Just got back from Christmas vacation in Colorado and am catching up on the soccer news. There's not much but Bruce Arena did call in 30 players for the national team's camp preceding next month's friendly with Denmark. I thought it was interesting how many of the 30 players had played college soccer and how many of those stayed all four seasons for college ball. Of the 30, 22 played four years of college soccer, which I think is a nice statement about the college game. Four more (Nick Garcia, Frankie Hejduk, Ben Olsen and Josh Wolff) played three seasons of college soccer. Two (Chris Albright and Dan Califf) turned pro after their sophomore seasons. One (Jonny Walker) played one season of college soccer and one (Orlando Perez) didn't play any. Now, of the 30 called in, a lot of them won't really challenge for places in qualifying as a lot of the top tier players, including a lot who played no or only some college soccer, weren't called in. Once the likes of Donovan, Beasley and Howard, who played no college ball, join the pool, a lot of the four year college players will be dropped. But some, like Eddie Pope and Brian McBride will still be there and the overall point is the same, which is that college soccer isn't as much of an albatross as some people think. (And, I say this as someone who thinks young players should turn pro as early as possible.) Also of note was that Steve Cronin, who just finished his junior season at Santa Clara, made the all tournament team at the World Youth Championship, another good showing for a college kid.
Nice thought on the number of college players, I didn't notice that until you pointed it out. I'm with you in that the college game in the past few years anyway has apparantly done a decent job of developing talent. We'll never know what some alternative like MLS reserves would have created, but college soccer certainly seems to be a very good stepping stone into MLS. I looked back on last years draft. 8 out of 10 first rounders had at least some college ball. You could make an argument based on the first year of MLS that more college ball is better than less. The two least used players - Eskandarian and Gonzalez didn't have four years, while the two highest impact players did - Dunivant and Noonan. 1 D.C. United Alecko Eskandarian 2 MetroStars Ricardo Clark 3 Chicago Nate Jaqua 4 MetroStars Mike Magee 5 D.C. United David Stokes 6 San Jose Todd Dunivant 7 Columbus Diego Walsh 8 Los Angeles Guillermo Gonzalez 9 New England Pat Noonan 10 Dallas Shavar Thomas
I think it's more a reflection of the choices available to the older players vs. those available to the younger players. I would bet (and I think you have the DB to find out) that the older American players tend to be four year guys while the younger ones tend to be, at most, two year players. The players today have the option of going pro at a younger age which puts them at a real advantage at age 22 compared to players that mailed it in for four years.
College game Attacking Minded, I read your post 5 different times from 5 different angles. I squinted, and stared. I closed one eye, and then both. I still cannot figure out what u are trying to say. You are willing to bet that the older guys are 4 year college guys vs. the 2 year college guys? Do you make book for a living? Will u give any odds? I will bet you that no one will take your bet. I have not done any research or a LN search, but I am pretty sure that 4 year college players are older that 2 year college players. They just naturally age 2 additional years that they stay in college. weird, huh? Please tell me the point I am missing in your post.
The point is that the older guys didn't have much of a choice. College was the highest level for guys like BMB, Agoos, etc. There was the rare Reyna that went overseas but the majority of them stayed in school because that was their best opportunity. So we can't say that staying in college makes no difference just because half the players in camp were four year players. Today the younger guys have many more choices. They can go pro directly like Gaven or DmB. They can leave after a year or two like Clark. Moreover the additional experience they get in the pros vs. what they would of gotten in college gives them a huge advantage over players that stayed in school. For instance, who would you have on your national team: A player like Clark at age 23 with three years of pro experience or one year of pro experience? So of course it's an advantage for these players to go pro. Just because half the USMNT players were four year players, doesn't mean that there is no difference.