I saw in the Soto thread that RSL offered him something like $75k/yr for a 5 year term and he turned it down to take less from Hannover. While I wish there were S/TC available, I think young talented players are well advised not to sign away their late teen/early 20 years to MLS as it puts them in a very difficult place. By this, I mean that signing a long-term MLS contract practically rules out a sale to the mid/lower level major league teams as well as the elite feeder teams. The only teams that can afford to pay what MLS would look for in a transfer fee are the elite teams where it would be extremely difficult to make the first team and going forward, these players cannot be loaned to the appropriate level. MLS is at a level where its absolutely best players can start for major league teams but even MVP Almiron hasn’t stood out at mid-table NUFC. For every Adams, there’s a lot of Miazga’s (which is not meant as an indictment!), and the drop off is extremely steep. MLS is clearly aware of the issue as it recently had Matt Doyle try to take down Mendez for going to Europe. Furthermore, a case can be made that the USSF is trying to incentivize youth to stay with MLS by not giving overseas players an equal shot at making the senior team (although we’ll learn a lot more with the GC roster). At the very least, talented youth should only sign contracts that end at the age of 19.
Does anyone have any idea how much Soto is making at Hannover? Somebody was suggesting in Weah's YA thread that MLS players are overpaid relative to there talent/other leagues. I'd agree to the Bradleys of the world and guys like Trapp, but entry level contracts seem pretty crappy to me. MLS knows they have a problem, but as usual, their response seem misguided. The days of them being able to bully players looks to be in the past. My guess is that Mendez will make Doyle's comments look idiotic like usual. All while risking annoying a young kid that LAG claim to want to be signing. Do they really think Mendez and Llanez will want to play for the club that fired their long term coach and their buddy doesnt make game day rosters? The league just cant accept their place in the world game and focus on improving. Instead, they are in denial and attempt to market every little accomplishment while not focusing on the big issues. Every year that passes, the negatives outwiegh the postives by more and more. They whine about they lose out on and dont take care of the poor kids who sign in the league. There are exceptions, but they are still very rare.
Actually, I think a HG contract for an amateur 18 yr old is probably usually higher dollar wise than what you get in Germany. One reason why MLS teams were so reluctant to give them out to 15 year olds until now. However, it is long with, usually, multiple club only options. So, a guy like Tim Parker can be starting in MLS for years and making $75K on his original HG deal. There are no escalators for starting and no reason for the club to renegotiate because they are so long. If Soto becomes part of the first team (not a great example because they will be in the 2.Bund but recent examples of McKennie and Pulisic and probably Sargent), Hannover will instantly renegotiate the contract. Actually, to play first team I believe a Bund team has to change the contract from a youth to pro contract which is a renegotiation opportunity. But if you have a good player, you renegotiate to pay them in line with a starter at your club or you risk losing them for free. So, while $75K in the first year might be marginally higher; by year 5 you are still making around $75K (Parker was but Adams and Morris did sign for more). Whereas, McKennie and Pulisic are probably making high 6, low 7 figures a year just a few years in.
Zlatan.... “I think the system is s---,” Ibrahimovic said. “That’s the way it is because you talk about mentality. For me, mentality is every day. The way you train is the way you play the game. The results in every game are important. But here, you come in seventh place, you make playoffs, you win. So how do you create that mentality to be on your toes 24 hours? It’s very difficult.”
I don't think playoffs are an issue. Plenty of American sports have them, and it's not an issue there. MLS doesn't have many free agents, has very few inter-MLS loans, and has not developed enough technical American talent to raise the league to the standard of European feeder leagues. It has tried to import talent from South America to compensate, but that often requires DP level expenditures, with limited slots available.
There are plenty of South Americans on good TAM money. In fact that's exactly what TAM was intended for.
Playoffs redistribute the pressure from top and bottom teams to the middle/marginal potential playoff teams. Here’s a predictable phenomena. MLS raising its spending fast and expanding meant that more foreign players would be signed because there is a limited supply of prime-age Americans who can justify that salary. My fear half-a-decade ago was that spending would outstrip the capacity of academies to produce players who could compete. That’s because this is an iterative process with long lead times. They have a certain amount they can spend, now they are looking at sales in terms of ROI. Getting MLS more experienced at sales should help our local players.
Not entirely--it was also intended to be used to pay the top Americans enough to stay instead of bolting for Europe.
Two divisions with pro/rel. Divisions play intra-division home and home Inter-division is one game, home and away balanced as possible Top 6/12 from top division make the playoffs, by overall records. Top 2/12 from bottom division make playoffs as #7 and #8 seeds. Bottom 3 of top and top 3 of bottom move in pro/rel. #3 vs #4 playoff on both sides. Single fixture. Easy peazy
Ok Good article on the impact of TAM: https://www.fourfourtwo.com/us/feat...cation-money-american-canadian-players-affect
Fair enough. Thanks for posting this. I hadn't realized the TAM rules were so skewed away from paying domestic talent, except for in some pretty narrow ways. From the article so others can see more easily, TAM can be used in the following ways: 1) To sign a new player whose salary and acquisition costs are between the maximum budget charge ($504,375 in 2018) and $1.5 million 2) To buy a Designated Player below the max budget charge in order to free up space to simultaneously sign a new DP 3) To re-sign an existing player (who is already earning more than the maximum salary budget) 4) To help sign new Homegrown Players, though the amount of TAM that can be used in these deals is capped at $200,000. So, basically, 3 and 4 can apply to domestic talent (though, of course, 1 and 2 could feasibly be used for Americans, albeit in far less likely scenarios).
In general, MLS pays above market for American players. However, it doesn't really have the means to keep a top 20 player. There is also the complication of the potshot that is the draft and you need to factor in that different teams are very different in how effectively they promote youth. So it really depends on the individual context of each player. Zardes was right in staying. Pulisic was right to go. Then there is the huge universe of players in between. Should Horvath have stayed? Should Miaga have gone at 16? Those are questions that are harder to answer. In general, though, I am glad that MLS clubs are providing better options and that European clubs are a lot more interested in American talent. This is a great age for YNT development. I welcome the fact that things aren't straight forward anymore. At the very least it provides ways and means for players to escape bad situations. Lletget and Steffen benefited greatly from MLS. Gall and Polster benefited greatly from European options.
Agreed. Signing contracts that end at 19 doesn’t mean that all prospects will or should go abroad. Only those who have elite attributes and are wanted by very good training academies* should go abroad. The rest should stay in MLS. It just means that they’re future isn’t veto-blocked by a team until they are past the window when elite programs want them. Posters got really upset and repeatedly stated that if our best prospects go overseas, it would leave the cupboard bare. Well, I think that has been proven completely false as we’ve not only sent a huge amount of elite prospects to great international programs*, our MLS DAs are doing dare-I-say great given how young they are. * Note for a certain Dutch poster: this doesn’t mean only Big 4, it also includes elite Dutch and other training programs that have a track record of developing elite players.
All Dutch academies are elite.The only difference with the abroad known Dutch"top academies" is the obvious reason the best go to the academies with direct access to the top teams. It's even a fact elite prospects from the non top club academies are lured away to the socalled elite ones of Feyenoord, PSV, Ajax and AZ when their class emerges.
Sadly, this take (which was pulled from a closed thread) didn't come to fruition this window although I'd note that it still has time until the winter window. Let's hope for some progress in the winter transfer window.
I said winter window because that's when the MLS season ends and those players will have time to build up a rep and requisite caps internationally by then. It's also an average in terms of movement, 1-2 different players could end up making the switch.
I think the FCD players in particular there are going to go in the winter window. The GM of FCD reported "significant interest" in Cannon and Pomykal, but no actual offers. FCD, by the way, reportedly offered lucrative contract extensions to the two of them. Obviously, to keep them they'll need huge pay raises. Next window those two will either be sold or signed on for the long term. We'll know one way or the other. We don't talk about him as much, but Jesus Ferreira was signed at the same time as Cannon and Pomykal. They'll also need to figure out what to do with him. Of the three, I'd say he's the most likely to be here next season with FCD.
I saw that you put winter window and think it makes sense (sorry if that wasn't evident). I hope you're right. Time will tell.
MLS fans have a fascination with comparing leagues and are fervent about "first team minutes". It is going to be really interesting to see how Pomykal turns out vs Ledesma and Mendez. If Pomykal (and all the other kids teams have rushed to sign) stagnates in a year or two like is often seen in the league, it is going to get much tougher signing kids. It seems Ledezma and Mendez are progressing nicely. RL got his debut in a friendly with all the international players away. I was struck by the quality of play in some clips of RL with Jong PSV. Here are highlights of Ledezma playing in the second division in the Netherlands and Pomykal in MLS. Compare the speed of play and the amount of time & space allowed to attackers. I think I would rather our 18 to 20 yos be playing in this second division, getting second team minutes than MLS. 1168614900610060288 is not a valid tweet id Paxton Pomykal vs Toronto FCpic.twitter.com/Lj4ttuTj86— Sanjiv (@USMNTvideos) June 24, 2019
It’s not an “either/or” situation. It’s an “all of the above” situation where we want depth everywhere. I do want our best talents to work with the best and agree that the concept of heavily prioritizing “first team minutes” emphasizes the wrong thing for our youth players (u-20).
I think it's silly to compare the speed of play in August. Once it cools down that's a more valid comparison but always remember water breaks never happened in MLS until after the WC was in Brasil because the Euro's wouldn't be able to handle Brasil's heat. I know someone from Dallas who went to the game in the Brazilian game in the jungle and said Dallas heat is worse.
I think it is silly to play in the summer, especially if it supposedly slows the play down for 3 months* out a 7 month season plus playoffs. Seems much worse than playing in december, late January, and February. *Dallas average lows/highs are above 70/90 in june, July, and August and just barely below in September.
This is the reason why the Feyenoord management made a big mistake to refuse to put in the Young Feyenoord team in that league when the opportunity was offered as the PSV and Ajax talents make jumps because of that competition level that goes beyond boys matches.
Well, you say it is worse but playing in places like Chicago, NE, Montreal, Toronto and many others is pretty much impossible during those months.