Crazy that after all this time we've yet to have a player who came up through our academy become a regular starter.
Need to decouple the head coach and head of academy roles. The Head of the academy needs a stable environment to foster/develop over several years.
Well, there’s Paul Ariola, but of course he never played a game with our senior team. Hadji Wright is also getting pretty regular minutes in Turkey I think, although he’s never played in MLS. Didn’t Julian Araujo also spend a limited amount of time in our academy? I’m assuming you mean a regular started for OUR team.
Lol. Yes, regular starter for us. But also, someone who came up through the academy. Zardes and Araujo both signed for the academy at 17/18 - just so they could count as Academy players and not go into the draft (in fact, IIRC we had to pay someone discovery money for Araujo to sign him because MLS and he hadn't been in our academy that long) but neither player was developed and worked their way up through our academy.
The New York Times reports that the 2023-24 CONCACAF Nations League competition will determine which six teams will participate in the 2024 Copa America.
It occurred to me that Los Angeles is going to be quite the place for soccer over the next five years: 2024: Copa America 2026: FIFA World Cup 2028: XXXIV Olympiad (Summer Olympics) So if money is going to be spent to prepare for these events, can some of it be used to redesign LAX and make it a world class airport?
I know, it's bad! ...and yet the answer is "YES!" because airports in metro regions ¼ the size of Los Angeles shouldn't be more efficient and better run than LAX. I suffer terribly from airport envy.
Jack McBean was an academy player who became a regular starter in 2013 until Nate Brochers took him out in what I recall was a dirty play breaking his collar bone. While was relatively minor, he never managed to become a regular starter for the Galaxy again.
McBean seemed like a likable guy but his collarbone wasn’t the reason he never became a truly regular starter.
FC Dallas we are not. It doesn't help that coaches for our top team rarely if ever integrate the upcoming talent for experience and polish and in general, further development. Does anybody know the structure of our academy as far as how many U-xx teams we have or how they go about identifying and signing up young talent? I know we had a problem with an agent syphoning out the top talent a few years back and now with not having a direct pipeline to the USL we might feel that burn but I haven't seen a good article on the process in Galaxy's system. How good are our coaches at the development level and do they have a video room? BTW, what is the cutoff to be considered a true in-house developed kid? Efra came in at 15, does he coun't?
Galaxy Academy has a U19-ish (technically without the age restriction - it has both kids who are older and much younger) team that played UPSL this year for the players who weren't playing with the G2s, U17, U15, U14, and U13 in MLS Next, a U16 team that played in the Socal Soccer's Discovery NPL, and a U12 team in Elite Academy (kind of a pre-MLS Next group). The U16 team was new this year and it was kind of a waste to put them in Socal, which is really just a regular club league that has become mostly lower tier because of the explosion of "elite" or "premier" leagues. They won their first game 14-0 and then the team quickly adjusted to try different and younger players. It was supposed to be a place for the U16 players who were not getting playing time with the U17s, who in past years have suffered a lost year. The best U16 players play with the U17s or higher. My guess is that the U19s and U16s aren't with MLS Next in part because they can play mostly local games, which basically just serves as inexpensive scrimmages to keep them fit and in form. The Academy brings in new players all the time, identified a ton of different ways, and they had scouts out at the MLS Next showcase in Indio in December evaluating players in many age groups. I don't know if they are any good at scouting, but they definitely spend a lot of money on the Academy. If there is a complaint with the coaches, it's that they often prefer former Galaxy players (e.g., Juninho and Sarvas right now, Cienfuegos up until a few years ago). It's not always easy to transition from pro player to coach and being a developmental coach is different than a coach of pro players. The Galaxy also sometimes use the Academy as a benefit for the sons of their players or former players. Vanney's twins are in the Academy; Klein's kid is there too (probably getting a G2 contract), and Sarvas has a kid there too. Doesn't mean those players aren't good, but it does create concerns about favors and bias. Zlatan's son was in the Academy and he had no business being there. Zlatan insisted they take his son's best friend too and he was promptly let go the minute Zlatan and his son left. On the other hand, they have kept GBS' son and he is one of the better players on his U17 team. The new MLS Next Pro set-up will probably be heavily players who have aged out of the current U17s. That's why several of the announced signings from non-Academy players thus far are 16 year-olds. They are basically signing next year's top area U18 players. I don't know if they will even keep a U19-ish team, especially since the best of those players will be on the G2s. If they do, it would effectively just be a G2 B team playing in UPSL again.
I consider Efra a real in-house developed kid. But I'm not holding my breath to see if he becomes a full-time first-team starting-XI....
Nice breakdown of the academy system. In general terms we seem to have a nice set-up which makes Trick's comment on how many are making it to the senior team, more poignant. Does G Academy have any ties to high schools directly or indirectly, do you know? I get your point about the coaching staff. Relatively new or rookie coaches and more importantly at this level where an eye and experience on how to recognize and address individual skills and/or bad habits from players should be what the staff is most versed in. But it's nothing I am surprised by knowing the bare-bones management philosophy of this organization. So Sarvas got promoted to GII and that's why they got Juhnino. Does Sarvas have any serious input into what goes on at the lower tiers or is Juhnino and whomever the assistant coaches are, it?
The Academy Director is Mike Munoz. He also was a Galaxy player for a very brief time, but he has substantial experience in youth development at the academies at Chivas USA (which had a great academy), RSL Academy in AZ (which he started with Vanney), and Galaxy Academy and he has been the head coach of Toronto FC II and Galaxy II. He was brought back to LA by Vanney to run the Academy after te Kloese's guys from LIgaMX left. Munoz is the person who should be involved in virtually every decision at the Academy and know every player. They also brought back Ian Feuer, the former GK coach of the senior team under Bruce Arena, to be the Academy/GII Goalkeeper Director, which is a big improvement from Hartman. All of these things take time, though, and LAFC has gained the upper hand while the Galaxy Academy was adrift.
The biggest issue the academy faces is continuity. There have been 3 academy directors in 7 years. Each director with a slightly different approach and each one brings new staff that fits their mold. It is very difficult to build anything that is lasting in so little time.
Why is this happening? I have wondered why Cienfuegos left but it may coincide with the te Klose's coming over and bringing his own guy in but is it that easy? Does it go deeper than that?
Great question for our FO. As I eluded to before, this is the biggest issue (in my opinion) but not the only issue. It is paramount for this role to have continuity so 1) the staff works, learns, grows, and develops in a uniform way over time and 2) the players have structure and consistent feedback throughout the process over time
A technical director should maintain some consistency over time in this regard. That was / is Kirovski's job.
Based on observations for the last 8 years I'm pretty sure Kirovski's "job" consists of surfing the internet 8 hours a day. If only we could get him to go to soccer websites.
I know Cien is a legend in these parts and just his presence in the Academy served to attract some players (obviously Salvadoran ones), but letting him go was mostly a positive sign. I don't think there's a big rift or anything like that (he has continued to be an ambassador for the team I believe), but he was originally brought in by Klein to be "technical coach," which is a very different role than being head coach for an academy team, where he eventually ended up. It was not a surprise when someone who was not beholden to the Galaxy legends came in and was able to evaluate coaching performance in the Academy decided it was time to move on from him. Kevin Hartman was in many ways much worse. He was girls Academy director starting in 2017 and moved to boys director in 2020 when the girls academy shut down because they wanted to give him something to do. Vanney's decision to move his former roommate to GK coach for the senior team, where he could do less damage, was a classic case of failing up, although, once again, being GK coach is much more in Hartman's wheelhouse than running an Academy.
Benny, you are fast becoming my go-to guy for the 411, you know that right? I was just wondering about Cien. From what I have gleaned over the years listening to interviews with him, he clearly was looking to grow into a proper major league coach at some future point somewhere. I did not see him as a guy looking to become an academy coach, director or whathaveyou. Plus he has no experience at the gig similar to current staff and that is not conducive to a successful academy churning out top players. When the players are rookies and the coaches are rookies learning on the job, confidence is low. With your story about Hartman a familiar pattern is starting emerge with regard to this organization. I guess we should be glad we even have an academy.
Yeah, it's one of the reasons I blame him even more than Klein (make no mistake, I want both gone, but I'd "settle" for Kirovski going). You could at least argue Klein is the business operations guy; Kirovski's supposed to be the soccer guy. And none of the soccer stuff has been consistent (let alone good) under his leadership.