Genuine question for the group: How common is it for teams elsewhere in the world to publicly post rosters and/or stats (e.g., games players, goals scored) for their academy teams? NOTE: I'm not talking about professional reserve teams.
It's pretty common for some countries (England, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Mexico). At the very least, you can find the lineups, the bench, who scored for the upper levels of certain academies. If they don't have a website to keep track of all of it, someone can do so themselves from what's posted on twitter by the club. In some of these countries, they keep track of all of it for multiple levels. I don't know how common it is for Colombia or South Korea or Croatia or Nigeria, but shouldn't MLS be holding itself to a higher standard? If MLS wants to be looked at as a modern league that is very player friendly and forward-thinking they shouldn't strive to run themselves poorly. It can't take more than a days work on a Monday morning for one employee to enter all this info for every team. Also, teams keep track of this info internally, so they have it. On the DA website, I believe they were entering a lot of it themselves after games. Is it asking a lot for a coach or someone around the academy to take five minutes out of their day once a week to do this stuff? I don't think thats the issue either. From what I understand, team rosters are listed, but you can only access it if you have access to that specific team's page. MLS has deliberately made it so outside sources can't view anything other than their own team's page.
It's not very common in all areas and quite honestly, the way DA published the statistical info was pretty good. The German site Fussball.de is a great resource for youth activity. You will probably need to translate to make sense of it, but lots of info there. You can see the schedule for season matches, cup matches and friendlies for each team. The do list the top scorers and have a quasi box score for each match, but its not real in depth. It basically contains goals, subs and disciplinary actions.
Are academies on the west coast even practicing? There is no youth soccer anywhere in my western state. The other two states seem to be similar.
"MLS has deliberately made it so outside sources can't view anything other than their own team's page.".... Is this true or an assumption?
Thats what I've been told. Maybe I heard wrong. There are plenty of people that post here who have access to these pages that could verify.
Yes. In-person practices are occurring at LAFC using teams subdivided into smaller cohorts and goalkeeper cohorts. All practices are carefully mapped out and strategically socially-distant. No comment beyond LAFC is doing an excellent job of achieving the goal of social distance and minimal contact.
My son's account cannot see any rosters beyond the team he is on. For the team he is on, we can see name, jersey number, birthdate, parent contact and an ID number.
Havelange Beni De Dieu Kei Wonflonhi Jean-Desire has joined RSL. Huge coup for salt lake as this kid is arguably the best 07 striker. He was dominant playing up in the 05 age group last season. He also has the greatest name in the DA outside of Abraham Lincoln and Johnny Bravo My other favorite 07 striker is Caden Glover who was on pace for a 60 goal season last year. When I saw Caden live he backed up the stats, the kid is fantastic
Here’s the signing that @David Kerr mentioned. Proud to welcome Bajung Darboe to our academy! Let's get to work! pic.twitter.com/Hz3Xds4AkJ— Philadelphia Union Academy (@phlunionacademy) October 2, 2020
DA site says his nationality is Ivory Coast...he eligible for the US? He has to make it just to see what he puts on his jersey.
It makes it more likely, but it depends on the steps his family takes. Diego Fagundez's family wasn't proactive and I'm still not sure whether he has US citizenship despite being here since he was five years old. The immigration process is complicated and usually takes longer than even the people directly involved think. Also, is this guy named after João Havelange???
RBNY taking hold of the tri state market again Appears that Tijani Fatah who last played with nycfc and was even included in there 2019 first team preseason is now training with Red Bulls. Forward/winger— Eric Friedlander (@Efried97) October 2, 2020
FCD took upstarts San Antonio behind the woodshed. That FCD U17 team has some talent in it. Some #FCDallas Academy #MLSnext scores from over the weekend against SAFC...U17 7-1U15 5-0U14 4-0U13 3-3U19 DNP#DTID— 3rd Degree (@3rdDegreeNet) October 5, 2020
Pretty decent results for SAFC if you ask me..... I'm sure they're not expecting their 17s to hang with FCD. But if they can get some of their younger teams up to that level, they'll be cooking in no time. I don't see any reason why a USL team can't be just as good of a producer of talent as an MLS team. If the best players are going to mostly go to Europe anyway, who cares if you go from USL at 18 or MLS at 20?
Some USL teams totally lack talent. Playing on those teams for two years might be total waste of time. Who is relatively successful among the kids who went from MLS to USL, to Europe?
The number of USL teams that are capable of truly developing top talent right now is very small. But I think that will change as more clubs make a commitment to do it. The same way it has taken MLS a while to get to the level they are producing talent, some USL clubs are starting to do the exact same thing. The league will be scouted much more heavily over these next few years as the US becomes even more fertile ground for player development, and I expect the path from USL to MLS to become more common, also. I think the game is growing exponentially here but that the curve has been in the early stages of steady growth as infrastructure and culture have slowly been put in place. I would bet that we are a matter of a few short years from the big explosion in growth (culminating in and boosted by 2026), so I expect a lot of positive change to come with that, and I think USL will be a huge beneficiary there.
I think USL needs to come to an understanding as to what their identity is. Much like we want MLS to move their youngsters on to bigger and better things, USL is kind of stuck in no mans land at the moment. No matter how we slice it, USL is our second division, which should mean an additional rung in the ladder for their players, outside of the extremely elite few. While I agree that there are some USL clubs that have the ability to develop players, we have seen very little movement over the past few years of players starting in a USL Academy and then moving on to a MLS Academy and into MLS first teams. I am sure there are exceptions and I am not speaking about USL teams that are affiliates or reserve teams for a MLS club. Right now, the perception is that USL is a place where you can stash a highly rated youngster so they can avoid the restraints of a HG contract in MLS. While this model may prove out to be successful if some of these players move to Europe on a fee, it is not what is best for the overall development and cooperation amongst our domestic leagues. What needs to happen for us to begin to see movement up the ladder of domestic leagues? There must be a domestic payment structure developed to reward USL clubs when moving a player to MLS (Academy or first team) MLS must get rid of their antiquated roster rules to allow this movement more readily If we look at foreign leagues that aren't in the top division, many fund their operations by selling players. MLS obviously doesn't have the money to fund a Jude Bellingham from USL to MLS, but there needs to be a mechanism that is both affordable for MLS and rewarding enough for USL. Until some of these things happen, I believe USL clubs will continue to view MLS as competition, much like non-MLS Academies do. Not only is this bad for our domestic leagues, it stifles players that seem to get stuck at a level in which they are too good for. I'll reiterate what I said previously, by saying a move from USL direct to a European first team is just not feasible at this time unless a player is 16/17/18 years of age and is still eligible to participate in Academy or Reserve teams. There must be some collaboration and USSF must step in if necessary. As the game continues to grow in the US, there is too much talent to be lost if our domestic leagues can't come up with a way to move all players up and down the ladder.
Under the new ownership, they really are trying to stitch back together with a coherent strategy for player development. This seems like a good step to work wtih local clubs but not run them over and still ID talented players for future teams. Also, for those who don't want to read the article....its free. https://www.columbuscrewsc.com/academy/preacademy
it seems important to recognize at the mls club level that having more independent teams like this doing youth development also helps you identify talented coaches.
What I'd say is that the San Antonio market right now is nowhere near the talent producer of DFW. Not close. HOWEVER, it has all of the ingredients. Same as Austin. It might take some time. We're starting to see it. By the way, I think multiple first team players for San Antonio are eligible for these U17s. Leo Torres is 16, for instance. Something I always keep in mind when I see academy results. We can't pretend these are the "best" youth teams that organizations can field. San Antonio, as part of the Spurs organization, is one USL club that shouldn't have a problem from a financial point of view. If the Holts want to spend money on the academy, its available. I'm one person who thinks San Antonio should be promoted to MLS. Texas can support 4 MLS clubs.
Honestly, the MLS clubs having USL teams won’t be a thing much longer with the u23 mandate looming. The u23 league is going to happen like it or not. USL is great for the young teens to get used to playing against bigger/stronger players while they prepare for the first team level. But it should be a road stop instead of a place that a player is at for a while