sounds like he’s in the first team plans for this season Neil Lennon is excited about USA youngster Cameron Harper's progress; hints at bigger #Celtic role going forward @67HailHail https://t.co/6198PMU0Vj— Celtic news now (@Celticnewsnow) September 2, 2020
💬 "I felt like I hadn't earned their respect yet but I told myself all I could do was come in, work hard and try to impress the coaches."@cameron__harper is relishing the challenge of training with the first team! 💪🍀— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) September 6, 2020
USMNT prospect Cameron Harper (18) has been named to Celtic’s Europa League roster for their upcoming match on Thursday. He looks to have made a big jump toward becoming a permanent member of the first team this pre-season. pic.twitter.com/VXjv97stXV— OneGoal (@OneGoalUS) September 22, 2020
He hasn’t been in the last few match day squads from what I recall. Seems like he’s been slipping a bit backwards but he’s young.
There are also new contract negotiations with Cam happening behind the scenes. A loan is still a possibility too
They really want an American, especially a tricky wing version, huh? Outside of that, what would draw them to Harper, from a Scottish reserve league? Must be that Billy Beane money. He has the affinity for Americans, want to play moneyball & thinks they are under-valued. That's more true domestically than in Europe. So would have applied to Lewis & the kind of peanuts they were throwing at Colorado for Lewis or delusionally thinking they could extract Cannon. Domestics are under-valued still, but not by that much, w/ the consciousness of some the US is a growth market right now, at least when it comes to football.
Paul Tenorio and Scottish journalist Kieran Devlin have written a story about Harper as he hopes to break into the Celtic first team. https://theathletic.com/2102442/2020/09/30/cameron-harper-usa-youth-celtic/
I'm not sure that "discount" applies to a player who is already at Celtic, though. It's not like he's still an unsigned amateur playing for an MLS academy or somewhere in the USL or whatever. One might assume that neither Celtic, when dealing with other clubs, or Harper's agent, when dealing with Celtic, would position him that way, in any case.
I've speculated for awhile now that we might see more European to MLS loans. To a degree we already have, but a lot of that has been confined to ownership groups that also have interest in Europe (i.e.: NYRB, NYCFC,) Could imagine Celtic starting to get in on this train. Much has been written about the mutual Scottish Prem MLS transfer exchange. My way of where it's moving? A guy like Cameron would have maybe gone on loan this year (back in February) to an MLS team. Give him a full year to make an impression etc, bring him back in December with the idea of seeing if he can "cut it" at the Celtic level. It makes sense for a lot of reasons, mainly being young players typically won't get burned out from playing during the "offseason" because they are young, but also in Cameron's case only playing youth football so it's not the same as say when our youth internationals play for the USMNT after a year of European club football. I don't think that there is any interest in any of what I've talked about above, but I could see a loan market like described being mutually beneficially to MLS teams as well as European clubs. Added benefit of having way more eyeballs on your player relative to the strength of the league if you send a guy on loan to the MLS as well.
Do you have thoughts on whether and why MLS would back off what I understand to be its historical reluctance to take these kind of development loans without an option to buy when it comes to American prospects—who after all have bypassed the league? It seems like Donovan was one of the few exceptions in the early days. But the landscape has obviously changed in some respects with MLS now part of the solidarity payment framework and homegrown territory rights rumored to be going away. I seem to recall the latter being an obstacle to a loan for Gutman to Nashville. Genuine question. I don’t have an opinion.
I believe the landscape changes as MLS embraces itself more as a selling league. Once performance in MLS becomes more indicative of performance in other leagues (Aaronson and Adams are huge for this, as well as any other MLS player that moves abroad) our players become priced more appropriately. I don't think it's really rocket science. Clubs typically only loan players if they think it's going to be good for their development. Where I think MLS has a moneyball advantage is speeding up the timetable for youth prospects that need to play against the men. And this is entirely due to the schedule being March-October. When combined with the facilities and medical professionals...all the ingredients are there for an MLS club to really begin to exploit this to strengthen teams. The easiest way to encourage this would be some leeway on the salary cap. Maybe allow teams to have a number of slots for loans that count at a capped amount towards the cap?
It makes sense to me why European clubs might want to loan some of their players—American or otherwise—to MLS for the reasons you mention. Though if these clubs wanted young players to play spring to fall against men, perhaps they would look closer to home with the spring to fall leagues in Norway or Sweden. It’s less clear to me whether MLS clubs will want to play and develop American prospects they don’t own.
Loans aside, I figure clubs probably want the players they're looking to sell to be on display in the markets where they're most likely to sell them. That really varies by situation, both in terms of the player and the market.
That's why I think changing the rules to incentivize it makes sense for the league's progression. A big problem with MLS competing against Mexican and CONCACAF clubs in club competition has always been squad size. I'm bringing it up specifically in the Harper thread because MLS hasn't really developed young American attacking talent and this is a situation where if the environment would continue to develop the way I think it should--->Harper could have gotten a good loan to an MLS team half a year ago. And how I think that could be mutually beneficial to MLS and European clubs. I digress though, I don't want to hijack this thread anymore than I already did. Looking forward to Harper getting playing time against full professionals somehow in the next three months.
They just tease to appease him. It shows you how they think that giving him any minutes in the mighty Scottish League would be "throwing him into the deep end". They think the SPL is practically the EPL & they are still UCL contenders. The longer they're stuck in this antiquated mindset, the longer they'll be irrelevant in the football world. Years ago when Rangers were relegated, Celtic probably should have swallowed their pride & taken the offer to join the English system, even if they had to start at the bottom of full pro - League Two.
good to get 90 minutes in the tank 🙌 pic.twitter.com/zrWt2tHiWE— Cameron Harper (@cameron__harper) November 10, 2020
Youth highlight. USMNT prospect Cameron Harper (19) scored a brace for Celtic’s reserve team as they beat Patrick Thistle 4-0 today. Harper started practicing with Celtic’s first team in pre-season. His second goal 👇 https://t.co/EYrgte0Aon— OneGoal (@OneGoalUS) November 24, 2020
I hate Celtic. The team in Europe w/ the worst risk/reward ratio for our players. Steer clear. In the interim, they need to give Harper a damn opportunity already. 3-0 win vs rangers, 2 goals👍 pic.twitter.com/HdEr0EJd7N— Cameron Harper (@cameron__harper) December 7, 2020
by the same token its hard to imagine harper going somewhere else. he is scottish american with a heavy emphasis on the scottish