Saw one article: http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20091206-SPORTS-912060348 Found one article. KC Wizards won their game.
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http://ussda.demosphere.com/Schedules/2009-2010/17276233.html Code: U15/16 Crew Soccer Academy 4:0 Atlanta Fire United Colorado Rapids 0:0 Charlotte Soccer Academy Seacoast United 0:1 Kansas City Wizards Real So Cal 2:3 D.C. United Pateadores 2:2 Chicago Fire Chicago Fire 0:0 Concorde Fire Sockers FC 0:0 Santa Cruz County Breakers San Diego Surf 0:1 Crew Soccer Academy LA Galaxy 3:2 New York Red Bulls Academy Select 0:3 FC Dallas Chivas USA 2:2 Weston FC Solar SC 4:4 New England Revolution Chicago Magic 1:2 D.C. United Colorado Rapids 2:3 Seacoast United Kansas City Wizards 2:0 Richmond Kickers IMG Soccer Academy 0:1 Chivas USA http://ussda.demosphere.com/Schedules/2009-2010/17276234.html Code: U17/18 Crew Soccer Academy 6:1 Atlanta Fire United Colorado Rapids 2:1 Charlotte Soccer Academy Seacoast United 0:0 Kansas City Wizards Real So Cal 2:1 D.C. United Pateadores 0:6 Chicago Fire LA Galaxy 1:3 FC Dallas Chicago Fire 0:0 Concorde Fire San Diego Surf 0:2 Crew Soccer Academy Chivas USA 4:0 Weston FC Academy Select 4:4 New York Red Bulls Solar SC 1:0 New England Revolution Houston Dynamo 0:0 Match Fit Chelsea Chicago Magic 2:3 D.C. United Colorado Rapids 3:0 Seacoast United Kansas City Wizards 3:3 Richmond Kickers IMG Soccer Academy 5:1 Chivas USA
What are the Crew feeding their kids? Man, they're really doing well. And I thought Souters was one of the kids to play well in the recent Nike friendlies.
http://www.ussoccer.com/Teams/Devel...e-09/Winter-Showcase-Home/Academy-Select.aspx 8 MLS teams had players named to Academy Select teams. 28 of the 130 players named to the teams were from MLS academies. Dallas - 7 Chicago - 5 Chivas - 4 DC - 4 NY - 3 LA - 3 KC - 1 CO - 1
OK, there are 77 Academy teams at each age level, for 154 total. So that should average out to .84 players per team. There were 15 MLS teams this year, but the Sounders and Earthquakes don't have an Academy team, and TFC's doesn't play in the US. So that should leave 12 MLS clubs {out of 77, which is 15.6%} with academy teams, right? (Of course, Chicago and RSL have satellite academies in the program, but those affiliates didn't have players named). So if those 12 clubs (with a 17/18 and a 15/16 team each) should have produced, if they were perfectly average for the tournament, about 20.25 players total. So on the whole, the MLS Academies (at least, the non-satellite ones) were a little above average in select team placement. On this list, KC and Colorado are pretty close to the (0.84) average. So are the MLS teams that didn't produce any select team members. But Dallas, Chicago, Chivas, DC, NY and LA all placed at an above average rate. Though I hadn't heard that much about the Galaxy before now, that largely jives with what I've heard about how are the 'good academies' (if there's one other one I've heard about, it's Columbus). One other interesting detail, 6 of the 16 select team goalkeepers were from MLS clubs.
KC/CO is just starting. should give them a pass RedBulls are top dogs. If the rule were different, They would be signing more of their academy players. Reguarly have NT players in all age levels DCU and FCD are tied for second. Oscar has done one of the best job anyone can imagine in 3 short years. Houston, 4th. done a great job of working with area clubs and luring the beat talents. very active program Crew 5th. Got most of Ohio's best players and Freidel's defunked PSA players Fire, 6th, is gaining ground in the very entrenched and competitive Chicago market Galaxy/Chivas tied for 7th. Senior team are fine but a volatile program competing in the concentrated SoCal market Revolution is changing. hire some new coached to reignite their program.
DCU and Red Bulls got an early start, but I think FCD, Crew, Galaxy, Fire and Houston are similar in current talent. The above select teams are really a proxy for their U16 talent as 7 of the 8 teams were made up of U16 kids. I don't know that much about Houston but I've always liked the way they put together their program. Chivas is an interesting story. They have a great grass roots program and seem to focus on kids who are far more interested in going pro than playing in college (There may be some but I don't recall of any of their players committing to or playing in a D1 program). Unfortunately for them it seems like the kids they are targeting either choose to go to Mexican clubs or leave them to go to Mexican clubs. To a lesser extent the Galaxy has also had kids leave their program and try their luck in Mexico. Chivas has some good U16 players and it will be interesting to see if they can keep them. New England was in the bottom half of the program their first year and to date doesn't seem to have made up much ground. Colorado is in their 3rd year and have been among to bottom tier of the program.
Your list looks about right but Wil Trapp of the Crew played a nice game against the U18 select team so there is at least one player for the Crew among the players listed.
Yeah, frankly, it doesn't really look like Colorado cares much about their youth program. KC might be handicapped by not knowing where they're going to be in the future.
Not true. It might have been a different thread I dont remember but I have said that the Crew wanted to sign a kid but A. he didnt want to and B. the roster limit and money where an issue. Also, in an interview a few days ago he addressed this issue: Robert, from Columbus, OH asks: Do the Crew have any plans to add a homegrown player this year? MARK MCCULLERS I think we have a few players who have the potential to play at this level and we would like to sign to developmental contracts. It will depend on roster size. If the roster size stays at 24, it would be difficult to sign them in the immediate future. However, if our roster expands or if the Reserve League is re-established, then I can envision adding a few players from the Academy teams as soon as possible. So I dont think your assertion is correct.
I think it's been discussed in other threads but it's odd to see a 13 year old in training with the FCD 1st team. Emo is 13 but he looks 10. Nothing 11v11 only 7v7 games as well as some drills. He also has unspoken no tackle rule when he plays. I remember Cunningham slide tack him once and all the guys gave Jeff hell for it. At least the team seem not be put out by it. But here is the real odd thing about it and you really don't understand what you are seeing, Emo is not out of place. The speed of play is not beyond him and he leverages every bit of his technical skills to be pretty damn good. He has a small margin error due to his size and strength but all his passes and decision making are just perfect. I rememder one play Dax sent a ball in the air into the box and Emo just one time it in the air pass Ray. I think Emo is the poster child of how superior technical skills can neutralize strength and speed. I expect Emo continue to cut up any DA teams even at the age of 13. The other aspect of the FCD Juniors I am really liking is they are playing 95', 96' kids and winning. Emo is the big name but Chapa, Cisco; Acosta and Bailey are right behind him as "next".
What do you mean? The Missouri and Kansas stadium sites are only about 20 miles apart. That shouldn't affect their youth teams at all. As far as the USSF Dev Academy, Phoenix was the first time the KC teams have played. Before that they were very successful in the national youth circuit they had been competing in.
The Houston Dynamo U15/U16 Academy team played the TSC/Texans today in Houston and the TSC/Texans team took them 5 - 0. The scoreline was not good but the most disappointing thing about this game as far as MLS development was how direct the Dynamo played. No build up, no possession just direct play. If I was the team and spending all this money on these kids to develop them into "professionals" and seeing the way this team played, I would start looking at who is developing these kids. Getting beat 5 -0 and teaching the game the right way with build up and possession would not be a big deal but to play a college style, direct game and get beat 5 -0 is another story. I know this team won the Dallas Cup but if we are looking at creating professionals out of this environment the coaching and tactics have to be better in order to improve these players.
as of April 27 Code: US SOCCER DEVELOPMENT MLS U-18 TEAMS TEAM GP W L T PTS GF GA GD Pts/GP Chivas USA U-18 20 14 2 4 46 47 17 +30 2.30 RBNY U-18 18 13 3 2 41 40 14 +26 2.28 DC United U-18 19 13 5 1 40 44 22 +22 2.11 FC Dallas U-18 19 11 5 3 36 38 25 +13 1.89 Chicago Fire U-18 12 6 3 3 21 26 11 +15 1.75 Houston Dynamo U-18 18 10 7 1 31 31 21 +10 1.72 Crew Soccer Academy U-18 15 7 5 3 24 38 25 +13 1.60 Wash Prem/SSFC U-18 22 10 8 4 34 47 43 +4 1.55 NE Revolution U-18 17 8 8 1 25 25 24 +1 1.47 Colorado Rapids U-18 18 6 7 5 23 29 30 -1 1.28 LA Galaxy U-18 22 8 12 2 26 49 52 -3 1.18 KC Wizards U-18 18 5 8 5 20 24 29 -5 1.11 Mustang SC/SJE U-18 22 4 12 6 18 26 37 -11 0.82 Code: US SOCCER DEVELOPMENT ACADEMY MLS U-16 TEAMS TEAM GP W L T PTS GF GA GD Pts/GP FC Dallas U-16 17 12 3 2 38 38 13 +25 2.24 Crew Soccer Academy U-16 15 9 4 2 29 24 12 +12 1.93 DC United U-16 19 11 5 3 36 30 22 +8 1.89 KC Wizards U-16 18 8 3 7 31 21 14 +7 1.72 NE Revolution U-16 17 8 5 4 28 36 31 +5 1.65 Chivas USA U-16 22 10 6 6 36 32 20 +12 1.64 Chicago Fire U-16 12 5 3 4 19 15 10 +5 1.58 LA Galaxy U-16 19 7 8 4 25 21 28 -7 1.32 RBNY U-16 19 5 10 4 19 25 27 -2 1.00 Wash Prem/SSFC U-16 22 4 10 8 20 29 52 -23 0.91 Houston Dynamo U-16 17 3 12 2 11 13 37 -24 0.65 Mustang SC/SJE U-16 22 3 14 5 14 16 32 -16 0.64 Colorado Rapids U-16 18 3 13 2 11 16 30 -14 0.61 Toronto FC (not eligible), Real Salt Lake & Philadelphia Union do not have U-18 and U-16 teams in the US Soccer Development Academy league for the 2009-2010 season and they will not have teams for the 2010-2011 season. Washington Premier FC U-16/U-18 teams will become SSFC U-16/U-18 teams for the 2010-2011 US Soccer Development Academy season. Mustang SC U-16/U-18 teams will become SJ Earthquakes U-16/U-18 teams for the 2010-2011 US Soccer Development Academy season.
20 miles in any metro area is usually far enough to affect recruiting. And that's when they don't include physical boundaries. You could move DC United's youth team 5 miles south and expect it to affect recruiting if that put it across the Potomac in Virginia.
Making a table simply by how many points they have is fairly misleading as some regions are much much more difficult than others. However, the top 4 teams in that U18's standings list is probably the top 4 youth programs in MLS. Chivas, FCD, NYRB and DC are well ahead of the others IMO with the second tier of 4 being Houston, KC, LA and Chicago. FC Dallas got a huge win at Houston Dynamo this past weekend to go top of the U18 Texas division. The FCD U16 team is ridiculously loaded with talent....there's like 5 solid U17 national team mainstays on that roster alone.
i ranked them by their overall pts/gm average for all games not just conference games to do what i could to account for that. the rankings and records in each conference are not easily comparable to each other but teams do play games outside of the conference. not a balanced schedule or anything but still ... had to put them in some sort of order and the USSDA uses the pts/gm in all games to pick wild cards to the playoffs so it seemed like the best thing to do. if you can think of a better way then i will use it next time ... i just couldn't think of anything better to use. plus in reality the 'results' don't ultimately matter, especially for MLS teams. developing pro talent is the ultimate goal. which is why knowing what mls teams have put players on youth national squads or ussda all-star/select teams is probably the most interesting but overall record and team performance is probably something people would be interested in, at least for their and other MLS teams, and is at least one (probably very inaccurate) way to get an idea of how your(an) MLS team's youth academy is doing. it is interesting that RSL STILL does not have DA teams and that the Union won't have them for next season considering Hackworth was instrumental in setting up the DA wasn't he? seems pretty odd. and i thought it was interesting that SSFC will be taking over Wash Premier, which has some really good talent that will go over to the SSFC squad (making them eligible for home grown maybe?) like Palodichuk or Okoli but SJE seem to be taking over a pretty rubbish club Mustangs SC ... could be just a down cycle for them tho i am not super familiar with the clubs in USSDA and their history so
While it is true that the points don't matter. It is pretty interesting to see that the teams that are typical gravitating towards the top are also the teams that have been dipping in to their talent for homegrown players: 5 of top 6 in U18 level. Maybe a more competitive environment at the club level there is creating players quicker.
Some of that may be that the teams that are relatively new to the DAP both don't happen to have already had prospects and haven't quite caught up to the level of play yet. That said, what would be really interesting to me is if U18 results correlated to future prospects better than U16 results did. . . because that might suggest that teams were signing guys at 15 not with an eye to how they do at that level but the kind of player they might be 2, 4, 8 years later.