One of these days a smart GM from Minnesota or Portland is going to figure out that he can just buy his homegrown players (rights) from other MLS clubs and have a single team for them to play on to meet the one year eligibility requirement. Probably won't get star players but affordable bench depth.
In theory, I agree. The LA clubs do not need to recruit outside of LA to have talented players, but with how rich most of these MLS clubs are, you’ll more then cover all the costs you mentioned by bringing in a player you’ll sell for 10M eventually. Not every area has a 10M player every age group. I was also only mentioning the cost to scout. The other costs you mention are part of the equation of bringing in players from outside of your local area, but not the point I was getting at.
its the sort of stuff that portland purports to stand for, which makes it all the more maddening. merritt always cries population poor, but iceland is like irrefutable proof that he just isnt trying all that hard imo
As someone in this space, it can be very expensive to scout around the country at the academy/youth level unless you pay regional scouts pennies and hope that they are passionate to not profit off of their work
Does the relatively high quality recording of every game in just about every top youth league now reduce the need for those region scouts - or at least allow you to limit the in-person trips pretty substantially? Or is that a poor substitute for the connections to coaches and trainers that regional scouts can provide?
Some additions to RBNY Academy Looks like former @phlunionacademy player Dylan Lacey has joined @RedBullsAcademy #RBNY @Once_A_Metro @BrotherlyGame— Eric Friedlander (@Efried97) August 18, 2021
The quality of recordings help a lot no doubt. But it still is incomparable to live scouting and the connections that regional scouts and networks provide. As MLS Next handicaps everyone with not giving out information it makes things even more difficult as well from the video analysis end as well. Rosters, age group data, and game reports have to be made available to the public like what the DA did. Literally everyone is benefitted by this happening and constrained without it, even MLS clubs
Portland timbers have a scout in Michigan for the Midwest but I have not seen one kid go there on trail we have about 10 to 15 from Michigan at out of state mls academies but we can't get one here
LA would be foolish to not go after the handful of clear cut 5-Star type prospect available, but they are competing with basically every other club for those players. I would imagine that once you get to that next tier that it becomes pretty expensive to scout over a large georgraphic footprint and the farther you are from location they hard it is to get a prospect to move to your academy if you do uncover a player. I haven't really tracked it, but I would image that most prospects are going to an academy that is with-in their geographic footprint 9 out of 10 times. Alabama prospect might choose Dallas over Atlanta, Orlando or Houston, but they are not going to go to Seattle. A prospect from Central Valley, CA might choose Seattle over both LA teams and SJ, but they are not going to go to Atlanta. Philly with the boarding school is the only program that I think has a unique enough value proposition to really pull prospects from a large geographic footprint and even still most of their prospects are likely South Northeast, Mid-Atlantic or East Midwest.
Talking with that scout a lot, it isn’t for a lack of effort on his part, home base just doesn’t bring kids in
Some really nice games coming up on U17 level here on the East Coast!!! All major MLS associated teams playing each other.
Yup. The MLS teams added on additional games vs other MLS teams that the non-MLS teams don't get. For example, LAFC goes to Portland, Seattle, San Jose, RSL, Colorado Rapids and Vancouver but Murrieta does not play any of those.
This has been a great event and a nice addition to the academy schedule. Coaches pretty much across the board are using this as they should, experimenting with lineups, rotating players, but also simulating a competitive environment. There isn’t much to be taken away from the scores, though.
The schedule is well done. MLS teams appear to be in geographic pods and divisions. MLS teams play other MLS teams in their pod 3 times, other MLS teams in their division twice (home and away), and non-MLS teams once - which seems about right in terms of balancing providing enough games/minimizing travel while keeping things competitive. I fully realize that some non-MLS teams will be stronger than certain MLS teams, so the above statement is more of a generality and doesn't fit 100% of the time.
Yes. You usually see bio-banded players playing down from the U16 or U15 age groups since that is when the differences in puberty are most pronounced. MLS academies that do it do so most frequently in the U16 age group, since they almost all have only U15 and U17 teams and carry bigger U17 rosters that include some of those U16 players who weren't cut after U15 (which is one of the big points for cuts). Some are more aggressive in bio-banding U16 players to allow them to play down in U15. If LA Galaxy was playing a stronger U15 team last year, they sometimes used as many as 5+ U16 players, a few of whom were early 2005 birthdays, to play against 2006s. It's why you sometimes saw them beat up on stronger teams and play close against some of the weaker teams last year. The players they played down may have fit in physically with the U15 age group, but that extra year of experience generally made a difference.
Some moves this season (as far as I know) Joah Reyna '07 NYCFC to Austin FC Dane Agustin '06 San Antonio FC to Austin FC Bryan Arellano '05 San Antonio FC to Austin FC Benjamin Cremaschi '05 Weston FC to Inter Miami Gabriel Oksanen '06 San Diego Surf to Philadelphia Union CJ Olney '06 PDA to Philadelphia Union
PHI Union U15 vs NYCFC U15 - Saturday, August 28th @12pm PHI Union U17 vs NYCFC U17 - Saturday, August 28th @2pm In case anyone is around Phily area. Looks like the matches will also be streamed on Union's Academy site.