You're making it too complicated. If NYCFC hear about a player in Phoenix they call a local scout and ask for a report. From those, you select a couple of players you're interested in and pay $300-$400 for a flight and a cheap hotel. It's already happening. There are qualified scouts all over the country. There are 1,300 scouts in the "Football Manager" computer game network and coaches actually use their reports. MLS expands international scouting network - MLS Soccer For Sounders and other MLS teams, building a global scouting network is a long process- Seattle Times "Both [Chris] Henderson and scout Kurt Schmid [Sounders] estimated that they spend more than three months of every year on the road scouting. Though the borders aren’t rigid, Henderson covers most of South America and Europe, and Schmid gets the youth national teams and the bulk of Central America." How will Atlanta’s MLS team find its players? - ajc.com (2014) "A typical MLS team has a scouting/technical director with one to five scouts. They are supplemented by a centralized scouting network run by the MLS that is unique to other leagues in the world. The office uses technology and collaboration to reduce costs to $1 million with a goal of not sacrificing quality. DiCuollo oversees the scouting network, which consists of six consultants based in Central and South America. They recommend players to MLS, which has compiled approximately 300 reports on players. Those files are constantly being updated, with new players being added and others either edited or eliminated.". There are also domestic and international events, organized specifically for coaches and scouts.
By the way, I tend to think keeping agents off campus is a good thing -- especially given that such a small percentage of college players go pro.
i dont think that arent useful players that are forced to enter MLS through the draft. I think the mechanism itself is a problem.....MLS should empower their own players...and it will benefit the league/player in the long run. the draft is a repressive mechanism...that favors owner control and salary suppression. MLS should abolish any activity that doesnt enhance player development such as the the Superdraft. that doesnt mean that the players who enter the leauge through the draft cant help MLS teams!!!
With MLs's shitty US scouting ability, it is more likely to hurt a pkayer's chances of making the league if there wasn't a draft and, particularly, the associated combine. For many of the teams, the combine is the first time that they are seeing these kids (as indicated by how far kids rise/fall based on their combine performance). Take away the draft and some/many of these kids are going to be missed simply because of where they grew up..
It's just another way to add players to a roster. Some teams are better then others at taking advantage of it. It allows for multiple ways to build a team, rather then just go out and spend the most money. It adds to the uniqueness of MLS. Does it add complexity? Yes, but it also adds more discussion points. Take trades for instance: Trading a player for a draft pick might seem like a bad deal. Yet years later that draft pick could turn into the best player in the league at his position. That changes the value of that trade. The draft, while it may rub a minority segment of the fans the wrong way (too american, not how Europe/rest of the world does it) it is still a useful mechanism to roster building. The US is such a huge country, and let's face it, there are HUGE swaths of our country that are devoid of professional teams and major college teams. Scouting the entire country is still very difficult. The level of competition in the less populated states can make scouting difficult (projecting a players ceiling). Again some teams are better at the draft then others. I used to feel the same way as the OP. Within the past 4 drafts the Union have managed to reshape their roster: Richie Marquez, Andre Blake, Keegan Rosenberry*, Fabian Herbers, Jack Elliot, Josh Yaro, & Marcus Epps. *Rosenberry should have been a HGP signing, though was punished for electing to take summer classes in order to get his degree from G'Town early. Due to taking classes he didn't accumulate enough practice time with the Academy. That, and SKC's Peter Vermes raised a stink about it as well. In the OP's vision, Rosenberry would have been a Union player regardless.
MLS could still have a combine even if they got rid of the draft. If there were no league-wide combine, then some teams could pool together to have a regional combine to give more kids a look.
......basically another thread, like the 100's of others we have seen since the beginning of Big Soccer, where someone else knows how to do everything better than MLS. What MLS does is dumb and repressive, and it is just so obvious why won't anyone listen to me and my genius! Got it.
Comment: Answer: End of discussion Of course it favors the owners, that is why it would never be abolished. I have not be in the You Be the Don thread in months, sorry to see you tilting at the exact same windmill.
He is a one note/horse with blinders on wonder in general. Just like so many before him he just doesn't understand how no one else gets it! They have never thought of it and he will enlighten everyone! Maybe if I am adament and post the same opinion 10,000 times over an over in every thread I am in then my God some of u fools may finally see!!!! The names change through he years....the tedious routine never does. Then guys like him wonder why no one with half a brain, or any type of experience stops responding to him....or why others deride him. It just becomes a teenage circle jerk. Overly defensive, predicatble, simplistic taking umbrage John Stewart talk show response to come inevitably. That's ok...u r right. I just don't understand. No one does.
So you're arguing that rules set by the ownership of the league should be changed by those same owners despite it being against their interests? At the same time we have a player's union which would never sign off on rules that allow rookie players to enter the league with fewer restrictions and salary controls than veteran players. On top of that, you have MLS teams investing in development systems by league mandate. The draft, again, will slowly become less relevant. However, the league still has a vested interest in having some way to control the flow of unaffiliated young players to both control entry level player costs and to encourage participation in the academy system as the preferred method of entry. Who exactly is going to argue in favor of the changes you suggest?
ive watched MLS from the begining...so it is hilarious to me to hear someone question whether MLS owners should/could change rules that they created!! thats ALL they did for the first 10-20 years of the league....the rules were written in pencil for most of MLS' existence.... so....changing MLS rules is not a problem at all, imo. how can you be so sure the player's union would agree to letting young players pick their teams? do you have a quote that backs that up? if so, then the PU is part of the problem too....which, to be honest, wouldnt surprise me....i was flabbergasted at the last collective bargaining agreement the players accepted...they were softer than a wet paper bag in those negotiations. yes it is about control and cost suppression...and the tradeoff of that is worse development for players.....my point is that whateve needs to be done to give players better opportunities/career arcs...needs to happen...even if it means MLS owners cant be control freaks over every aspect of their player pool..... im saying that the players in MLS WILL NOT develop the same way under different economic setups....and that yes it becomes difficult to keep rules consistent if you start to change things.....but overall...wahtever is gonna get MLS players - and youth players in particular -- to the absolute heights of the sport - CL, WC finals etc - needs to be done. im saying that it isnt a coincidence that you havent seen MLS players transition to CL teams and successful WC teams....b/c they are in alegue that suppresses them...through mechanisms like supredraft and no free agency etc etc..... when players are ready to take the leap to the next level - like nagbe to celtic - MLS is now saying no. what im saying is that this IS NOT EVEN IN MLS BENEFIT - even if they think it is - what is going to benfit MLS the MOST - is player success stories - so whatever needs to be done to EMPOWER their own players will HELP MLS THE MOST. being hyper-controlling limits player development...adn i think is the reason you wont see a messi or ronaldo come from MLS...until they get it that they are there to help their players in mutually cooperative way and not in a dominant 100 proft way...MLS owners will not develop star players. where are the stars MLS has grown?????? i know thats what MLS wants. i think they are too greedy to see that they are holding themselves back.
You're not getting the point @adam tash. This is a partnership between owners who have a negotiated CBA with a players union. There just cannot and will not be a unilateral change to the player entry rules without an agreement between the two parties.Entry level talent is cheap. If its easy to get new players in, then the vets covered by the CBA are hurt as their salaries rise. Free agency is also an issue for the union. It manged to get a modest amount of free agency for certain veteran players during the last CBA negotiation. If you look at this from the union perspective given a variety of issues on the table, do you prioritize the working conditions, salary, and movement rights of a player who has been in the league for five years at a $150k salary or do you focus on the way non-union members enter the league? What you have been asking from the beginning is a system that grants more favorable terms to an entry level player than one on his second or third contract. No player's union is going to go for that. From the league's perspective, aside from keeping entry level costs low, it will want to encourage talent to seek out its academies. I'm not sure how making it easier to enter the league at an inflated salary really addresses any of the issue you raise no do I see how abolishing the draft does anything to make US talent better. Realistically, MLS has been in the development game for 4 or 5 years at best. It'll be another 10 before we see any fruit and by then the draft will become mush less important.
He doesn't want to get the point. Hell, he tosses out lies left and right , ignores facts that have been patiently explained to him dozens of time, and couldn't care less about it across BS. You see...if he can win here things will go the way he wants it to! He can force change, prove how smart he is and show everyone! You will all see! I'm smart! I am!
in a year with 2 expansion teams lets look at how much playing time some top picks in the 2017 superdaft are getting with their MLS teams this season: #1 pick...6 starts...#2 pick miles robinson...ZERO minutes so far.......#3 pick.... 23 (!) minutes #4 pick ...8 (!) minutes.....etc etc do you think a team like columbus or nyrb might have played robinson some this season? maybe if he had a choice of what team he went to....he wouldnt spend his entire first season on the bench? If top picks cant even play in an expansion year....why have a draft??? why force the best talents to be afterthoughts and stall their careers because they are teams that are BAD FITS?? either the players arent good enough for MLS (in which case - the superdraft is pointless) or they are good enough for MLS but the draft is funneling them to the wrong teams (which, again, would be a reason to abolish the draft as well). do you think a 22 year old newly turned pro player really has a lot of time to waste sitting on the bench if they are ambitious with their careers? one or two seasons on the bench for a 22 year old severely limits their potential for a lucrative career, imo. but yeah ...youre probably right....im just here to stroke my ego (lol!).....besides, US SOCCER is CLEARLY in great hands without my self-aggrandizing proposals....they wipe the floor with teams like maritinique without me putting my 2 cents in a message board that no one reads....all the usmnt MLS players are playing amazingly in the gold cup....way better than ever before....MLS is producing american stars at unseen levels.... whatever the machinations are involved in CBA's and contracts etc....thats a valid point...but it isnt enough to stop the overall message of my point from being true.....it just means that ending the draft will be difficult and not easy. yes i acknowledge that ending the draft would be hard...but not impossible. MLS needs to start doing what is truly best for player development...instead of $ and control....because all that will continue to produce is mediocrity. Mediocrity League Soccer. have they painted themselves into a corner with the structure of how they have set up MLS? perhaps, yes. So just paint a new direction....acknowledge previous mistakes and chart a new course. the idea that its the players and players union that is preventing player freedom movement is ludicrous. its what the players have been FORCED to accept by greedy owners who want to control everything in their league.
The problem with the evidence that you are presenting is that players taken in the draft are not always immediately ready to play in MLS. Take the USMNT Gold Cup roster as an example. Dom Dwyer, who is arguably one of the better non-DP forwards in the league was taken 16th in the 2012 Super Draft. He had a whopping 4 minutes of playing time in 2012. In 2013, he only got 674 minutes and appeared in less than half of SKC's games, but starting in 2014, he has started in most of SKC's games. Alternatively, Christian Roldan was drafted 16th in the 2015, he had his first start in the first month of the season and ended up starting about a third of the games in 2015 and appeared in about 2/3 of the games. In 2016, he was a regular starter and has been since.. *shrug* Poop happens. Every player develops differently, every team has different needs, etc, etc. This year's top four draftees not getting much playing time doesn't mean the draft should be abolished..
Here's another thing that people don't consider. A lot of the reason these draft picks often don't play is that they're simply not good enough to be professional players. If we abolished the draft, yes, players would have more freedom to sign with whatever clubs they wanted. But it would also mean a lot of these guys would never even have a chance to collect a paycheck in the sport to begin with. If there was no draft, a lot of MLS teams wouldn't even bother adding these college kids to their rosters in the first place. There are plenty of 20 and 21-year-olds all over the planet languishing somewhere that could make the league minimum that would have a hell of a lot more experience in pro soccer than college kids. The draft opens up opportunities for a lot of young players that wouldn't get it otherwise. Plus, any college kid who finds himself "oppressed" by the draft doesn't have to enter it. Try your luck in the minors, or go overseas. It's not like MLS is the only league available.
so now its that the players suck so bad that they need the draft to even get into MLS? lol.... if you dont see how that proves my point...theres nothing i can say but regardless....even if waht you said about the level of college players is true (i disagree that there arent college players good enough for MLS....or more importantly that the ones hwo dont get playing time arent good enough)....MLS could abolish the rule and just MAKE A REQUIREMENT THAT MLS TEAMS SIGN x # of college players to their rosters!!!!! as one example .....college free agents would be the perfect stopgap for injury riddled teams....imagine a team in june loses 2 cbs to injury and could then sign a top college CB to PLAY RIGHT AWAY....(they could be on a usl team or mls affiliate without being owned by an mls team until they are needed by MLS)...... but yeah it hilarious that draftees are so bad that the only way they can play in MLS is the draft lol
you can pretend like this years MLS crop was historically weak but that would just be putting your head in the sand. MLS teams are not giving draftees opportunities as much as they used to...and it wont get any better from here on out...we've already passed a critical threshold.....teams dont build thrugh the draft anymore...expansion teams dont even play draftees anymore.... young players are better off signing in NASL or USL or whatever.....look at haji wright...if he had signed for MLS he'd probably be stuck on an MLS bench right about now (with a miniscule chacne of ever playing in europe) instead of playing preseason games with Schalke's first team. it's actually a bad option for young us players to enter the MLS superdraft (which is CRAZY)...from a usmnt perspective i'd much prefer they tryout in europe/anywhere else. i'd actually prefer young us players play in usa minor leagues than enter the superdraft - which says it all about how mls develops young american talent.
In recent years, about half of players drafted in the first round see less than a couple games' worth of field time in their first two years with an MLS club. Much of this is from the difficulty in scouting college players.
i think a big part of the problem is how mls teams value draft picks now.... there are just so many other mechanisms to build rosters taht draft picks are now seen as disposable...and a waste of time to "develop".... its also less "risky" for gms to bet on players who have already "proven it" as pros elsewhwere than to bank on a college player coming in...no matter how good he is. entering the superdraft is not a good career move for a young us player anymore.
For SOME OF THEM, yes. I never said "there aren't college players good enough for MLS". A few of them are. A few more of them can get there after some more experience. But if MLS did what you said, and just told teams to sign college players at will, the college players would all gravitate towards the top end teams in the big markets, and the big teams that don't need the help would just have another built-in advantage. That may not suit your personal taste, but it's the dead opposite of what a parity measure is supposed to produce. And as someone else has already pointed out -- the single-entity structure doesn't allow seasoned veterans to call their own shots until they've reached a certain level of service. Why should rookies have more freedom to book their own tickets than veterans? Why would a "college free agent" be playing in the summer for a USL team or an MLS affiliate if they hadn't already been signed by such a club already? And you're so worried about player development -- why would an MLS affiliate waste minutes on a player if another MLS team can swoop in and grab them since they're not "owned" yet? it hilarious that a guy I'm getting loled by guy who cant read or tipe rite haha