Home-Grown Players

Fair enough. When DC United signed Chino Alegria, I thought he'd had to chill out in his home country of Peru, otherwise he could have been somewhere closer. The other one I was basing that on was the Funes brothers, who were sent to their native Argentina because they didn't have one. But perhaps those were just cases of being most comfortable at home (or perhaps they were issues of gaining the right to be in that third country).

 

If a kid is good enough that he (or his parents) think he has higher-paying options, you're not going to convince them to sign an affordable contract anyway. MLS teams are under no illusion that "homegrown" entitles them to anything more than priority over other MLS teams.

 

This got me interested enough to pull up Nolo's "US immigration made easy" on Google Books.

The bottom line is that most visa applicants can apply at any US consulate anywhere, but, "Your case will be given the greatest consideration at the consulate in your home country."

 

Under most circumstances, players can't sign contracts in other nations until they reach the age of 18. So if you're under 18, and an MLS team is offering you money...you just might take the bird in the hand over the two in the bush. You may have higher paying options, but they're years down the road. MLS thus gets more top youth talent to stay at home, improving our league.

Also, home grown players can be signed to Generation Adidas contracts. That allows MLS to be much more competitive with foreign teams. Sure foreign teams can always outbid MLS if they want to, but the market for American players isn't such that lots of our guys will go over to Europe and get more guaranteed money than GA affords them.

 

That's always a risk, but I do think that it's mitigated somewhat by the appeal of playing in a hometown.

We've even seen GA players sign with MLS over European options just to have the option of playing domestically.

But I do think that pre-emptive GA signings have already happened. I think Goff reported that DC United signed Conor Shanosky mid-season 2010 despite the fact that he wouldn't be eligible until 2011 in order to fend off foreign interest. After all, they could have let him play out a year with George Mason to get some games, but instead he just sat around and trained.

I also suspect that the Revolution signed Diego Fagundez to protect their assets, although I don't have proof. It did come after they lost one of their better academy players to Malaga.

 

Regarding: "Why haven't the Sounders signed anyone?..."
Someone interviewing Darren Sawatzky (Sounders Youth Development Director) tweeted they were likely to get homegrown status for Nick but still needed confirmation from the league. He played u-17 nats, but that was before the Sounders academy existed....

Otherwise, Sounders prospects are... well, Okoli was apparently in AZ training with the first team. Darwin Jones is Robbie Findley 2.0, for better or worse. Yedlin is an Alonso-like stud in the midfield. Herman is a GIANT keeper... GIANT. Beyond that-- there are very talented players, Jamael Cox on the right wing and Troy Peterson CMF-- but nobody who is about to be poached by foreign teams.

On the u16 side, Michael Gallagher has stood out to me as a top player in the 4 matches I've seen in person...

I think particularly, besides Palodichuk, there isn't an obvious 1st team signing. With potentially 50 competition games in 8 months (MLS, USOC, CCL, playoffs) a 28-man roster is smaller than it sounds.

 

If you think you have Robbie Findley 2.0 kicking around in your academy, that's definitely for the better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_MLS_SuperDraft

You could easily make the argument that Findley was the second best player of an (admittedly rather weak) draft class, behind Maurice Edu. Even with a negative view of Findley, he's still clearly top five.

It's great when an academy can spit out an Andy Najar-type mega prospect, but getting the equivalent of free low-1st-round and 2nd-round picks is a strategy that should bear fruit, too.

 

I think you're forgetting Omar Cummings.

But your point is well taken. Most academy players won't ever make a roster, whereas Findley is a guy that scored 31 MLS goals. If you have guys in your academy like that, it's a good thing.

 

I am. Totally missed him for some reason.

 

Any idea who?

 

http://thejuniorway.blogspot.com/2011/01/two-juniors-trial-for-first-team.html

 

Kevin Ellis, he's still been training with the first team.

 

Dallas is really stressing the homegrown player route. What Oscar Pareja is doing is fairly remarkable. Even if you're a fan of another MLS club, this is exciting stuff.

The signing of Sanchez to the first team marks the sixth time an FC Dallas Academy player has made the jump from the youth ranks to the professional level, the most of any team in MLS. There are currently eight players affiliated with either the FC Dallas Academy or FC Dallas professional team training with various U.S. Youth National Teams (Kellyn Acosta, Emerson Hyndman, Boyd Okowouno, Mikey Ambrose, Jack Coleman, Jonathan Top, Daniel Garcia, Moises Hernandez). Another three players (Sanchez, Bryan Leyva and Ruben Luna) are members of Mexican Youth National Teams.

Of course, they'll ahve to prove they can win with this strategy.

 

Few interesting things aswell, most if not all have been Hispanic signings...Also not signing Boyd/Coleman who I believe are highly ranked defenders (yet). I'm not sure if its a definite strategy, but I wonder if they decided it would be better for them to get mins in college for a year or two as opposed to sitting behind Dallas wealth of defensive players. Then again it might just be as simple as the Hispanic players having leverage from Mexican teams, thus expediting their deals.

 

I thought the exact same thing about Coleman, Ambrose and Boyd (I know I'll misspell his last name so I'm not even gonna try)

 

I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. Gotta lock those guys up or they could leave any time.

As for the idea that Dallas would prefer for the defenders to get minutes in college, with the return of the reserve league I would think that's less of a consideration than before. Though, since reserve league games will allow some academy players to play, they could still play there and play in college.

Also, it could be a cultural preference where the non-Hispanic players want to go to college, whereas the Hispanic ones would rather turn pro ASAP.

 

You can only sign three a year right?

So FCD is done for this year.

It's probably just a numbers game. These are the 6 "best prospects" at this time, and they wanted to lock them up. The ethnicity probably has nothing to do with it, but you never know.

I liked Ambrose, Coleman, and Okwuono..........but I never thought any of them were as promising as Ulloa, Luna, Hernandez, etc. Keep in mind that Ambrose and Okwuono aren't from the Dallas area, and in fact those were the two linked with moves to the RSL academy in Arizona in the past. These kids probably knew a while ago that their chances of being signed right away to FCD weren't that good (compared to their colleagues). All three are going to very good NCAA programs.

I'll add that the signing of Sanchez.........probably means the end at FC Dallas for former American youth international Josh Lambo. 4 of FCD's 6 homegrown signings aren't USMNT eligible right now.

 

Nope, no limits. Lot of rules changed this offseason.

 

Did a major update to the Homegrown Players database I have been putting together.

Some good tools in there for those interested including bios / vid clips on all of the homegrown players, excel charts with 2010 and soon to be 2011 statistics, and a timeline detailing when each homegrown was signed.

I created the website to track the homegrown player program / movement. It's completely educational.

Let me know if there is any additional information / research you would like me to put together, and I'll look into it.

Cheers!

 

edited