College soccer and the YNTs - the writing is on the wall and it says "go pro ASAP."

Maybe we should have a thread called "College soccer and the next level"? It's a general issue of getting to the next level if you aren't ready to go pro at age 16. Yes, the writing is on the wall, but meanwhile there are day to day decisions to be made for those in the pipleline now. Not everyone peaks early, but waiting until you have exhausted your college eligibility and hoping to be drafted by the MLS is increasingly looking like waiting too long.

My son is facing this issue. He's a college sophomore, made first team all conference this year, and has ambition to go pro. He is still improving his game, but he knows that he has to make his mark pretty soon. For those who don't play for one of the top programs in the country, and who aren't at the glamor postions, getting noticed as a freshman or sophomore is a tough slog. So there are two big challenges: continuing to develop and getting noticed.

Many of the things a player in his position would do offseason if he were not in college are forbidden by the NCAA eligibility rules. It's as if players' hands are tied because they are in school, but leaving school is a big risk too.

Here's what Caleb Porter says about college soccer in an interview about the December U23 camp:

 

Agreed to this point completely. You just don't know. The most successful US field player in the EPL, Clint Dempsey, played at Furman University for 3 years. Ricardo Clark played for 2 years at Furman University. Playing college soccer didn't seem to hurt these guys.

 

Even with Stephens, he must have skipped a grade somewhere along the line, because he made his first-team debut for the Galaxy a week before his 21st birthday. He's 22, as most 4-year college players are during their rookie seasons, now.

This brings up another point, though: since most players are 22 when they graduate, and therefore there's really only one class of college senior players who would be eligible for the Olympics, some of this is purely down to the vagaries of eligibility. And even that one class would have only turned pro after the majority of the prep work for the Olympics had already been done, so you'd have to ask how much of that is about development vs how much about simple trust (that even if you're good, an Olympic coach might be disinclined to trust a guy who has almost no pro experience).

 

That is not the same as going to the pros as soon as possible. To me it means go pro when you are ready and capable of making a significant contribution to the team that signs you. A guy like Tristen Bowen would have been a lot with a season or two of top level college play than signing with the Galaxy and getting 1 minute of playing time his first year.

 

Nor do we know it might have been even better if he DID stay....

it's interesting how when good players come out of the college ranks it is almost always treated as if they managed to be good it in spite of playing in college.....rarely that they managed to be good because they played in college...

I have heard forever that the game is the best teacher......

playing is better than watching....

there is a a perspective where playing in college is the right thing for a a number of players ..

The transition from youth soccer (even from the venerable USSF DA) to a high level college program is a huge step and the one to the MLS even larger. Some players just are better making that transition via the college game..... and I am by no means saying that every college program is any where near equivalent.

It is also just about impossible to come up with a pecking order for MLS clubs that have demonstrated a consistent ability to develop players so this blanket statement that players need to go pro begs the questions of the soccer aficionado's here.....

WHERE IN THE US DO PLAYERS NEED TO GO PROFESSIONAL IN ORDER TO BEST DEVELOP?

Where is the US Ajax?

 

WRT the last two posts, today what we're really comparing is college vs the reserve league. (Bowen is an unfortunate case because the old reserve league was scrapped just before he was signed, and it came back too late for him to benefit).

College's argument is that there are crowds at your games and more pressure to win, which by the time players are voting-age adults is probably mostly a good thing.

MLS's counter-argument is that its reserve league provides a whole heckuvalot more practice time than you can get in college, or at least coached practice time. The season is a lot longer, and the game schedule isn't nearly as skewed.

College is a big step up for the average 18 year old who goes there from DA, but that's mostly because the players are suddenly older and stronger, which is an experience many kids probably don't get enough of in the US youth soccer scheme. But it's a different story when you're 21 and you're not overwhelmed.

Dempsey, his freshman year, had been the Conference Freshman of the Year, and all-Conference second team. His sophomore year he was all-Conference first team. His teammate Ricardo Clark also made the first team and took the Project 40 route right then. Rico was ready, and got PT for the MetroStars from the jump. In retrospect, Dempsey almost certainly was too, it just wasn't recognized at the time.

Essentially, you show me a guy who is all-Conference Second Team as a freshman, and I'll show you one for whom that level of play is not going to be a real challenge two years later.

It's possible Dempsey would have wound up a weaker player jumping after his freshman or sophomore year. . . but it's a bad bet. A better bet is that he hits the same level in MLS a little quicker, gets sold a little earlier, and for a little more money. And because of how relevant age is to the transfer game in Europe, I also tend to believe he'd have wound up at a bigger club than Fulham, which gives him a chance to develop still further. Even if he doesn't 'top out' any better than he is, his career at high level starts a year or two earlier, and he probably winds up a couple million dollars richer. And conversely, a better bet is he's a million or so poorer and several Nat caps in the hole if he stays for his senior year. That's if he doesn't wind up actually being any weaker a player, but it's quite possible he does end up weaker.

 

Because of their Stanford degree, they will probably have many of the readers of this calling them"boss". Instead of encouraging our talented sons to skip college and develop their skills24/7 in a pro environment for the 1 in a 100 chance that they can make enough money playing soccer to set them up for life, we should be encouraging them get to know the new Stanford staff and try to get facilitated access to a Stanford degree. Trust me, 99 times out of 100 that will be by far the best way to go. I understand that most of the people who post are more interested in having a strong national team. But if you are advising a talent right now, odds are very high that they would do better with a Stanford degree than a pro opportunity.

 

Ha! You make getting into Stanford relatively easy when we all know it's quite competitive and difficult to meet the entry requirements. Especially for student athletes

 

I would imagine the bar is a touch lower for student athletes so I am not sure why the requirements are difficult especially for athletes

 

Hint to the self-important among us: The world of YNT soccer pretty much falls in line with the world of MNT soccer, ie, the sooner that you become a playing professional, the more professional soccer opportunities you'll have...not law, not medicine, not economics...just soccer. But that's another discussion entirely.

So, unless and until FIFA moves its headquarters to Palo Alto, and Stanford elects to confer an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree on Jurgen Klinsmann, the "odds" are that the Cardinal experience isn't going to be any more valuable for a YNT call up than that of a capable DA signing from Portland, and probably considerably less, (particularly since Klinsmann isn't a "college guy" like Bradley was).

No point in rationalizing the obvious, even for talented players seeking "facilitated access" to a Stanford degree.

 

I don't think you grasp the concept. The average Stanford soccer player who graduates with a Stanford degree will go farther in life than most "elite" soccer players who attempt to go pro.

 

I grasp the concept completely, and I'm not even a Stanford graduate. The thread has nothing to do with anything other than the current, and future, demands of the YNT, and prospective YNT players.

If you want to start a thread entitled "Why It's Always Better in the Long Run to Play Soccer for Stanford Than it is to Play Professional Soccer", please feel free to do so. You probably won't get many arguments.

But to be clear, the thread isn't about rationalizing why your son is better off at Stanford than he is on the Portland Reserve team.

 

LOL. Although, your UVa compatriots at Merrill Lynch in New York might argue that they did just as well over the past 25 or so years as their esteemed Cardinal colleagues out on the Left Coast. The school that Jefferson founded is nothing to sniff at

 

And even there, the optimal game theory strategy is probably a 'one-and-done', going to Stanford your freshman year and then if your accomplishments are high enough, take a shot at the pros. If your grades were decent, Stanford will keep the seat warm for you (you up their graduation statistics).

It gets kind of complex in individual cases. Say I have a kid from the NorCal area, he's 18, has a 1270 SAT score and a 3.6 out of 4 GPA at a public school (ie good but not usually Stanford good without the 'extracurriculars'). Say he's offered a full ride, but he's also a Quakes DA product who has just been offered a $60k HG contract. I probably tell that kid to take the scholarship.

But say that same kid comes back over Winter break, with some Dempseyesque college accomplishments (all-Conference Second Team, Freshman of the Year), and asks the same question: I probably tell him to take the Quakes contract now. Why? A) More information about how good he is against adults (which might result in a higher offer, but even assuming it doesn't, this is more knowledge about what a prospective soccer career would be like), B) as I said, once you're in the door, Stanford is likely to take you back, whereas you probably wouldn't have gotten in there before, and C) with your Freshman year, you missed only a few months of a pro career, a few months where you probably wouldn't have gotten much first-team MLS action anyway, and a few months that are crammed with college games; but that second semester is a few spring-season friendlies of varying quality followed by an open question about what you're going to do with your summer.

 

This is a pretty important consideration, and it's one that's often overlooked.
An 18 year-old freshman who finds playing time in the NCAA is essentially playing up a few years (and some of the recent u17NT players have started their college careers at 17) . On the other hand, a 22 year-old senior is essentially playing down a year. Big difference, from a developmental standpoint.

There's a lot of discussion here of the "pro vs. college" debate, but the actual career experience of US players suggests that "2-3 years of college vs. 4 years of college" may be a more significant distinction. The majority of US players at good European clubs (naturalized Germans aside, since they're pretty irrelevant to the debate) followed the 2-3 years of college route. A lot of that is due to selection bias, since the best players will tend to be plucked from the college ranks before their fourth year; however, the fact remains that any senior who is still being strongly challenged by the college game at age 22 is probably not a top prospect.

 

This discussion is really helpful. Everything being said here is completely relevant.

So let's say you are one of the players we are talking about: you are champing at the bit to move to the pros after your sophomore season--and according to the criteria mentioned here, you are realistically ready to do so. How should you proceed? What moves are NCAA-legal? You don't want to jeopardize your eligibility or your scholarship until you have a good grasp of the next step. Beyond playing pickup games as often as possible with local pros and playing PDL next summer for a coach with good connections, what should be on your to-do list?

 

So with Dempsey the question is whether he stayed a year too long. Much more reasonable argument than whether he should have tried to play at 18 - especially since virtually no one would have wanted him at the professional level. The other thing to point out is the risk of going a year too early is a lot higher than the risk of going a year too late. If you are not ready, you can easily get shelved and your playing time and opportunities could disappear. First impressions matter a lot and if a player doesn't pan out early, it often takes a lot of time to get a second shot.

The 10 game reserve league compares more to college spring soccer than fall. There are very few games, and they often have young academy kids. Meanwhile top college kids are playing PDL games over the summer in addition to a fall schedule and spring can almost be thought of as off season. Bottom line is that if a kids ready to play with first team professional it makes sense to go. It not college is probably a much better option from a soccer development sense. If you look at the Farfan Experiment going to college and sitting out a year to transfer works about as well as going to a well established professional setup where you are not on the fast track to the starting first team lineup. In terms of long term career opportunities, there is no comparison.

 

There is no doubt you don't need perfect SATs to get in to Stanford or any other "elite" school if you are an athlete, native american or any other preference group. However, many academy players don't have what it takes to get in to almost any 4 year college let alone Stanford. Even the most marginal football and basketball recruits at places like Stanford or Duke are well above average students.

It is also funny people are talking about Stanford hurting a pro career since one of the MLS best XI this year is a four year graduate as is current long time EPL player (team Captain still?).

 

Exactly

 

... because Notre Dame has produced so many successful pros ??? Going to Notre Dame is a ticket to the pros but not necessarily a ticket to success in the pros.