I was never a fan ODP as it was structured based on the USYS state politics. But at least it didn’t really interfere with local development efforts. You asked “were poor kids better able to get noticed and move up the ranks before the jump?” The answer is that thousands of local kids have been able to move up in the ranks. Of course poor is a relative term. Many people live rich and happy lives without necessarily having enough disposable income needed for junior travel to another city to attend (but not necessarily even play a single minute of) a soccer game or have enough free time to fight traffic four days a week to get him to practice. Take Jorge Flores, one of the “success” stories mentioned in the Academy thread. Went to school in Anaheim HS where 71% of the students get free or reduced lunch. Played for Santa Ana DSP which I believe, but don’t know for sure, is typical of the lower cost club team that can be found in CSL. His team was not in the top level, but other lower cost teams are. Take Canoga Park HS where 67% of the kids qualify for free or reduced lunch, yet was the #1 ranked boys HS team in the country last year. That team included Camilo Rojas and Rafael Garcia who now play for Cal-State Northridge and Jeff Quijano who plays for Michigan. Kids from High Schools with similar demographics are found throughout CSL. Now maybe all these kids I mentioned above were really fairly well off and just chose those schools because they had a good HS soccer program. It is really no one’s business but there own. Santa Ana is in Orange County and Canoga Park is in the Valley. The kids I’m more familiar with come from an area of LA called South Central. It is an area depicted in most of gang movies set in LA as well as the flash point for the 1992 riots. Many people think of it as a most African American community, but it is in fact mostly Hispanic and home to some of the area’s best players. The U15 Dallas cup champions were the Celtic Hoops. Go to the Celtic website to get an idea of the demographics of the kids in their club. Also in U15 group for Dallas last year were Celtic Harps, Valley United and FC Barcelona. Notice, none of the invited teams in the U15 bracket from Cal-South were from academy clubs. Yet many players from these clubs have been selected to the National team pool because they can get seen based on their merit, not on their parents’ ability to pay the travel costs inherent in an Academy league set up. The ironic thing is about my posts is that my kid was recruited by teams from a couple of the Academy clubs and actually played for one this last year because we can afford it. One difference between myself and most of those fawning over the USSF program is that I got a pretty good play by play of what was going on during creation process. The other difference big is that I see the kids who are getting hurt for something that was primarily cobbled together to scratch backs and enlarge empires. It is perfect for this as there is no methodology for defining an effective program and weeding out those that are not. There is no reason to give it a chance. There are better, more inclusive models, such as Houston Dynamo’s, that can be implemented today.
Good post, but I'm still not sure that I can understand your criticism. Are you afraid that the smaller clubs will be marginalized and that the kids who arn't financially able to join these clubs will get the short end of the stick? If anything wouldn't they less-fortunate of the bunch benefit since the more wealthy academy kids will no longer be able to participate in the ODP program and therefore the kids not in the academy's will have a better shot. ARe there going to be massive changes to the way that the CSL is run? Other than the big academy clubs leaving the league, I don't see how this really affects the other clubs in the area all that much.
Anybody see this from Galarcep? http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_by_ives/2008/01/three-mls-teams.html Basically, MLS has authorized only DCU, RBNY, and Chivas to promote from youth teams. Most of the details aren't new, but it's good to know it's a go for '08. Besides Cassell, who are the prospects? Anyone see DCU or Chivas bringing a player in this year?
Can't say I'm wild about the idea that clubs could sign youth prospects from another youth program even with all of the stipulations involved. I guess I can see how one could argue that it will help the league as a whole benefit from the stronger academies but at the same time, what incentive does a smaller club have to really establish a good program?
The thought that kids from other areas would turn down contracts? It doesn't say that if KC offers a kid from NY a deal, the kid has to take it. But maybe the kid wants to play right now and doesn't care where. If his home team values him below other guys, he has that option. I like that there is flexibility. And I think - as with al these new policies - we need to see it work before declaring what is on a piece of paper a bad idea.
For a couple of reasons, I think it's highly unlikely that either RBNY or DCU will promote anyone early the process. I believe Agoos indicated they'd wait until before the season (which makes a lot of sense--you call up 2 and another cleared team can sign someone from your side). DCU's team has a bunch of good players (they won the MLS U17 tourney), 4 of whom have already practiced with the senior team, but Goff wrote that none of them would be able to make the senior roster this season.
Joe, do you have details? There's a difference in youth teams between playing to win and playing to develop, so championships at the youth level mean very, very little. We keep hearing about Kassel, Hines, and Johnny X, but what DC players are "on the verge"?
Not a clue. I think for almost all of us, we have only two indicators of a club's youth team status (well, other than the fact that it's obvious that some clubs haven't taken it seriously or haven't even formed youth teams while your club and United by at least appearances seem to have taken this whole "youth team" approach seriously from the git-go): --what people say in the press (which has to be colored somewhat by the reality that Goff, Galarcep, Bell, and any other journalists who've posted on this obviously aren't watching other team's youth talent so there is little in the way of benchmarks). --how the team does on the field (which should provide some degree of talent indicator). I agree that there is a difference between youth sides focused on competition results and focused on development. Still, we shouldn't see a huge difference in results at the U16 level if the sides focused on development have guys who are supposed to be of pro caliber. It's a shame there wasn't more reportage out of the SUM tournament because we might have heard about how a particular player stood out or who was especially impressive rather than just team results and scores. Galarcep has raved about Kassel, Hines and Xanantus. They may be truly great. Or it may be that he hasn't seen any of the other youth and doesn't have a good benchmark. I think we're all in the dark on this (amount of current talent and potential). I think this will be an interesting test. Chivas clearly has a lot of holes to fill so you'd think their two callups will have a chance to perhaps make the senior roster (though it might be battling for the #18th slot). I will be surprised if Osorio doesn't turn over a lot of your roster and in situations like that, it's a good opportunity for emerging youth talent so if Galarcep's comments were accurate then you should expect at least two callups for this season and perhaps one making the roster of 18. For DC United, the reserve team has been significantly depleted so I'd expect 2 callups but none of them on the senior roster. My own cynicism about this says that except for a really bad team with lots of holes to fill, we're not likely to see any of the youth academy talent be regular contributors to MLS senior rosters as starters or top reserves (say...top 14 players) for at least 3 and maybe 4 more years. Also, Monster, correct me on this if I'm wrong but after the story you posted (after the SUM tournament), I thought they also added Chris Hegnenyi and one other player to practices with the senior team.
I can't remember and I tried all kinds of searches to find if they posted anything about other kids, but couldn't find anything. You would probably remember better than I.
Its not the smaller clubs. Its the less wealthy clubs. For example ISC has 11 boys teams. Barcelona has 25 boys teams with more than a third playing at the top level. Force has 15 boys teams. Celtic has 13 boys teams. Valley United 10. Maybe Stampede starts developing teams and starts moving more of their teams to the top tier. UIFC has 19 mostly lower level clubs. Maybe some of their younger teams stick in the top level and they start attracting better coaches and players. The problems I have include: 1) This has diluted area talent not concentrated it. 2) Its a closed league based on clubs with money and connections, not talent. The majority of top level kids don't play in these clubs. How are good clubs added? How are poor clubs dropped? The structure is more prone to political mechanisms that benefit people running the chosen few clubs not parents and kids choosing them. 3) Its very biased towards kids with money not talent. Where is access to opportunity for these kids? 4) Its already forced a large number of kids that do not even have good division one talent (let alone professional potential) their opportunity to play HS ball because they were afraid they'd lose their spot on the team if they didn't sign on. While people put down HS soccer (I have for example argued it is during this period our elite players fall behind), it often compares favorably in many schools to all but those club teams that play at a level equal the top ten U16 teams in the area. It is also a great social experience and the biggest community most of these kids will ever play for. More people will come and watch a HS game with a rival school than will watch a regional final. Many naive kids will be cheated out of this experience by people selling a false hope of professional and college opportunities. As for ODP, you have to be kidding. If you take the kids with money out of the system and what do you have left from many states? Who is going to pay attention to it? While I think the Cal-South scouting system has many problems, Cal-South does a pretty good job getting money needed to allow kids of lower income levels to participate. But once you take the vast majority of talented kids with money out of the program, how are you going to fund a program primarily for kids without resources? If raising funds is hard now, how hard will it be to support kids participating in a very watered down program?
Good article - thanks for adding. One thing that I found interesting is that LA Galaxy is listed as having a program. Where are the teams? Who are the kids participating? If it just takes "signing" one kid onto the program, what are the New England and Toronto waiting for? Locally I hear about Mexican teams working with players but nothing about the Galaxy - unless you count Beckham's "Academy."
Goff says it's unlikely DCU has anybody in the system who is ready to be brought up. I tend to believe him, as even Bryan Arguez, who was one of only 5 players his year on the last U-20 team (with Adu and Altidore) couldn't sniff playing time with United last year. So if we had someone under 18 who could, he'd have to be phenomenal, and we'd have heard of him by now.
I know they had a team in the SUM U17 Cup before the all-star game this year, and I know they played competently, reaching the semifinals, but that's about it. http://www.mlsnet.com/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20070717&content_id=106057&vkey=news_mls&fext=.jsp
With all the Beckham hoopla I missed that. However it appears they just grabbed a bunch of kids from local clubs and put some old galaxy uniforms on them. I don't think Toronto and New England have the same depth of playeres in their talent pool, but I'm sure the could have tossed together a competitve team as well. It would seem like very cheap insurance in case they ever did decide to start up a program and ever did find a kid they wanted to sign.
Well, I do know there's a minimum standard of days a player need to put in with an MLS team to be considered that club's player and be eligible for callup to the senior team. I seem to recall it's 100. Probably in that case most of the players on the team wouldn't qualify, but that Tristan fella would.
I guess the Galaxy has some type of program - a link to this was in the Galaxy Forum 11/14/2007 11:25AM Weekly update: Galaxy ready for tour Preparations begin for two-game tour of Australia and New Zealand GALAXY RIOS HOLD FIRST TRAINING SESSIONS: Under the watchful eye of Galaxy assistant coach Trevor James, the Galaxy Rios Under-15 and Under-18 teams held their first training session at The Home Depot Center on Monday night. More than 50 players from various club teams throughout the Southland gathered on Field #5 for the session. Both teams will continue to train throughout the rest of the year and into 2008 at The Home Depot Center while preparing for a series of tournaments, including the 2008 MLS Youth Cup.
Now Ives is reporting that Chicago and Houston can also sign players from their youth academy teams. Very interesting. Houston has been in existence two years, and they're already allowed to sign players from their academy teams? Someone's doing something right there.
Thanks....Very good info....But so far how many players have been able to get few minutes in a real game...?
The fact is that there aren't that many players who are ready to sign out of high school for MLS money, and there are fewer teams who want the guys they have. Right now, anyway. Red Bulls have the biggest of all advantages with regard to the population within easy relatively reach of their facilities. That, combined with the age of their program, should put them well ahead of everyone for a good long time. DC has the same thing, just on a smaller scale.
http://columbus.crew.mlsnet.com/new...ent_id=138506&vkey=pr_coc&fext=.jsp&team=t102 I thought I would post this over here. It was originally posted on the Crew forum. It appears they have some talented players who have in the academy
Crew looks to be one of the better U16 teams in the National Academy, although it's worth noting that it lost 1-0 in its match to CASL, and nobody wonders about how many CASL kids will be signing pro contracts as 18 year olds, because the typical answer is "none."