MLS needs to start caring about the USMNT again

Discussion in 'USA Men' started by adam tash, Jun 9, 2019.

  1. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    Where did I say that teams that don’t immediately sell are hording them? Was that before or after I said that NYRB wasn’t out of line for, you know, not selling at the first opportunity?
     
  2. EruditeHobo

    EruditeHobo Member+

    Mar 29, 2007
    San Francisco, CA
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Before! And the bold is wrong, why would the club do that? They have no reason to do that. This isn't how this market works.

    If your point is it might alienate some players from signing there in the future, that's fine. I concede that on some level. But that doesn't mean they're required to show everyone else their cards while the clubs flush with cash exploit them.

    You suggested this earlier, too. ---v

    The answer is it depends on the case. Fulham were just doing this exact posturing with a teenager with 12 months left on his deal... and it got them millions more in the transfer fee! Should they not fight for that, because of, what? Nostalgia, in honor of the player that wants to leave them? Or is it in service of being "nice"?

    I'm not even arguing with you I just don't know what you're talking about. This seems like a profoundly naive view of the business of the transfer market. If I'm completely confused and misreading you let me know, because that's how it feels a little bit.
     
  3. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    Maybe I wrote it unclearly but I specifically said that they don’t have to bend over which means they don’t have to accept the first price but should be willing to engage in realistic sale discussions.

    That the exact opposite way that you’re interpreting what I’m saying so I must be writing poorly.

    My main point is that they shouldn’t simply say “we’re not selling a player except for a billion dollars which is different from negotiating hard. There’s a market out there and they can try to bend it towards them but at the end, deals should get done just like they do for championship/B2 teams who sell players.

    To be clear, I’m not saying they have to accept any offers but they should create a market and see what clears.
     
  4. Clint Eastwood

    Clint Eastwood Member+

    Dec 23, 2003
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    #554 Clint Eastwood, Aug 20, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2019
    The minutes to domestic kids keeps exploding in MLS and USL. And keep in mind these figures don't include the domestic U20s that were developed in MLS academies and then went abroad (Richards, Ledesma, Mendez, Gloster, Llanez, Reyna, Soto, Booth, Cappis, the list goes on). FC Dallas alone is likely to shatter all sorts of records for domestic U20 minutes at their pace (spearheaded by Pomykal and Ferreira).
     
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  5. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    Well, I’m hoping we’ll never hear about how “If our best prospects go to elite international programs, there will be no one left in the Academies.”

    I think that several of these emerging MLS players wouldn’t have been developed to this level if all of our prospects stayed domestic.
     
  6. deejay

    deejay Member+

    Feb 14, 2000
    Tarpon Springs, FL
    Club:
    Jorge Wilstermann
    Nat'l Team:
    Bolivia
    The funny thing is that five years ago this was true. When MLS had most of the 2013 U20s that was a major victory. When MLS lost Hyndman, Rubin, Zelalem, and Steffen that was a major loss and the origin of those complaints. As it is, today we have more players in Europe than ever before yet the talent in MLS is greater than ever before. Also, MLS has sold more in the last year than ever before

    The moral to this story? Take care of your seedlings and you will reap much more than your losses.
     
  7. Clint Eastwood

    Clint Eastwood Member+

    Dec 23, 2003
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Well...............a lot of this has to do with the DEPTH of talent now coming out of MLS academies. The academies were only founded in 2007, and it was a while before many really got up to speed (some are still languishing).

    But the depth of talent coming out of the early investors like FCD, RSL, LAG, Philly, NYRB, etc. means they can tolerate some of their elite talent leaving. LAG loses Mendez and Llanez. But they retained Alvarez and Araujo. FCD lost McKennie & sold Chris Richards (before he'd ever played a first team game for them). But they retained Pomykal, Ferreira, and friends.

    5-6 years ago when an MLS club lost out on their best academy player, the dropoff to their other prospects was pretty darn large.

    The big difference in 2019 and beyond is that MLS/USL clubs will be part of the solidarity payment and training compensation system. Fernando Clavijo used to say that not being a part of that structure was a threat to their club's mission statement. A club isn't going to continue investing in their academy if the players all leave for free. There's no point. So FCD didn't get compensated for Weston McKennie. They'll be compensated for the 2020 version of Weston McKennie should he choose to sign elsewhere.
     
  8. Baysider

    Baysider Member+

    Jul 16, 2004
    Santa Monica
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    I still think it's an open question. Araujo wasn't really developed by the Galaxy (and doesn't count as a homegrown) and Alvarez is still providing limited minutes.

    FCD is in a class of it's own. Beyond that, how many teams have say 3 of their starters being homegrown? Or get 20% of the minutes? I'm not sure what the right measure is, but I think it's a pretty small group that is actually relying on academy players.
     
  9. Clint Eastwood

    Clint Eastwood Member+

    Dec 23, 2003
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    #559 Clint Eastwood, Aug 20, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2019
    FCD also got a head start by really investing in their academy right at the start in 2007 (thanks to Oscar Pareja). They've given playing time to eight USYNT eligible academy products this year (Cannon, Pomykal, Ferreira, Servania, Cerrillo, Reynolds, Roberts, and Pepi), plus a 9th USYNT eligible player that was drafted (Nelson). Then of course they have another academy product (Jesse Gonzalez) who's aged out of USYNTs. I saw a statistic recently that took into account the minutes given to ALL academy products regardless of league, and FCD just destroyed the rest of MLS. [So that for them would include McKennie, Hyndman, Acosta, Cappis, Ulloa, Richard Sanchez, Mikey Ambrose, the Mexico based kids like Zendejas, etc. etc.]

    I think the stat is that 36 players who've spent at least one calendar year at the FCD academy have gone on to sign a pro contract.

    I imagine RSL is 2nd in terms of minutes to academy products this year. They have 4 that get regular minutes (Lennon, Baird, Glad, Saucedo), and some others that get sporadic minutes.
     
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  10. gunnerfan7

    gunnerfan7 Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
    United States
    Jul 22, 2012
    Santa Cruz, California
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Well, that's a pretty important issue. Because just looking at "total" minutes for HGPs, you're going to be heavily influenced by outliers, like a particularly-high-quality academy.

    I like the breakdown by age, but I think a more useful/insightful analysis requires more granularity.

    Break those numbers down by academy, and I think you'll probably see some kind of Pareto distribution where 95 percent of the minutes come from FCD and RSL, and lots of minutes clustered around a small handful of players from those academies. If that's the case, that's good confirmation of people's pre-concieved observations. If not, then perhaps the data will show something altogether more interesting and unexpected!

    You could go with average minutes per player, but that's similarly skewed, at both ends of the distribution. E.g Glad gets a lot of minutes, and is a HGP. Cade Cowell plays 2 minutes for SJ/Reno and he pulls down the average.

    Perhaps the most useful charts would be a breakdown of the number of players produced by each academy, separated by a categorical variable of the number of minutes played and age. If you could get the shading right, I think you could make a bar graph that would show all of that information on an annual basis. Which would mean you'd have to either eyeball charts for each year, or do another percent change year over year for each academy.

    Man, I'm tempted to make this myself! Anyone know where the data from that Twitter post may be stored?
     
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  11. NietzscheIsDead

    NietzscheIsDead Member+

    NO WAR
    United States
    May 31, 2019
    NO WAR
    Texas, despite its notoriously hard playing fields, has a long history of producing very good soccer players.

    When I played in Texas it was common knowledge that the players on the periphery of our top leagues were sometimes more promising.

    It seems as though FC Dallas is finding a way to funnel these players into their academy. I am not surprised in the least that they are producing such a volume of quality players. We always wondered about what would happen when that untapped river was funneled into the pros.
     
  12. NietzscheIsDead

    NietzscheIsDead Member+

    NO WAR
    United States
    May 31, 2019
    NO WAR
    I am interested to know, and maybe some of you here have some knowledge of the influence of MLS on Uplayer USMNT roster inclusion.

    There are obvious benefits...visibility and marketing for MLS.

    There have been several things that you can count on over recent years with the national team, one of which is that they are highly likely to include a Seattle player who is marginally worthy (Roldan, etc) despite their being better options, and that they will likely not subject USMNT/MLS "stars" (Bradley, etc) to ongoing competition.

    It is plainly obvious that the USMNT would be better served by having an open competition for midfield spots. Bradley should not be a placeholder...Tyler Adams looked excellent in top level football last year in that role as a first year young player. That position should be open for Adams to take, no matter who ends up playing right back. You want your best players playing where they are most influential. It makes little sense to pin Adams literally into a corner to save space for Bradley on the field. You want Adams to be able to impact the game as much as possible.

    You also want to make room for up and coming players like Pomykal. Including Roldan at the expense of Pomykal seems senseless and without reason at this stage. Pomykal is getting minutes and has earned an audition with his play in the U20 World Cup, where he was literally one of the top players in the tournament. It seems like the Seattle player needs to give way to the player with the change to add more to the team.
     
  13. Clint Eastwood

    Clint Eastwood Member+

    Dec 23, 2003
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Well...........to be even more precise, Dallas-Fort Worth has a long history of producing players. Somebody should write a book about why that is. Houston, San Antonio, Austin, etc. don't have that same history. The paucity of professional soccer players from Houston, America's 5th largest metro area, is astonishing. [Chris Cappis, the Hobro midfielder, is one.]

    Of the DA Champions (U17 and U19) over the past 5 years...............fully half were from the state of Texas. How many were from California? Boop Boop. Zero.
     
  14. NietzscheIsDead

    NietzscheIsDead Member+

    NO WAR
    United States
    May 31, 2019
    NO WAR
    There's a legit, old soccer culture in North Texas that extends into the 1970s. I think that's part of it. I remember being around european and south american pros who had retired here...playing under them with their kids.

    Summer and spring tournaments were always really competitive.

    The people who organized the region in the 1980's and 1990's did a great job of creating infrastructure with the Dallas Classic League and the Dallas Cup, which became live displays of international-level talent for participants to observe and test themselves against. People really loved their youth soccer.
     
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  15. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    For some reason, Houston produces more players for other countries than for the US, most notably Arturo Alvarez (El Salvador). Many of them were not born in the US and are not US citizens (though Alvarez was born in Houston). I don't remember other names, but I recall seeing a number of players from Houston on Central American and Caribbean national teams, and even one with a few caps for India.
     
  16. Clint Eastwood

    Clint Eastwood Member+

    Dec 23, 2003
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    The best player from Houston is clearly Stu Holden. Moved there from Scotland when he was 10, and was developed as a soccer player in the Houston area. After he went to Clemson, and had an unfruitful stint at Sunderland, he returned back to the Houston to play for the Dynamo.

    People always mock the Dynamo academy as one of the most disappointing in the US in terms of talent development. And they're right. However, there's very little history of elite youth soccer in the Houston area. That's an American football, baseball kind of town.

    There was a real sign of life there recently. The Houston affiliate of the Texans (based in Dallas) won the 2017-18 U19 division of the Development Academy. Of course FC Dallas then poached their two best players (Chris Richards and Chris Cappis) and their academy director (former MLSer Eric Quill). Back down to Earth this most recent season for them. FCD orked with Richards for a year, signed him, and then flipped him for a huge profit before he'd ever played a game for them. :) Ah, capitalism.

    There's signs of life from all over the South (other than Georgia).

    Chris Richards isn't from Houston originally. He's from Birmingham, Alabama. US U20 and FC Dallas midfielder Brandon Servania is from Birmingham, Alabama. One of the best young players in the FCD academy right now, US U18 Tanner Tessman is from...………….Birmingham, Alabama.

    FC Dallas is simply continuing North Texas' legacy of being a mecca of youth soccer in that part of the country. Sure, Pomykal and Cannon come from the Dallas area. Other than those listed above,………….Thomas Roberts comes from Arkansas. Ricardo Pepi comes from El Paso (which is actually closer to California than to Dallas). Edwin Cerrillo comes from Waco. I could go on.

    As the years go by this is something that a cohort of MLS clubs is doing really well. Building scouting networks and spider webs of youth affiliates around the country. There's less of a chance of a kid "falling thru the cracks" in Waco or Birmingham than there was 15 years ago. FC Dallas has 12 youth affiliates. Well, look at that. They have a youth affiliate in Arkansas (see Thomas Roberts). They have a youth affiliate in El Paso (see RIcardo Pepi).

    SKC has 12 youth affiliates as well. Like FCD, they're doing a great job of funneling the elite talent to their DA clubs. And of course they now have competition with St.. Louis, so that should be really interesting.

    upload_2019-8-23_6-22-54.png
     
  17. bsky22

    bsky22 Member+

    Dec 8, 2003
    I bailed out of the silly debate on the defitinition of a "selling team/league" and ignored this thread for a bit. Now the transfer window is over, I think it is clear MLS is not a selling league.

    I dont think Long is worth $5M, let alone $15M. I also believe the peak interest in him is going to be the window that just closed. He is good athlete and a decent defender given his experience. He isnt comfortable on the ball and has shown that he can be a bit naive defending at a higher level. He can probally improve his defending but dount the rest improves much at this point. At 27+ years old, interest will likely be from of the table where there is a lot of "recovery" defending and booting the ball away.
     
  18. #1 Feilhaber and Adu

    Aug 1, 2007
    The Leader of MLS is also a major player for CONCACAF. its called conflict of interest. We have allowed a small number of folks to control and destroy any progress we could make.

    Don Garber was so happy Tata got hired by Mexico.
     
  19. gogorath

    gogorath Member+

    None
    United States
    May 12, 2019
    There's little to nothing here that makes any sense.

    Garber isn't a major player for CONCACAF. If anything, MLS and Liga MX are probably annoying them because they are trying to usurp CONCACAF Champions League much like the top teams in Europe keep trying to take money from UEFA.

    Garber does hold a seat on the USSF Board of Directors. Of course, the Premier League and English Football Leagues both hold seats on the English FA Board of Governors. In fact, professional leagues pretty universally have seats on the governing bodies of soccer in their countries.

    That's because USSF and the FA are governing bodies that govern the people who make up themselves up. Multiple pro leagues, players, youth associations all are both governed by USSF and have board representation.

    This conflict of interest exists, but it's literally an inherent conflict of interest in every Federation in the world.

    Finally, Garber lost a great coach from his league. Yes, SUM promotes Mexican games like it promotes US games. But he's not selling more tickets to Mexico's games because Tata is there -- they sell no matter what. And his league does better when the USMNT does better. So how does this make sense?

    There's literally nothing about this comment that makes sense. Yet you parrot whatever you hear on twitter, I assume, because you can't think much for yourself.
     
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  20. Suyuntuy

    Suyuntuy Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    Vancouver, Canada
    The Europeans are far too used to getting American players on a free or as academy fodder. Very unlikely they are willing to pay actual bucks when they can wait a little and have a bunch of kids willing to run there for nothing.
     
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  21. RalleeMonkey

    RalleeMonkey Member+

    Aug 30, 2004
    here
    On the topic, the academy director for LAFC was on some SXM show and said "we want to develop players for national teams, any national team ….. El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, U.S."

    I've posted before that Garbage said on Wahl's show that MLS doesn't care about producing players for the USMNT. People are apoplectic, denying that's what he said.

    Well here's an MLS academy director saying *exactly that.*
     
  22. Baysider

    Baysider Member+

    Jul 16, 2004
    Santa Monica
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    You realize that the two bolded statements are not the same. What the director is saying is that they want to develop players for the US, but they are not limited to that. Say that you have a kid living in LA who is a Honduran citizen and not eligible for the US national team. He is saying that they will not turn him away, but instead will help him be the best player he can be. Which means that they are potentially developing him for the Honduran national team.

    Of course, the primary purpose is to develop him for LAFC. Making the best players for LAFC will have the byproduct of developing potential players for the national teams.
     
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  23. RalleeMonkey

    RalleeMonkey Member+

    Aug 30, 2004
    here
    No, he's saying that if a kid comes up in their system that is dual eligible, he doesn't care what nation he plays for.
     
  24. Mahtzo1

    Mahtzo1 Member+

    Jan 15, 2007
    So Cal
    In my opinion, the statement does not indicate any kind of preference or lack of preference. It doesn't indicate a preference for one or the other but it also doesn't indicate that there is no preference. It says that they want to develop nt players which definitely indicates taht any player eligible for one country would be developed for that country (El Salvador for example) but it doesn't indicate anything about guiding the dual national players toward or away from the US.

    I tend to believe that the teams should be supportive of their players and want them to be in the best situation possible but they shouldn't be lobbying or pressuring for one way or the other...that is and should be the player's choice. I also believe that is the best business decision from the team's point of view.

    I also believe that not stating a preference is far different than saying he/LAFC does not care about developing for USMNT.
     
  25. RalleeMonkey

    RalleeMonkey Member+

    Aug 30, 2004
    here
    If you think that MLS should not try to direct duallies to the USMNT, and think that the academies director's statement "doesn't indicate anything about guiding the dual national players toward or away from the US." Then I don't see why you don't think he's saying "he/LAFC does not care about developing for USMNT. " He's said he doesn't. He wants the academy to develop players for any old country. And, you're saying you agree with him.

    That's where I check out. I don't have a team I grew up with. My only interest in the league is to the extent it is a training ground for the USMNT. If the league doesn't give a crap about the USMNT, I'm not going to make any effort to follow the league.
     

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