YNT-eligible MLS players: 2021 In-season thread

someone get a sizable portion of our youth prospects cole bassetts agent

 

It could be Cole basset himself too.

 

someone get a sizable portion of our youth prospects cole bassetts agent and cole bassett himself ot be safe

 

Cole Basset is moonlighting as an agent?

 

1433922904262127619 is not a valid tweet id

Young lineup tonight due to international absences: McGlynn, Aaronson, Sullivan, and even Harriel all starting.

 

Didn't Rodriguez come from that Olympiacos program in Chicago? I guess I don't know that he's US eligible.........................

Story: Chicago Fire sign Academy star Missael Rodriguez to a four-year contract#cffc #cf97 https://t.co/3fx2Q29U6m

— Patrick McCraney (@patrickmccraney) September 7, 2021

 

‘03.

 

The FIRST EVER #AustinFC Homegrown! 👏

Owen Wolff is #VERDE now!

— Austin FC (@AustinFC) September 9, 2021

 

owen should go on loan to the crew

 

George Campbell nets his first MLS goal to give @ATLUTD the lead! ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/8qeWabx7wn

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) September 10, 2021

 

why no bassett start?

 

Austin got it's own wolf?

 

Caden Clark subbed out early in the second half. He hasn't been so hot lately, has he?

 

Him and Cowell have dropped off dramatically. Outside of the goals early in the season, Clark wasn’t consistently excelling in other areas of his game.

Luckily, we have so many great, young MLS talents that are currently showing more potential. Although who knows what things look like next season, maybe Cowell and/or Clark puts it all together.

 

They are both still very young. Both have shown they have potential to be very good and both have a lot of time to get there.

 

Yup like I had said, who knows if they turn things around next season.

Such a luxury to have so many good HGs.

I wonder if we see the quality of the league continue to rise along with these HGs. Which in turn will rise the quality of our HGs.

 

I believe that it will. What I do foresee in the future, is an MLS that starts to become too good for some of the 16, 17, 18 yr olds that are currently finding playing time. Soon they will have to compete for jobs with young 21-23yr old Americans in numbers that might make it a bridge too far. I think a foreshadowing of that is Ebobisse's presence at SJ. I know that Ebobisse is injured and of course the reason that Cowell's minutes have dropped is due primarily to a drop in production but if Ebobisse weren't injured right now, Cowell would likely be third in line after Wondo.

I don't follow USL, but I do know they are growing extremely rapidly. IMO, that is the next frontier. If USL continues to grow and improve, that will make the leap to MLS easier for our young HG players, and in turn, allow MLS to continue to play and develop quality players. Imagine if MLS were the quality of B1 or EPL, and there was not a league high enough in quality to bridge that gap? Only a very few would be able to make the leap.

I would say that we have several years before MLS gets to the point where the quality reaches that point and with USL developing as it is, we may never run into a developmental gap. We will likely see the average age of hte MLS debutante rise, but still see a continued increase in quantity and quality of the young American Player.

 

Even with his slowed production, I still think that Clark is showing his potential. His technical ability is obvious every time he plays, and his ideas are top class even if they don't always come off. They don't really play the same position, but I'd say he clearly shows more potential than Nyeman, for example. That's not a knock on Nyeman -- I just don't think there are many prospects in MLS better than Clark, production or not.

Cowell was electric off the bench last night. His speed is incredible, and he was dangerous every time he was on the ball. No "production," but he was very good. He's a huge prospect. I don't think it's crazy to compare him to Alphonso Davies in terms of the tools and ability that he has. For what it's worth, they have similar rates of production at similar ages.

 

approx 2/3 of the way through the year, I thought I would look at a few stats and compare to previous years. All of my stats are for U21 players because when I began tracking the U21's were the group that would be eligible for the next U23 tourney. I have kept the age group for uniformity.

I have noticed that there are probably 3 unique groups/populations within each player group.
1. there are players that get 1-2 or 3 caps for a brief intro, possibly a reward of sorts but the teams have no real plan to give them any significant time. Also in this category are players that sometimes get a full game or two as an emergency stand in but never again appear on the bench. Second category of player is the group that teams seem to be trying to acclimate to the higher level. They appear regularly on the bench and get 100-200ish minutes, maybe a bit more. finally, the group that gets regular playing time, either as a semiregular to regular sub or as an occasional to regular starter.

I didn't try to group them into all their subgroups but did separate those that were debutantes (no previous appearances) and only 1-2 apps in the current year. Obviously, last year was shortened due to covid and this year is only partially complete but I still think there are some interesting numbers to consider. I don't claim to know exactly what all of them mean but they definitely show a few obvious trends imo, some of which are probably obvious to anyone that pays any attention at all but i still think it is interesting to see the actual data. I think it is pretty interesting that the quartiles remain pretty much the same, but that is because increases in the top half of the player poos are offset by the huge difference in player numbers. There are many more players getting time, many of those getting only a relatively small number of appearances. Of the 64 with appearances this year, 30 have 6 appearances or less. The huge majority of them are U20 or younger (7 2001's, 6 2002's, 7 2003's, 1 2004 and 2 2005's). That indicates to me that we won't see a reversal of the trends in the immediate coming years.

2018
2018 Total Players with Mins: 44______2019: 43______2020*: 60_______ 2021 (as of 9/11)*: 64
2018 Median Birth Yr: 1998 (U20)_____2019: 1999 (U20)____2020*: 2001 (U19)____2021: 2002 (U19)
2018 Average Birth Yr: 1998.5_____2019: 1999.6_____2020*: 2001____ 2021: 2001.7
2018 Total Mins: 28732______2019: 30102_____2020*: 31438____2021: 32240
2018 Debutante (1-2 apps) 5______2019: 8_____2020*: 11____2021: 13
2018 Total debutante Mins: 161______2019: 339_____2020*: 341____2021: 560
2018 Non Debutantes: 39______2019: 35_____2020*: 49____2021: 51
2018 Non Debutante Mins: 28571______2019: 29763_____2020*: 31097____2021: 31792
2018 Q1 163______2019: 263_____2020*: 127____2021: 205
2018 Q2 340______2019: 611_____2020*: 399____2021: 433
2018 Q3 958______2019: 1155_____2020*: 1059____2021: 1018
2018 Players with 600+ min: 11______2019: 19_____2020*: 19____2021: 19
2018 Players with 1000+ Min 10______2019: 11_____2020*: 12____2021: 13

Busio, Tessman, Sealy, Ochoa not counted in 2021 totals

 

Bryce Duke with a second start in the middle of the park for LAFC. he played pretty well last time, let's see what he does tonight.

 

Paredes torched a Chicago defender to draw a PK that Kamara converted

 

Cam Duke makes it FOUR for @SportingKC! pic.twitter.com/bi7sv4MDLy

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) September 16, 2021

 

A league debut for young Jake Davis replacing Roger Espinoza!#SportingKC pic.twitter.com/lbjxclF43X

— Sporting Kansas City (@SportingKC) September 16, 2021

 

Welcome to the First Team, Christian 🏡🗽

— New York City FC (@newyorkcityfc) September 16, 2021

the first 2007 homegrown and he’s a left back. Having an EU passport accelerates the urgency to sign the talented prospects, we’ve seen this with Bento and now Christian this year. Good kid from a very kind family as well

 

He is a citizen?