine the past two and you get a bunch of highlights of him shredding guys which looks great
One guy who doesn't get discussed much here is '94 GK Alex Bono. Remember when he got his out-of-the-blue MNT callup, then got sent down to T2 and did nothing for a while? Now he's heading to MLS Cup with Toronto, and if he's for real, and stays healthy, he figures to be in his prime as 2022 approches.
The last time Gatt had anything approaching a normal professional season was in 2012, when he played in a bunch of Norwegian and Europa League matches at 20 or 21. Was it really so crazy for people to be intrigued by a player that age getting regular first-division, first-team minutes at that level, who also just happened to have wide-receiver speed, two years ahead of a World Cup?
Not at all. Just saying that if he had been in MLS or a more easily accessible league he would have had more scrutiny