Keep in mind that perhaps the non-MLS academy teams will continue to have these levels. A team like FC Dallas is just concerned about the pathway for the elite prospects that have chosen soccer as a profession. An elite 18 year old prospect is certainly fine for this U23 team. Heck, FCD is playing 16 year olds against adult pros at the USL League One level as we speak. How do you maximize opportunities for these players? That should be the primary question. Of course a closely associated question is how an MLS club can convince those players to sign a contract. And if the players don't want to sign a contract, then how quickly should you cut them loose? MLS clubs shouldn't be wasting time and resources on uncommitted kids. If a kid isn't committed, then maybe FCD isn't the place for him. Maybe that kid is more appropriate for the Texans. I'm not really thinking about 2020 here. But 2030? Yes, MLS clubs will have stables of young players under contract within these U23 teams. I suspect that over the next 10 years, the landscape for these young players is going to change a lot. Will there be the equivalent of USL academy contracts in the U23 league? How lucrative can they be? Will MLS allow clubs to sign an infinite amount of homegrowns to contracts in order to fill these U23 teams?
Heard from a parent the FCD U19DA team played the club team FCD 02 Premiere and Premiere beat them 5-1. That has to bug the FCD brass a little or they really don't care about the FCD U19. Of course they have moved on anyone they felt was a pro prospect by now but the pay to play kids are beating up on the Academy is not a good look.
They aren’t playing many of the premier prospects with the u19’s this season. They’re having them train with that group but their studs have for the most part been playing at the u17 level this season. Their u19’s are their 02-03 age group which doesn’t have a single player left that should get a HG/USL deal. Add the best eligible Dallas produced u19’s in Dante Sealy, Ricardo Pepi, Jonathan Gomez, Justin Che, Nico Carrera, David Rodriguez, Beni Rezdic, Collin Smith, Seth Wilson, and Grady Easton and they slaughter that premier team.
It shouldn't worry them. They should be ecstatic about what the 2002/2003 age group has produced. Pepi, Sealy, Che are all on HG deals and there is some others that went a different route like Letayf, Carrera, Gomez and Wilson. There are also a few others that could prove to be professional level in Smith and Redzic. Overall, the current U19 class has been more than productive. Edit: I was beaten to the punch.
The only FC Dallas age group I think they shouldn’t be proud of is their 04’s who are notably very weak. Antonio Carrera is the best one and I like Jonathan Dadzie but he has moved to Sacramento. Dallas has the best 05 class in the country and personally in my opinion the top domestic 06 as well
Friendlies normally become glorified victories by the underdog team. I wouldn't put too much stock into them especially this early in the season. FWIW, a better indicator of the FCD U19 team performance would be the obscure MLS Next league. They played Solar twice already...
The big red flag for Dallas would be are the u15 or u17 teams losing games often. Those age groups still are filled with their big talents. From how they use their USL (and soon to be u23 team) I wouldn’t be shocked to see them scrap the u19’s and house the d1 bound players in their ECNL team
I was told yesterday that they are waiting a month to see what happens further with COVID restrictions.
The non-MLS teams in SoCal are telling parents, according to parents, that there will be no MLS Next games till 2021. Not the most reliable source though... so...
Agree. However, one could argue that the same could have been said with last year's 17s and there were no red flags at any point. They had Che, Smith, Dadzie, Elizalde, Reynolds, Jones, Carrera and the team was a complete disaster including not qualifying for the top GA division. Law of attraction? Maybe. Half of those will turn out alright.
Confirmation on the MLS reserve league https://theathletic.com/2136000/2020/10/13/mls-reserves-league-usl/
Here is the body of an email that went out to west coast MLS Next teams: The MLS NEXT Fall schedule for West Coast clubs, we agreed to wait for one month to see if the public health positions in WA-OR-CA-BC will change to allow more organized activity. Given the current positions of your state and local governments, we will postpone the start to any official MLS NEXT League matches in WA-OR-CA-BC for another month. Again, we will be ready to adjust should conditions change and we will plan to revisit the situation in early November.
Diego Lopez has left RSL for Philadelphia Union. In my opinion he’s a top 5 prospect for the 2005 age group and is a game changing center mid. He’ll be another piece to an absurdly stacked academy
At the rate they’re going. The Union academy will surpass FC Dallas in the next 5 years. Dallas have a better 05 age group and that’s it. From 04’s and younger Philly is better in every other age group and they’re actively recruiting around the country for more players while Dallas is not. In the last year Philly have added Gael Medrano, Bajung Darboe, Jack Brown, Alex Perez, and Diego Lopez. This is an insane amount of recruiting. All five of these players are lock youth national team prospects
You very well could be right and Philly is doing a great job, but I wouldn’t discount that 2006 group in Dallas. If it’s not at the level of their 2005 group, it’s very close. I would go as far to say the top end talent (3-5 players) of the 2006 group will be better than the 2005 group. The 2005 group is undoubtedly deeper, but the 2006 team could possibly have the best player in the country in 4 different positions, GK, CB, LB and MF. The younger ages at FC Dallas seem to be pretty weak, which directly correlates to Luchi’s move to the first team. Without him in the Academy, they just don’t seem to have the recruiting presence they used to and they struggle to even beat their local rivals.
It sure is and will be one of the reasons they will likely pass FC Dallas pretty soon from a production standpoint.
IMO, the reason why the Union are passing FC Dallas is the second paragraph. Dallas has the advantage in the talent and player production of the academy teams that have come through the last 5+ years. Union needs to play catch up, but their recruiting has been brilliant in recent seasons. Even just this season, they've brought in close to ten real prospects to their academy from other academies. I don't know if thats sustainable or we'll see that every season, but thats really going to pay off. A few of those guys will pan out, if not more than a few. Dallas has been one of the better teams with recruiting, but as you said, Luchi going into the first team might hurt in that regard. If Union can continue this level of recruiting, it's going to be very hard for anyone to catch them. I've also been critical of the formation the Union use. I don't think it's conducive to maximizing attacking output. Most of their academy teams play without wingers, and their attackers play without defined positions. It's good in theory if you have Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappe, Neymar. Doesn't work if you don't have 3/4 elite players who can interchange anywhere in the final third with equal effectiveness. Thats not to say the coaching is bad. I've heard to the contrary, but despite all of this, even if Dallas had a big advantage with the development, coaching, the first team pathway (I'm not even sure they have this over Union right now either), it still won't matter if you are able to bring in numerous top talents every year, and the rest of the academies aren't doing the same.
To me its an awesome conversation and argument. We all hoped that the rest of the league would catch up to Dallas one by one. If we have a club that's passed Dallas in the eyes of some, that's a great sign. Why is Philly doing so well? Recruiting. Why is Philly recruiting so well? Opportunities with the first team. Kids see the pathway. Aaronson has shown the pathway, just like Adams did at NYRB, Chris Richards at FCD, etc. Its not rocket science.
Many academies are building residency programs to help with recruitment. Union just have a headstart. I think the added advantage they have is the association and integration with YSC Academy. Kids go to school, do morning training, do some more school and then head to late aft training, all on site, then they are driven to their assigned home where several players stay with an adult or family.
i hope the most professional approaches get wildly compensated. dallas could’ve done residency at any point. their territory is gigantic! they made a choice and it’s a youth 1.0 one from the looks of it.