I thought Friedel was some kind of consultant or Goal keeper coach in the run up to the WC? Do I have that mixed up? Either way I hope he turns out to be at least as good a coach as he was a GK, that would do fine.
Great for Brad. Seems like a great guy, and sounds very knowledgeable about the game. Wish him the best.
Brad has been interested in development for a long time. In fact lost a ton of money trying to set something up in the US. This will be interesting.
Assuming this happens, which players would he be getting? My guess is he'd be responsible (along, I suppose, with U20 coach Tab Ramos, assuming he doesn't move to MLS) for the '98s, which interestingly would be the group just coming off the U17 WC.
Grant Wahl @GrantWahl Official: Brad Friedel named US U19 coach. (Will stay with Fox Sports.) Omid Namazi named U18 coach. 3:01 PM - 4 Jan 2016
Do you know how Friedel's academy was supposed to make money? I've seen several articles about it and none of them ever mention that.
I grew up 30 mins from the facility. Partially it was to sell players but the big issue was Gatorade. They were a big sponsor and that deal covered a lot of the cost. Once they pulled their sponsorship they were doomed. Never had the time to get the players in and then out.
I remember Big Soccer posts way back when and my personal consensus was that it had no professional or team play component. They naively thought we just train some kids and sell them like some commodity product. Without playing competitive league for points to move to a first team there isn't really any incentive for a player to go there. It was doomed from the start for bad business plan. http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/friedel-academy-closed-changing-focus.951837/#post-17021487 http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/friedel-academy-versus-the-establishment.791751/#post-15874988
This is also true. If I remember correctly I think some of the local buzz was they were actually finding decent prospects but turning finding a team to pay to sign them was hard.
If they can't be seen playing first team football for an actual competitive team why would anyone of substance pay for the player. The big money comes from big clubs to pay for the world's best. It wasn't well thought through.
Here's an 2007 thread with the academy's first class of players: Romain Gall 1995 4'11" 88 lbs Midfield/Forward Victor Garza 1992 5’6” 130 lbs Midfield/Forward Joseph-Claude Gyau 1992 5’5” 130 lbs Midfield/Forward Justin Luthy 1991 6’0” 155 lbs Goalkeeper Andrian McAdams 1992 5'9" 145 lbs Goalkeeper Roi Bogning Momo 1993 5’2” 105 lbs Midfield Wil Trapp 1993 5'4" 120 lbs Center Mid Theodore “Sachem” Wilson 1994 5’2” 96 lbs Midfield/Forward http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/brad-friedels-first-class.531633/ Of the not-obvious names, McAdams played at an Ohio state university; Momo was semi-recently trying to continue his career (http://www.kcchronicle.com/2013/10/07/local-soccer-outfit-casts-wide-net/abybcvp/) and Wilson played at Liberty.
689875314487353344 is not a valid tweet id That's good news. I am curious, though, how they built the list and how it's updated. Some of the guys that have been uncovered on BigSoccer have been completely obscure, with no press coverage -- just some demographic info in the bowels of the Liga MX player database.
Probably just doing the same thing we're doing on BigSoccer. With that said, I doubt they have "every" guy. If a guy's Mexican-born to an American parent or parents, it would be pretty tough for them to know about him unless he raises his hand, someone writes about him, or word travels through the grapevine.