This is great. Who are the top prospects from each MLS academy? Would be nice if every MLS academy had this type of media coverage.
As we talk about a lot, one of the most underrated academies in MLS. They would receive more credit if they marketed their product better. A fountain of youth.Between San Jose & @PhilaUnion, we are the only clubs with more than 5 players in the USA U-17 & U-20 camps. Philly – 8San Jose – 6RSL, Chicago – 4Dallas, Houston, Carson, LAFC – 3 pic.twitter.com/3PdhKoDxsy— San Jose Earthquakes (@SJEarthquakes) November 5, 2021
Ownership of the Quakes is not interested in attendance, or success. It's literally an asset for first Lew Wolff, and now John Fisher, for him to stash his money and work his taxes. The league needs to push them out for someone who cares, just for the sake of the fans. In general, I think the ownership in MLS has evolved a ton in a few years, but these guys killed the A's fanbase and are doing it to the Quakes.
I think US Soccer has been doing a rather poor job of scouting Nor Cal youth. The pandemic was the biggest issue of course but the real problem was how they set up the ID camps. Since they centralized everything in Chicago they have relied on "outsourcing" their youth scouting to local people. Problem with that is there were very uneven grades based on locations of the ID camp. There should have been at least one or two guys traveling to all the combines so they could judge the level of play and lay eyes on all the players being evaluated. I got the feeling that some areas may have invited marginal prospects which makes good players look great. In Nor Cal (and other areas) there are a lot of strong players but they can cancel each other out head to head. When the competition is strong you don't stand out as much as when it's weak. There was a time when the only players selected from Nor Cal were previous camp attendees while several other players had clearly passed them by in development. Sad fact is that mistake has allowed foreign countries to make inroads on Nor Cal recruitment of dual national players. I am sure that has also happened in other areas as well. I would hazard a guess that the closer to Chicago you are, the more likely you end up playing for the USA. The people that pick the pool simply get to see you more often....
I dunno, this U17 camp is pretty California centric. I don't really see the above in practice this time around. And the dual nat stuff has more to do with other countries getting active than geographical bias, I suspect. I don't know US Soccer's complete model, but they aren't going to pay for full time, employee scouts across the country. Even in baseball, you tend to have regional scouts, who are often contractors, and then you have cross-checkers when a report comes in strong enough. The cross-checkers are the people who travel to pit players against each other in other regions. I don't know how many US Soccer has of them, or if it is just the youth coaching staff, but that's how you do it. It's completely untenable to be shuttling people around all the time in person.
Well I think that is why this roster looks a little different. On the Nor Cal ID roster one of the evaluators was Gonzalo Segares. I have a feeling he traveled to most (if not all) the camps and was probably the tie breaker on selections.
I'm really interested to see what goes down at the FCD academy this upcoming season. Many of the people who made the FCD academy great, and built the path from the academy to first team............are gone. From top to bottom. Academies aren't great because of buildings or fields or locker rooms or some sort of magical pixie dust. They're great because of the people. I have no idea how Zanotta is going to build from here. New people. And by the way, this is natural ups and downs of academies. We see it around the world. The pace with which FCD was producing players wasn't maintainable. A quarter of the November USMNT roster has FCD connections (Cannon, Acosta, McKennie, Pepi, Richards, Ferreira...........plus Zimmerman was drafted as a teen). That's amazing. That's like Dinamo Zagreb or the production you'd expect in a nation with one or two major clubs. Not a nation with as big of a pool as the US. Not a nation with so many clubs on equal financial footing. So the wheel of fortune has turned. There were plenty of cracks visible before the Corcoran news.
FCD is actively recruiting players out of other MLS academies. I know of at least one player jumping from SoCal to FCD. (Younger kid and as to who… not my story to tell. It’s not urgent/relevant to know him specifically)
I don't care about the details of the player but I am curious in your opinion is he worth recruiting?
I just can sorta see an end of an era....................... Ya know, FCD won the Supporter's Shield, U18 DA title, U16DA title, and arguably had the bets U15 DA team in 2015/2016. The gap between the FCD academy and the majority of the country was huge. That was 5 years ago. One senses that following Justin Che..................we've come to the end of an era. Che started at FCD in 2009!!!!! You wanna talk about a player actually grown from scratch, its Justin Che. That doesn't mean a new era can't start, led by a new group of leaders. But let's see.
Yes. Both LAFC and LAG have some very creative younger players. Fun to watch. Strong player headed to Dallas. Young and who knows of course and I didn’t think much of it outside this thread. Marcet Academy has also been recruiting hard in the Southland.
Here’s a problem I’ve found with watching some of these MLS academies. I watched games between DC United and Bethesda SC at the U-15, U-16, and U-17 levels. I thought the DC team with the best prospects was the U-16 team. There are a lot of talented players that are stuck playing a year (or less) at the U-16 level, and the U-16 level gets so little publicity. MLS academies often give too much priority to older players at the U-17 level, and not enough to the best prospects IMO.
Very few MLS Academies field an official U16 team. DC United and Atlanta United might be the only ones. LAFC, though, sometimes puts together a U16/U17 mixed team to play a friendly against the U16 team of the club they are playing against in the U17 game. It consists of the players who didn’t get to play, or play much, in the U17 game. Since there are a number of strong non-MLS teams in the SoCal bracket of the MLS Next league, those are usually quite competitive games.
Fair enough. I’m pretty sure Houston, FCD and SKC do or did in recent seasons though. I’ve also seen this type of problem at San Jose where they might not field a U-16 team, but they don’t bring on the younger age group players for anything other than garbage time. Teams need to do a better job of getting the real first team prospects more playing time, and be more willing to cut or bench the older guys that don’t have the same potential. There are too many pro prospects in some of these academies that languish for half a season or a full season without U-17 minutes when they go from their U-15 to U-17 season.