2021-2022 Academy Season

Update: Donovan is playing with LAFC USL affiliate Las Vegas Lights.
So are the following 04s and 05s
Christian Jaime
Antonio Leone
Armando Avila
Erik Duenas
Diego Rosales
Christian Torres

 

What ages is this event?

 

This kid is a stud and definitely a player to watch. My only pushback is he has been dominating a much weaker SW ECNL and is literally on a plane by himself right now moving to Philadelphia from San Diego. Going into the best or second best 2007 team in the nation while moving alone cross country is a huge change for a 14 year old. I wish him well but want to see how this year goes. The pressure is real.

Also, great job compiling the list.

The other thing that is interesting to me is how many of these BOLD players are playing up versus playing their age group. Seems like some academies are more consistent about playing players up than others...

 

Since the Lights now train in Los Angeles at the same facility as the senior LAFC squad and only travel to Las Vegas for games, this isn’t too much of a change for these players.

 

Did Diego Lopez leave Union?

 

No

 

Interesting, I’m surprised to not see him on Kerr’s list for Union.

 

I would add Andrew Rick to the Union list. Good potential imo.

A fair amount of these players figure to spend some time in USL this season.

 

Does anyone want to take a shot at ranking the (US based) MLS academies prior to the start of the season?

 

What age? I did the u15/2007s.

 

So we can put ourselves on the line and you can critique our takes? Of course not, that's your job.

 

I'll take a step out for shots.
I don't have any issues with these 4 listed... beyond sentimentality and bias. lol.

I'd give an honorable mention to Houston who seems to have a renewed focus on their academy, building out several key elements and recruiting in the Southwest and Texas well.
I'd give an honorable mention to LAFC who are young as far as history but who seems to be utilizing the USL, gave minutes to academy players, has some talent in each age group and a clear style of play patterned after the first team at all age groups.
I'd give a red card to LAG who is in constant turnover and transition coaching-wise as well as failing to recruit in their own backyard.
I'd give a red card to Orlando City and Real Salt Lake who have underperformed in development and moving players into next levels.
Austin FC seems to be putting forth more effort than a Nashville.

 

What's the story with RSL? From a distance they seem to have taken a step back.
[I get that they lost Soto, Ledezma, Booth, etc. all on free transfers. That can be demotivating.]

 

Any idea why NYRB didn't even bother to send teams to the MLS Cup in Frisco in June? They were 6th out of 9 in the U17 bracket and would have only been in the showcase, but they were first in their U15 bracket. Seattle sent teams knowing they would just be in the showcase, as did other MLS academies. This summer, NYRB have been really aggressive pursuing strikers in Southern California from the 2006 age group, which is interesting since that is an age group where most teams are cutting because they don't have a U16 team. I know two who they have brought out for two week training spells and seem to be recruiting more than just evaluating.

 

Sorry, I forgot about that. I was talking about all age groups, so a larger picture as opposed to one specific age group.

 

That’s wild...

 

My ranking of the US-based MLS academies. This encompasses recruitment, tactics, first team integration, and the quality of their first team products. I've left Nashville out of this rankings.

Tier 1:

1. Philadelphia Union: They've taken over as #1 mostly due to their recruitment. FC Dallas might have better products and does a similar job of integrating players, but Philly is a lot better with their recruitment right now.
2. FC Dallas: Still second by a good enough margin without any immediate competition. They do a great job of integrating, developing, and selling players onto Europe, but aside from their '06 age group (lets also wait for those kids to sign with the first team), they've had a number of age groups in a row ('04, '05, '07) that aren't such high caliber.

Tier 2:

3. Inter Miami: They are coming for the top tier. Their academy teams are littered with talent. They might be able to match Philly already. The missing part so far is the first team integration and sales, but they've only just started, so that should eventually come. Even if it doesn't, they'll still rank pretty high due to the talent level of their academy players.

Tier 3:

4. NYRB
5. NYCFC
6. LAG
7. LAFC

I'm going to group these teams together with the explanation because I think there are similarities. Big market teams with a big pool of academy players to choose from (a little more so for the LA teams). NYRB has done the best job so far of first team integration and development. They have the academy products to show for it (Miazga, Adams, you could argue Clark). NYCFC has done a better job in recent years after a rougher start, although still not up to the NYRB standard.

The two LA teams have more talent to choose from, but there are still questions about how LAG integrates young players into the first team and their player recruitment strategy has always been highly questionable. LAFC hasn't really integrated any academy players into this first team, although maybe they shouldn't have at this point. It may be too early. Aside from their 04's, I'm not as impressed as I expected to be with their early age groups. Hopefully it gets a little better with a few more years in the league.

Tier 4:

8. Seattle: A lot of success in their academy teams, they produce some very good players, but I find that their academy age groups often lack depth. They seem to pull in a lot of top level players from their area and via recruiting, but maybe not as many depth players that could put them in a higher tier. Their player integration to the first team is hit or miss. They've done some good work, and some work I'd question.
9. SKC: They do about as good as you could expect for their geographical location. Great player integration, they've started selling players, they recruit extremely well, but there just isn't a lot of talent within their geographical location. Their academy talent pool is often top heavy. In some age groups its outright bad.
10. San Jose: A team that I find we often forget about because they are not Southern California, but instead Northern California. Their players are less heralded, talked about less, but I find that they produce some excellent players and do a great job of recruiting. My biggest issue is that the steps from the higher level to the first team is nonexistent. We've seen one recent player (Cowell) go straight from the academy teams to the first team, but the others are languishing without any obvious plan (Akanyirige, Fuentes, Walls)
11. Atlanta: As opposed to SKC maximizing their geographical location, Atlanta does the opposite. Coaches that want nothing to do with using academy players, academy teams that tactically are outmatched, very strange personnel decisions within the academy. However, it's an area with great talent. Their age groups are hit or miss. Some of them are as good as any academy in the country, and sometimes they are close to the worst. If Atlanta took their academy seriously, they would be no worse than the third tier.

Tier 5:

12. RSL: Another of these teams where their geographical location makes it difficult for them to be that high, but I think they do an excellent job with recruitment. They produce some really good players, and their academy teams don't look that talented throughout the team, but are better than you'd think. They are also the best academy in the country at producing GK's. The issue is that they don't have much to show for all that praise with recent first team integration.
13. DC: Largely dysfunctional MLS team. Academy teams are pretty average, on the whole, but they are located in an area that produces some excellent players, and DC does a good job of identifying these players usually. The record of these players developing and eventually being integrated to the first team is pretty long, but there's not much of a good track-record aside from that.
14. Chicago: Similar type of market and situation as DC. The area produces some excellent players. Chicago is often the beneficiary. What they don't have that DC has had is that they've not shown that they can retain their best players, and eventually integrate and develop them.
15. Houston: Like DC and Chicago, a long-time dysfunctional MLS team in a big market for the academy side of things. They have long been big underachievers at the academy level. The talent level for their teams was often lower than some of these areas without big talent, but they've slowly been doing a better job of infusing the academy system with more talent. They also have almost no record of academy player integration into the first team.

Tier 6:

16. Colorado: You have to give them praise for some of the work they've done with some guys that weren't high on anyone's radar (Vines, Bassett), but prior to those two, there wasn't much of a development and integration track record. Their talent pool is also pretty shallow. Routinely among the worst in the league. However, they have done a good job recently of recruiting some higher profile players from other academies (Toure, Wilkerson).
17. Orlando: They've done a little better of a job recently with infusing the academy with talent and even are starting to integrate players into the first team. They also recently won the U-17 age group of MLS NEXT, the most competitive age group. However, they still often times lack quality players at the academy level. There's no reason why the gap in prospects between Miami and Orlando academies should be the degree of five times as many for Miami.
18. Cincinnati: I like some of their initial work at the academy side. Their academy teams are more talented than I expected them to be. They are a little thin at some of the higher age groups, but that was to be expected. They also have made an initial effort at integrating players into their first team before they've had any real big time prospects ready for minutes.
19. Charlotte: They haven't started yet with playing MLS games, but their academy teams they've had so far haven't been bad. I think they've done a good job of bringing in some talented players into their academy.
20. Austin: They've started playing MLS games, but I would say its pretty similar to Charlotte.

Tier 7:

21. Columbus: I have a major gripe with how they integrate players. There's no plan for kids at the higher academy levels that want to turn pro and be integrated into the first team. They can't say they aren't good enough and need to go to college. Thats not an acceptable answer. They aren't working with the best geographic location to produce players, although they do in bunches produce some good players. Hopefully they will start to do a better job in upcoming years of integrating players from the upper academy levels to the first team with the MLS reserve teams.
22. New England: I think we've normalized a club doing a bad job a little too much. I don't even think their academy is that terrible. They produce some players that could play for the first team. If there's a real difference between the talent in their academy and the talent in Colorado's academy, I don't see it. What's the plan though for any of these kids? Has there ever been one? You'd figure they could benefit a lot from producing some academy players, considering they don't like to spend money on big first team signings.
23. Portland: It's a lot of the same as New England. The main differences would be that Portland has long been a successful MLS team that brings in big name foreign signings. We might not like their strategy, but we can't say they haven't been successful at what they try to execute. I think their academy is probably also a little less talented than New England's. I don't know that it should be, but it is from what I've observed.
24. Minnesota: When you specifically suggest that you are closing your academy and still maintain a professional soccer team, you have to be last. Thats not an acceptable excuse.

 

Excellent breakdown. Let's hope a bunch of owners start to get jealous of the coming financial windfalls of Dallas and Philadelphia and put a better integration strategy together.

 

Pre-season event: Kansas City, August 19-23
Crew, Atlanta, Houston, Seattle, LAG and Seattle...
Anyone else hearing of additional teams and/or what age groups?