My whole take on FCD and the academy is pretty simple. Good or bad classes, FCD has always given academy players a chance. Certainly at a higher rate than anyone else in MLS. At the end of the day, you have to give youth players a chance to prove themselves against Pros, and no club has done that more consistently than FCD. Good class, bad class, FCD Academy will continue to produce HGs at a higher rate than most, and that will ensure they remain a top academy, even if they're not producing future USMNT players. I'm okay with quantity over quality, cause you don't find those diamonds in the rough, unless you give them a chance to shine.
It does seem that FCD should have an easy recruiting pitch. Just name players, total number of HG signings, players sold on and money paid for them and then how many have played minutes in MLS. Tell the players to compare with other teams. Most are deficient in a lot of those categories. I also think there is real merit to them not being as good as they were. I would think the FO and owners are aware of this and want to keep that 40+ million dollar money tree growing so I would think they'd figure it out. They also have recruited out of market before so if they aren't why not now? Out of curiosity I see several mention DC and Miami as not needing to recruit. Does that mean they are the two best youth player markets in the country?
Yes and no, things are potentially be opened up a lot more but if it happens there are still going to be some restrictions. However, the restrictions are ones I think make sense
LA and NYC unsurprisingly are the top markets while the DC and Miami player markets are fantastic. Massive populations with a ton of diversity and a soccer crazy area. Miami is taking full advantage of it now, DC not so much. If DC year after year got all of the best talent in their area they’d an unstoppable academy, but there’s a substantial amount of players and clubs in the DMV that flat out refuse to work with DC United. They have the worst club and player relations within their market of any MLS club. DC and Dallas CSA’s are pretty similar in total size, but DC is much more diverse and in turn provides a much broader spectrum in the profiles of players they produce. The soccer infrastructure of DC is a lot better compared to Dallas as well. Dallas has some elite clubs in its market, but DC has a lot more of them, the issue is DC’s clubs often don’t work with them while Dallas can generally be assumed to collect all of the top talent every year If Dallas can dominate the markets in these areas, they’ll produce every year more classes like their 2003’s: Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and El Paso. Dallas needs to recruit more outside of the north Texas area but unlike other clubs like Columbus and SKC they don’t need to do it by going everywhere around the country. They dominated these areas for a while but backed off more recently to focus more on North Texas and letting out of market talents come to them instead of seeking them out. In these areas Dallas is close enough and has the reputation that they could sweep 90% of the top talents year after year. MLS scouting is going to become more and more like college football recruitment, if you don’t go to the top players they’ll look elsewhere but if you have the reputation and you go after the players you’ll get all of them like Bama does
Wasn't mentioned here at the time, but '06 CM Ale Urzua got the start against Dynamo 2 for NTX last weekend, his first pro start. He did the classic first pro start thing where his passing was too conservative overall and he didn't get much of the ball compared to his role. We'll see what Kah thinks - the battle for minutes in midfield for that team is getting really crowded. Side note: thought it was Collin Smith's best game attacking from RB this year. Was involved in all of Houston's goals, tho. Up and down.
Thats not necessarily true. Richards isn't from Texas, Tessmann isn't from Texas, Roberts isn't from Texas, and Servania isn't from Texas. Pepi isn't from Dallas. Dallas got a little lucky that he was part of their El Paso affiliate, so they had more incentive to bring him over to Dallas. Cappis is another that isn't from Dallas. If you look at the players they've produced, most are from DFW, but there still have been a number of recruits from outside of DFW or Texas entirely over the years. If you then compare that to what they've been doing recently since Luchi Gonzalez left the academy set-up, I think you'll see a difference. As far as I'm aware, they hadn't brought in any 2004's, 2005's, or 2006's from out of Texas (and maybe one or two from outside of DFW) prior to the past year. The players they brought in also aren't the top caliber players. Dylan Lacey has cycled through two other academies where he was viewed as a helpful academy player but not good enough to make the first team. That shouldn't be viewed as a big victory for Dallas to bring him in. RSL is bringing in kids that'll help their first team. Chris Garcia, Jaziel Orozco, Axel Kei, Jude Wellings, Luis Rivera, Blake Kelly, Fernando Delgado, Gavin Beavers. None of these kids are from Utah. I like Bowen McCloud. I think he could actually be a HG signing for Dallas, but thats about it. The others they've brought in are not first team caliber players. They need to get back to recruiting. Even with McCloud, he left Chicago after he was overlooked by them. He was better than a few kids they gave HG contracts in his age group, and now the club is seeing that they gave a few of those kids contracts too early. Also, there were other reasons why he left that weren't completely soccer related. He wasn't a huge coup to bring over. He fell into Dallas lap because of what happened in Chicago.
I don't think you're wrong about what their pitch should be. The issue becomes are they pitching these players. Or do they think they have enough talent locally that they don't need to be pitching players from outside of DFW? As for DC and Miami, I could be wrong, but if you look at the DC United's academy, how many of those kids are from outside of the DMV? There might be a few, but I believe almost all come from those three states. Given they have one of the best academy talent pools in MLS, I would say they do it without much recruiting. As for Miami, it's probably a little different. To begin with, South Florida produces a lot of good players. However, I wonder how much the territories are followed within the whole state. I believe Azcona came from Miami's territory (not with their academy) to Orlando's academy and then back to Miami. I think Freeman went from Miami's territory (not with their academy) to Orlando. I'm sure there's some dividing line that says Orlando has access to players from certain parts of the state and Miami has access to players from other parts, but it seems like the rules aren't followed that much from some of these signings. I would think that Miami gets pretty close to the pick of the players they want from Florida and Orlando doesn't, although I think Orlando has been doing well the last few years.
Orlando honestly got screwed when Miami got a territory. Not only did they lose the Miami market which is a top 4-5 market in the country, they also lost out on any players from Ft Meyer’s as well which is a pretty populated as well. They’ve been left with Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville essentially which is still nice but not quite as great as before. Did they ever utilize this market? Not at all unfortunately. Is this relevant to FC Dallas? No, but do have to chime in about this
But it is. How markets are split up is relevant to every team and getting rid of markets is also relevant.
Only a few: Gamez came from El Paso; Vargas was recruited from North Carolina when he was 11ish; Molina was recruited from Miami when he was 11ish (might have been referred by Asorey); Gallo was also recruited from Miami; Pickering joined the Academy from Birmingham as a U13 (I think); obv they ended up getting the Kelley bros from Spain; Manny Martinez was brought in from the Florida panhandle FCD affiliate as a U17; they had Dadzie from Sac Republic for a year before COVID. Unrelated: Nolan Norris called into the US U19s again.
Those are fair points. Changing the argument slightly, my biggest problem would be that they aren't bringing in top level talents at U-15, U-16, U-17 level that other clubs are doing. It's impossible to predict how good 11, 12, 13 year olds will become. It's possible a whole crop of FC Dallas caliber U-14 players doesn't yield a pro player. I don't think you can't keep a whole (or almost a whole) U-13 or U-14 group together through to U-19. There are some clubs I know that will and are cutting all but a few players in an age group at U-15 or U-16 level. FC Dallas does it a little differently where they will keep almost everyone, and might bring in a player here or there for those age groups, but usually aren't making big changes per age group.
I think there needs to be a bit of perspective here. It's around 650 miles from Dallas to El Paso and 515 to McAllen in the border region. It's 624 to St Louis, 643 to Birmingham, Alabama and 655 to Omaha, Nebraska. So Texas is a bit of a different animal and I'd say California north to south is similar that if they were in other parts of the country like say Philadelphia to Charleston, SC - 667 miles and pass through five other states.
So they used to do that and now apparently aren't. Doesn't make sense as some of their sales have been those guys - Richards / Tessmann. They literally can point to those two and ask if you want a chance to be our next one. Kind of bizarre if you ask me. No it's ok we did it for a bit but we're tired of making money that way.
I think it's not that they don't have a good recruiting pitch. I think it requires people with actual skill in making that pitch. I'm pretty sure the guy making that pitch was Luchi Gonzalez. We saw Luchi Gonzalez rise to higher levels because he's a talented coach/talent evaluator/recruiter. Now, I don't have much knowledge about who is making that pitch, but between what I've heard and my own speculation, I suspect that they've had to shift around some roles as people have gotten promoted and taken different jobs, which has left them with less talented people in that job right now. Only my take.
They still do just on a much smaller scale. They think they don’t need to do as much regional/national scouting because they can rely on DFW talent. Honestly, they probably can but they will see a drop off in the quantity and quality of homegrowns by doing this, this happens no matter what if you reduce scouting efforts. They likely believe that they can still pump out homegrowns while saving a lot of budget which isn’t a terrible strategy, they just won’t maintain the title of the top academy doing this which they may be fine with if they still produce first team players anyways Another thing to consider is it’s no longer so simple for clubs to win recruiting battles based on saying “we’ve produced x, y, and z player so you should sign with us”. For some players, like Dylan Lacy, that does work. He was on trial and played for us against FCD’s u17’s in March. Our 17’s beat Dallas 3-1 that game and we’re dominant but it didn’t matter, Dallas got him in the end because their homegrown record is better than ours. But a few months later we trialed Phoenix Wooten who was spotted at Alianza. He came to us for two days then flew down to Dallas immediately after for a weeklong trial. Phoenix ended up cancelling the trial two days in and signing with us, he had two additional trials still to do that he canceled as well. Recruiting players is a huge battle now and is very college football like
One very relevant disanalogy: we're often talking about kids 16 and younger as opposed to the 17, 18, 19-year-old football recruits who universally have high school diplomas. As you know, any/most states have/had rules against recruiting by high school athletics programs and against transfers for the sole purpose of athletics. Obviously those rules are roundly ineffective (especially across state lines), but the idea is that uprooting a kid from their educational and social environment for the sake of what is realistically tiny absolute change in their probability of becoming a pro or getting a full-ride to college is in general not good for the kid. You don't have to look far in and around the academies of the clubs in Europe to see that the costs of increased professionalization of the youth game (implemented broadly at a younger age than any sport in the US) extend beyond the dollars and cents the club spends to support it. Just something I'm hoping you, David, someone who actually affects this whole process, keep in mind as you do your work.
Moving players from around the country into the pro academies is part of the sport whether we like it or not. With exception of the major market clubs, every single MLS academy is moving players from around the country into the club. Families around the country that have players at the level to be considered have been a lot more understanding than what I would’ve initially expected if I wasn’t very familiar with MLS Academies and the youth development ecosystem. Generally unless the family moves for non soccer reasons I think it is unethical to offer the player before u15, sadly other clubs don’t agree and are offering and moving players that are 12 and 13 Our job is to make sure every player that we bring into the club from out of market has a viable pathway to becoming a professional soccer player. We even have to get approval from some of the top officials in the club for offers to ensure this. Especially if we are offering the player a spot in a homestay program or helping subsidize a family paying for an apartment. However there are players that move that don’t have a pathway in the club. In this situation it is very openly explained to the families of what they are committing to, what the situation they’d be in is, and generally we only offer the player if they already have reliable housing in the area of a parent is able to move with. Those players in situations like that however do see benefits of a higher level training environment and a significant increase in the amount of D1 exposure and scholarship opportunities so they aren’t moving for nothing, there are benefits I also am a very firm believer of integrating players that move to the club into public schools in the area. This gives those players a chance to still be a teenager which can’t be understated how valuable this is to their personal and mental development. I’m not a fan of moving players and housing them in dorms where their life becomes 100% soccer and it is already career at 14 years old
Kind of an interesting factoid. 24 out of FCD's 32 goals this season have been scored by Americans. Also, we're about to start thinking of Jesus Ferreira as one of these best homegrown signings in league history. In terms of first team impact at a young age, he's near the top. He was signed soooooooooooo long ago that we lose track of how young he still is. 24 - @Jesusfcd27's goal on Saturday was the 24th @FCDallas goal scored by an American this season. No other @MLS team has more than 13 goals by Americans in 2022. Spangled. pic.twitter.com/utuz2OEjVA— OptaJack⚽️ (@OptaJack) July 24, 2022 The 4th player in FC Dallas history with 30+ goals & 20+ assists.The second player in MLS history to reach 30 career goals and 20 career assists at the age of 21 or younger.The one and only, Jesús Ferreira pic.twitter.com/3UovDEj0mb— FC Dallas (@FCDallas) July 24, 2022
[As an aside, if people are wondering who the other player is with 30 goals and 20 assists in the league at 21 or younger.................its another homegrown signing. Diego Fagundez.]
He'll have a tough time catching Nick Rimando as he's still pretty far away. More than 230 appearances away. Nick played 553 matches. Diego can do it, but he'll have to stay healthy and playing at a high level. The top two active leaders in MLS games played are both FC Dallas draft picks. You're welcome world. Dax McCarty and Drew Moor. I don't know how much longer Dax McCarty wants to play, but he's already 5th all-time. He'll pass Kevin Hartmann (former FCD goalkeeper thank you very much) for 4th all-time by the end of the season. DIego Fagundez is 17th amongst active appearance leaders at the moment. There are still a bunch of active players ahead of Diego, but they'll retire one-by-one. He'll be left near the top for sure. Another guy charging up the list is the same age as Diego Fagundez. Kellyn Acosta is only 27 and charging. If it weren't for his injury issues towards the end of his Dallas tenure, he'd be in a similar position to Diego. If he stays in MLS when his contract ends, he's another than can move rapidly up this list.
Acosta might go somewhere after the WC, Diego looks like MLS lifer. And Acosta already 99 games behind Fagundez. I don't have stats, but pretty sure his trajectory is way ahead of everybody. He won't play till 40, but can catch Rimando at 34-35.
Eyestone in first team training today.............. Marten Paes is listed at 6'4" . Paes, Maurer, Eyestone. pic.twitter.com/51ViF5qjYe— 3rd Degree (@3rdDegreeNet) July 26, 2022
2005s Ramirez, Scott, and Salinas training with NTX. This week's small-sided winners 🥇 pic.twitter.com/p72PQxVQgK— North Texas SC (@northtexasSC) July 27, 2022
Lol Molina didn’t even start for the U17s last year. How are they picking these all-star rosters? (to be fair, he’s the youngest kid to make an NTX roster this season, so he must be highly regarded, but still…) 1552341049191931907 is not a valid tweet id