Just spoke to Fred Lipka and he reiterated this point; says every DA club will be included in the new MLS youth league. Stability is a priority right now. More to come... https://t.co/W79gEHFP7g— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) April 17, 2020
If every old DA club is included I would almost prefer it being ran by MLS compared to US Soccer. I know some people will call it a conflict of interest but I don’t see it being that different from the SUM ties to US Soccer. MLS is way more competent than US Soccer anyways, and the rapport/relationship MLS has with USL will probably be more influential for the whole USL academy thing. I mean what do I know, so far the only information on it is a MLS guy on MLS media talking about it. Maybe there are some of pain points I’m not seeing yet. I will say Fred Lipka seems like a good guy to run it.
New pod!The DA is dead. What happened? What’s on deck? And what should happen next?After a week of reporting, @samstejskal and @PaulTenorio dive in with the details, fallout and a few takes. https://t.co/2kuBPIWx4s— Allocation Disorder (@AllocationDsrdr) April 17, 2020
I agree with that. Let the clubs that directly benefit from having a better system have the control. It just makes more sense and, as you said, MLS is less dumb than the federation.
“Our new facility is a game changer for youth soccer in the greater Louisville area. The new facility will allow kids to train and develop all year long in a world class environment.“- Mario Sanchez, Youth Academy Director pic.twitter.com/mqYBiUkdjj— Louisville City FC Academy (@LouCityAcademy) June 10, 2020 I know that Louisville is the exception rather than the rule in many ways as a USL club, but I also think that the USL Academy league will be a whole lot more influential than people are realizing right now. USL, with its three different levels, can go places (cities and towns)that MLS can’t go, find players that MLS can’t look for and they are teaching people how to do stuff ahead of setting up a franchise. That includes stuff that was never done before - everything from setting up a supporters culture to setting up an academy. I am always looking for who is taking the next step before the general public even realize that the next step is there to be taken. USL isn’t perfect by any means, but they sure are doing some smart things when it comes to developing an academy culture where there previously was nothing.
A place Louisville can call home!Soccer Holdings releases plans for new training facility that will feature four turf fields for the youth academy and local community and three natural grass fields.📝: https://t.co/5utUmIKTpx pic.twitter.com/g9hVkcLuQb— Louisville City FC Academy (@LouCityAcademy) June 10, 2020 “This facility will provide access to soccer for youth players in our region regardless of their means. We will be able to expand our offerings of free clinics, and we will be able to provide practice fields for other organizations that have struggled to find it.”- @brad_estes pic.twitter.com/tsOWzekn2C— Louisville City FC Academy (@LouCityAcademy) June 10, 2020
I'm interested in the next 5 or so years how many non affiliated teams, in addition to building academies, provide professional places to play for players from MLS academies who look to be heading to Europe, ie Kayo and Gomez.
Absolutely. Another thing that I like about USL Academies is that the academies will be measured by both how many players they produce for the adult team and the level of play of the first team players they produce. MLS is partnering with youth clubs and it simply isn’t realistic to expect them to do that. That isn’t what they are. They are happy producing college players (as they should be). USL clubs are looking for high level adult players that can help their first team and they can provide their top prospects with playing experiences with adults - even a League 2 club can do this. That is very different from a “top youth club.” They also can pay for stuff if they sell players to higher level clubs. If you are a coach and you can provide yourself with job security if you produce a player that you can sell to a higher level, how much harder are you going to work to find and develop the highest possible level players? I certainly am not putting down top youth clubs. They play a very important purpose. I am just saying that we need to remember what their core purpose is and players, when they decide who to play for, need to understand the core purpose of the club they are joining. Most top youth clubs are preparing kids for college soccer - a worthy mission, but not USL’s focus.
If you think Louisville is building that thing to not sign players and only capitalize on small TC payments, you are crazy. USL is playing this role for now, because payrolls are small, revenues are small and because it's the role they can play. Once they start investing big money in development, they are going to want to sign players. It may not be as restrictive as MLS has been, but I'd bet MLS isn't able to get 5 year contracts nearly as often going forward as well. It's a great thing to see USL investing -- as long as it doesn't bankrupt anyone -- because it means more free academies and more professional paths. But it's not going to be some weird loophole where USL teams pay a ton of money to get nothing out of it.
In the case of Gomez and Kayo they both signed professional contracts. They will get a transfer fee, not training compensation. Teams in the US can sign MLS academy kids to professional deals and not pay tc to MLS clubs and get some transfer fee money when they move on. If Louisville can make a couple hundred thousand at least off of Gomez that would go along way towards a usl team. If they make more than that even better. The USL is poised now to get the transfer fee from kids who want to bypass MLS. They could also force MLS to sign more kids to HG or USL deals rather than lose them outright.
They will only get a transfer fee if they are still under contract. Kayo let his contract lapse with Orange County -- since he was professional, I don't think they even get TC. He's gone on a free transfer to Wolfsburg or whereever and all OC got was reputation, I suspect. We will see with Gomez. If he was going to sign a contract that would allow a pro club to get a transfer fee, wouldn't he have signed with MLS? I would not be shocked to see if be a one year deal.
Are they going to invest big money into development? Youth clubs pay for discounts and scholarships for low income players through the club fees of the majority of players. MLS academies get funded through the fees of their lower tier youth players. Why not a version of the same thing? Pay for play is not going away and I doubt that any minor league sport is overflowing with money. My guess is that, as is the case with so many other minor league sports issues, it will get funded creatively with partnerships and community buy in. Does that mean partnerships with the youth clubs already in place? Probably, but with a different organization and focus at the academy level. This would be especially true at the League 2 level where gate receipts are particularly light. The Academy would have to be self sustaining financially as the first team would probably be fiscally treading water. This will bring a whole new layer to youth soccer that had not existed before - players that are preparing to play as adults. Not college players - adults (yes - I know that League 2 is primarily 18-23 year olds). It is a different experience when you train every day with an eye toward playing for your club’s first team - and you develop a different level of love for the game.
Of course, Louisville has ambitions to join MLS; not compete with MLS. https://louisvillefuture.com/archiv...n-an-mls-bid-heres-what-that-would-look-like/ I think the message Louisville is giving with regards to its new stadium, new academy complex, empthasis on youth development, etc. shows they're at or near the top of the list for future expansion. They're doing everything that MLS HQ wants to see. I like this whole notion of USL clubs investing in youth development. Who wouldn't? They have nowhere close to the revenue streams of MLS clubs, though. Louisville cannot provide the development opportunities that the Sounders can. Not close. There's a ceiling to what they can accomplish. And I'm very carious about the revenue streams that a USL can generate with transfer fees. How long was the contract Jonathan Gomez got at Louisville? 5 years? I don't know this so. HIs plan is to leave as soon as he can on a free transfer just like it would have been if he'd stayed at FCD. You're not going to be able to develop a consistent revenue stream to re-invest into an academy if you're just going to get these training compensation/solidarity payments. You need to consistently get million dollar transfer fees. You can't just be a halfway house for 16-18 year olds wanting to move to Europe on free transfers. That's as useless for Louisville as it is for LAG or RSL. Its an enormous investment of time and resources for a minimal return. What did Nick Taitague's tenure at Carolina Railhawks do for them? I couldn't tell you. It didn't help them on the field or in the bank account. Do people know what the top 5 transfer fees received in the history of the USL are? Its underwhelming to say the least. In order for any kind of model built on development to work there, those transfer fee numbers from the USL are going to have to increase greatly over the next 10 years.
I can almost guarantee that Gomez's deal with Louisville will expire just before he turns 18 (as you suggest). I further suspect that he's already got something lined up with a club in Western Europe for 2021. Gomez doesn't want anything to slow down or prevent that move (esp. a protracted transfer fee negotiation). There will be no financial windfall for Louisville (TC, fee, etc.). That's the whole point. We can call this the "Haji Wright Move" (who left LAG's academy when he was 17 to sign a pro deal with the NASL Cosmos because he couldn't sign with Schalke before he turned 18). That's probably the first time I remember seeing the strategy used.
Sure to all that. But that doesn't mean they are going to not try to actually sign players past 18. No team is going to put money into development and then just let that investment go. No team is doing this for the greater glory of the USMNT. And that's okay.
I don't disagree with any of this, but it's a slow build. TC can be relevant to these teams. In addition, Peter Bonetti brings up a good point that the feeder camps and lower level pay to play academies that could come with it will both help fund and create a fanbase. I'm skeptical much of this will survive. But I hope it does. I don't expect the investment to equal the Sounders, but it doesn't have to to be better than what was there before.
I just see the challenges that the USL faces with regards to investment in youth development as the same as those faced by MLS............but even more severe. The difference is that MLS clubs have MUCH greater revenue streams and can take the risk of losing players like Soto or Mendez or Ledesma and on and on. They have greater revenue streams to cover the majority of their DA players outside of pay-for-play model. They can also offer much higher 2nd contracts in terms of salary (a la Pomykal, Ferreira, and Cannon at FCD). Jonathan Gomez isn't going to Louisville so he can be their version of Reggie Cannon. He has no intention of staying there past his 18th birthday. He'll leave on a free transfer to the club of his choice, and Louisville will unquestionably have made a net loss. That's not a model that works. Don't get me wrong. Who would be against clubs like Louisville and San Antonio ratcheting up their investment in academy and homegrown initiatives? Nobody. I just think its naive to think they won't encounter even more severe challenges in this arena than MLS clubs. They have limited budgets and limited revenue streams. And outside of just a couple of USL clubs, I don't see how its financially viable. And those USL clubs that I think have the resources to do it are exactly the clubs that have the ambition to move to MLS (San Antonio, Louisville, I'm curious about San Diego).
https://ussoccerplayers.com/2020/05...an-youth-development-with-new-league.html/amp Old article (over a month old) but best description what USL are trying to do with their Academy. The USL Academy will basically be the opposite of the USSDA - flexible, broad, professional, and focused on moving top players toward professional or semi-professional soccer in as many communities as possible. MLS came up with a very lazy solution for an academy structure that basically copies a plan that didn’t work. USL are really trying to create something that will fit into the existing landscape yet fill a void that needed to be filled. FINALLY, a group of people that understand player development!
That's a pretty rosy outlook. USL inherently has reach, and into smaller communities generally not served by MLS. That's good and a nice complement. But while they try to spin it as a real development tool, having one team for 15-19 is a cost saving measure, and not anything else. Which is fine. The vast majority of USL teams can't afford anything more. But it's going to limit the number of kids who can play; it's going to work against younger talent who will get less playing time. There's also no guarantee of these academies being free. And the path to pro is questionable for about 90% of them. Much of USL is semi-pro, half of USL1 is MLS2 right now, and even USLC pays players in the $25k-35k -- even if an academy player were to get that offer, I'm not sure they are signing away college or Europe for it. USL hasn't figured anything special out. They are doing what they can do financially. Given their geographic reach, it's a good thing, but it's not some giant step forward.
It’s a giant step forward. You just aren’t seeing it yet. You will. I see these things before everyone else - I always have. Don’t worry. You’ll get it later. For now it feels safer to try to disprove its impact. That is a normal reaction when people go outside of the cultural sphere of understanding - bring it back into our sphere, where we feel in control again.
I can explain it to you, but your post indicates that you don’t want to understand which, by the way, is what happens when someone sees something outside of their culture. Both your reaction and the reaction of gogorath are normal human reactions in this kind of situation. The reason I am hesitant to go into specifics is because I don’t see a change this huge taking hold in a large enough way for the general public to see it for another 5 to 10 years or, more specifically, after the 2026 World Cup. Development Academies will no longer be run by youth soccer. They will be run by adult soccer for adult soccer purposes, like they are in “soccer countries”. Youth soccer will still have a niche, just like rec soccer has a niche today. It just will be a completely different system. Once USL league 2 is successful, NPSL, NISA, UPSL, etc., will have to follow with their own academy systems or get completely buried. In 5 to 10 years, soccer in this country will be something completely different than it is now - definitely not “nothing to see here” as gogorath put it, but when something changes the landscape this much, the natural tendency is to dismiss it or, in your case, poke fun at the first ones who not just bring it up, but bring up what a big deal it is. Honestly, I need to drop the subject. If you don’t get it yet, you don’t get it. I was just so excited by the change at the time that I couldn’t resist, but I get that people either don’t see it or don’t want to see it. At the end of the day, these issues don’t get solved in online message boards. People on the message boards react to them after the fact. That is exactly the process that I intend to let happen going forward. Thank you for reminding me of that. Your reaction is a normal one. Have a good day.
God, you are so pretentious and arrogant, it's hilarious. Are you this big of a prick in real life? I never said "there's nothing to see here" so don't put it in quotes. Don 't make up shit I didn't say to try to pretend I'm right. It's great that the USL is starting an academy league. It's great that the USL has a lot of teams and geographical reach. Those are obviously positives as literally everyone acknowlegdes that professional academies with a path to a professional career. If that's what you're saying -- that more professional teams = better youth development, there's no one that disagrees. So stop acting like it's some genius commentary. But you specifically referenced differences from MLS and their "lazy solution." Which, by the way, hasn't even been detailed. (actual quote, by the way, not made up). You proceeded to get all preaching and pretentious without pointing out things, but just say "FINALLY, a group of people that understand player development!" (again, real quote - see how that works?) The differences I can tell from the USL league and MLS academies from detailing in the article: 1. There's potentially a lot of them. That's great. 120+ teams with a path to pro. Except most of those are actually semi-pro, play some pretty short seasons, and even the top level doesn't get a ton of pay. Oh, and there's no commentary around free to play. So great, but probably going to take some time, and might be financially problematic for a lot of teams, especially early on. Which is exactly what I said? It's also not revolutionary except that there are a lot of USL teams. 2. Instead of having age groups, they are having one 15-19 team. This is spun in the article as developmental, but it's really cost savings. It's great better young players will get time against older players, but that can occur in a model with more teams by playing up. What this does is reduce the # of players who get games significantly, and you KNOW a ton of teams will favor the better, older player in playing time. This is a cost savings -- perhaps necessary -- masquerading as a positive. It helps enable #1, I am sure, but is hardly a step forward in development. 3. The are going to be flexible and allow kids to play with other clubs and high schools. Okay, this is different. Perhaps better, perhaps not. Is this what you were talking about? This is hardly a proven model, but the positives are that the club may be able to see more players and evaluate than have them in camp. So that's a neat scouting angle. The bad side might be inconsistent coaching and cohesion as it's hard to have a consistent team. 4. The teams can be a single offering or a network, like North Carolina FC. This is not a difference from MLS; it's actually based on the model teams like FC Dallas and Sporting KC use! It's literally the same. So, what does USL GET that MLS or us other idiots just not get? I'm trying to figure out what you think is revolutionary. Is it merely the number of teams and geographic scope? If so, no one really commented on that because: 1. It's clearly a good thing to have more pro teams in more places 2. The devil is in the details when half of those teams are semi-pro or amateur, close to a quarter are funding by MLS and maybe leaving and only about 20 of them really have real payrolls. It's great. It's great to have more pro models. Hopefully, at some point, most will be free. Hopefully, at some point, most will be really pro. Hopefully, some of these USL teams can get a reliable revenue stream out of it and grow. But that's not some grand thing only you see. It's wonderful that USL is trying to commit to it. They picked a model driven by the financial and other requirements of their member teams, which is smart. But where most of us have the sticking point is trying to figure out if it will succeed to become what they envision.
I think that the USL's decision to establish an age 15-19 league is part cost-saving measure, and part mitigation against the reality that many member clubs come from markets where there won't be all that much depth of talent. It may be preferable to field one team with a higher level of raw talent, even if some players are on the younger end, to fielding U15, U17, and U19 teams with a ton of lower-level players dragging down the quality of play. As always, the more we can increase the density of talent in youth soccer in this country, the less painful the structural tradeoffs inherent in organizing youth soccer will become. I count myself among those who believe that the USL's developmental capacity will have a fairly hard ceiling until MLS starts ponying up transfer fees for good young players. That could definitely happen! But it hasn't yet. I'm pleased that the USL is pushing forward anyway. The only way to get the ball rolling is to start developing the goods and force the issue.
I think the issue becomes what is the main objective with this one team. Is it to develop your real prospects in your academy as best as you or is it to field a team with talent in most positions? I thin it should be the former. If you have a talented 14 year old who would be in the U-15 team at LAFC, does it benefit his development to have him playing with 18 year olds? I think it often doesn't, especially if he's not proven himself to be too good to be playing against 14 year olds. The 14 year old as talented as him at LAFC won't be playing against 18 year olds. There are certainly positives and negatives to the two approaches. Some might say the better competition will help the player more, but I tend to think that its important to see a player show they are too good for each level before being promoted. If the 14 year old can show that at different levels, by all means, promote them as many levels as needed. I tend to think the latter does nothing helpful for the club. If we are going to say that a team might suffer from having some younger players (with more talent) in the team, are they receiving any sporting benefit from fielding only one team thats more concentrated with talent as opposed to having 3-4 talents in each age group? Maybe not. The average 18 year old with no real pro future in the sport may be better against other 18 year olds than the 14 year old with YNT-level talent.