While it sucks that Vargas is playing for Mexico, he's another example of the MLS development system starting to fire up. Alex Freeman as well. Vargas is a central midfielder. We didn't have central midfielders from the Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga, and Premier League at our last camp. We still beat Paraguay and Uruguay. Its why I don't fret about dual national losses like I used to.
Probably didn't hurt Obed Vargas that he grew up with Obed Vargas as a father and coach at Cook Inlet SC in Alaska. Waiting for the "Coach like Cook Inlet" hype like "Do it like Norway" came out after Haaland - also the son of a former pro, got big . I mean it looks like he went to Seattle academy at 13, started in MLS at 15? Did they develop him or did they just not ruin him? Not to say MLS doesn't have some teams on the right path wrt youth development...but this guy might be a pulisic level outlier... ------ Obed grew up playing in Mexico for the Monarcas Morelia Academy and graduated to its first team. Once he retired from his professional playing career, Obed’s love of soccer led him to start coaching. Obed holds a USSF D license coach and has attended international coaching clinics hosted by Real Madrid, Ajax and Bayern Leverkusen. In addition to coaching competitive soccer in Spain, Obed has been coaching competitive youth soccer in the United States since 2014. He has coached competitively in Mexico and Spain.
Obed Vargas has improved by leaps and bounds since I started watching him. A win for MLS development whether he represents the US or not. Like Esmir Bajraktarevic, the former New England homegrown who's played in 17 league games for Ajax this season. Those are both guys born in 2005. As our pool depends, we just won't be able to hold on to everyone. To me, Alex Freeman is an even bigger win that both of those. Freeman was by no means a youth star.
This is desperately trying leaps and bounds to not give MLS any credit. Let me make this easy: I shouldn't have to tell a "coach" this, but academies are not assembly lines. Much of the credit for a players development goes to the player, their parents, their early age coaches and so on. Most of the top developmental academies that people rave about across the world? Their best aspect is scouting and recruiting. Look at a place like Dortmund -- the list of players they've developed shrinks by about 90% if you cut out the guys they got at 16 and older. It's like Gomez and Felix Passlack and then you go back to the 90s. Their track record with young kids, like everyone's, is really poor. Because it's not really the coaching. Dortmund gets credit for what they did with Pulisic while he was there. He was a very good player before he got there, and he developed further after. Vargas was with Seattle for like 5 years; they should get credit for his development there, as much as any club gets credit for what the player mostly does.
It's not really. It's questioning Seattle, and drawing the distinction that you can't credit MLS for something one club does well. Nobody fears going to Getafe because Real Madrid has 15 champions league titles. Getting minutes in MLS 15 I think makes anyone an outlier. Clearly spending 15-20 getting pro minutes/training with pros is a much better "finishing school" than winning the Alaskan State Cup from u15 - 18 and then I don't know, going to play in college somewhere. Is Seattle converting other academy kids to Seattle starters, or selling them on to other pro teams? I don't follow beyond watching the finals or when my local teams gets one i the USOC, but have some idea that Philly and Dallas seem to have some reputation for it. The "dad was a pro" to pro pipeline always fascinates me when people ignore the "dad was a pro" part of the development - which is why I brought up Haaland and Pulisic...
Do you question the same for any other league? My point isn't that MLS or Seattle are special; it's that they are functioning in the same context, but people give a lot of credit to European academies that pull kids in at 16 or 18, but somehow a kid that goes to Seattle at 13 means they did nothing? Vargas was earlier at Seattle than Pulisic or Reyna at Dortmund or, say, than DeJong was at Ajax. They played a role in his development. How could they not? He was coached and played with them for 5-6 years in prime development years. Yes. In addition to Vargas, they developed Danny Leyva in a similar role and sold him to someone in LigaMX. Josh Atencio was another DM who is now with the Rapids. Reed Baker-Whiting is a contributor at outside back at 20 years old, and Snyder Brunell looked promising last year in more of a forward CM, though not a star. Stuart Hawkins is a CB/FB who got time as well and was on the U17 WC roster at one point. Paul Rothrock went to college but spent some of his academy days with the Sounders. Reed Baker Whiting will probably get a crack at a higher level, I'd think but the rest will be or already are MLS-level player. This is true for basically any kid whose dad was a pro. It's a clear edge. I don't know why it would be held against Seattle specifically.
There are some people who will find any way to discredit what MLS is doing. When MLS develops a Lionel Messi-level talent, they'll claim that MLS can't be great until they develop a player at that level every several years. I don't really get the inferiority complex. If you don't want to use Obed Vargas as a good case study for some silly reason, then use Alex Freeman.
I mean, yeah. I'm an open pyramid with pro/rel guy at heart, but yes it's obvious I'd rather a US prospect go to Ajax or PSV than Telstar or Almere City. Guys in the Bulgarian First league shouldn't get a look ahead of a guy in MLS just by virtue of going to Bulgaria. Firm believer that clubs develop players, not leagues, or federations. Thanks for the info on Seattle, they seem to be doing ok with your "regular" academy intake - acknowledging that getting to any pro league still makes one an outlier vs everyone who plays competitive youth/scholastic soccer. Giving credit to MLS, Seattle, or the Norwegian development system, or PA Classics for having an outlier, I feel like that's a discussion worth having though maybe the Coaches forum would be a better venue.
I look at it as progress as a nation that OC didn't put him at striker using the "big fast athletic what could go wrong" metrics that still dominate the youth levels...
At the end of the day, I think any player's development comes down a combination of things. At the very head of it is the player themselves -- their ability, their work ethic, etc. I always resist the idea that a team or academy or program develops a player because it sounds so mechanical. The #1 input into the "development" process is recruiting -- the player themselves is the key part. No one makes even an MLS-level player out of anyone they pull off the street. I think this somewhat agrees with your point about outliers. But I guess my point is that in some ways, they are all outliers. The player is always most of the outcome -- both physical and mentality. No, I don't give PA Classics most of the credit for Christian. I give it to Christian. Or Willem II the credit for Frenkie De Jong. It's to De Jong. But I feel the same way about Cristian Roldan. It's him with help from a lot of people. But while he's not a CP level outlier ... he's still fundamentally an outlier. Coaches all along the way, from the first kick with what is usually a parent to even their pro coaches, are all going to play a role, of course. Again, I find people wanting to discount this input based on time periods or whatever. But they all have some kind of impact. Some more than others, and sometimes that has something to do with time, but sometimes even a coach for a short time can have an impact. I just find the discussion to be very binary (all credit / no credit) or mechanical in nature (if I do X, Y, and Z then I get a result).
This. Since I'm at BS I've been telling this a few times every decade. Academies DO NOT develop players into stars. If that was the matter, we would be swamped with stars and paychecks for stars would be low. I wrote several times an academy, reputed or not, can polish pebbles till they shine, but they still will be pebbles, not diamonds.
Its a weird thing that some Americans think prospects sprout up at Barcelona and Bayern Munich like they're Cabbage Patch dolls. Talent identification and recruiting is a big part of successful academies and clubs. Yes, Seattle brought Obed Vargas into their system. Alex Freeman was brought into Orlando's academy from Weston FC in 2019 when he was 14 or so. That's the way it works. It's the same as Dortmund recruiting Pulisic, Reyna, and Mathis Albert into their system.
Dortmund developed Pulisic, Reyna and now Mathis. But Seattle didn't develop Obed Vargas cause...."MLS". The mental gymnastics people go through to discredit something they don't like. I see the same thing when Alphonso Davies is brought up in a conversation about MLS ever developing a world class player.
Freeman did actually play striker quite a bit as a youth player. Then right wing, then right fullback. You can still see a lot of those instincts when he attacks the back post. He was one of the most aggressive fullbacks in the league on those off ball runs.
Or Brenden Aaronson...... Most of the Philadelphia Union's top academy players aren't from Southeast, PA or South Jersey........ they recruit better than most of the teams in MLS. One of the first things Earnie Stewart did when he was hired as Sporting Director was building up the scouting department. Ernst Tanner added to that when he was hired. It's no different then what the most successful companies in the world do. They invest in Talent identification, and then acquire the best talent. Like @feyenoordsoccerfan said: you can have the best and most advanced rock tumbler in the world, but if all you are feeding it is pebbles..... that tumbler is only going to produced polished pebbles.
yeah well look across US soccer - theres a CLEAR advantage to having a father as a coach or former player OR having spent time in europe as a kid playing soccer OR being a dual nat born and trained in a foreign country - michael bradley, gio reyna, seb berhalter, obed vargas, pulisic, mckennie as soon as the players who are first generation soccer players born and raised in the USA without a father as a coach or former player (who also havent been trained in a foreign country) can start being produced on the same level and frequency as the rest of the pool.....MLS aint cutting in my book. and no one should be singing its developmental praises until that day comes to pass
Oh, if I had the energy to look through your post history to see how far you've moved the goalposts in the 13 years you've been on this site I'd probably wonder how on Earth one man could carry them so damn far all by himself.
Yes, soccer does run in families. Just like it does everywhere else. Can we all name USMNTers in Europe that don't come from soccer-playing families? Yes, we all can do that easily. I mean, its easy. I can just name some from the Dallas academy. Chris Richards, Tanner Tessman, Weston McKennie, and Ricardo Pepi. All likely to be on the World Cup roster. None of them came from soccer families. I don't think Zendejas did either, but I'm less certain about that one. Reggie Cannon didn't. Yes, there are Dallas academy alumni that came from soccer families. Jesus Ferreira. Bryan Reynolds. Shaq Moore. But what does any of it matter? Its the same analysis one can do for every national team. There are players in the France national team that come from soccer families and those that don't. Its lazy. Its a lazy argument from 20 years ago. There are these bizarre tropes that have existed about US soccer in social media for 20 years. This is one of them. I don't get it. its a criticism that exists solely to criticize. As if a basic level of research won't reveal that US Soccer is no different than the rest of the world. As if we don't know that Mbappe's father is a coach.
Players from soccer families always have better outcomes everywhere. It's never on the same level and frequency as others. Pele's dad was a pro. Messi's grandfather was a pro. etc. Even our immigrant family players show the same pattern. Obed's dad was his coach and a Morelia youth player. Why? First, genetics. Second, early training from crib. Third, continued guidance 24/7/365.
I remember seeing Lucho Acosta's 3-4 year old son on the field once . The ball control he showed was stunning.
Sometimes I think it's not even early training but just early exposure. Toddlers just see and absorb at a level that we can never match again later in our lives.
I agree. I don't think Acosta was drilling his son at the age of 3. I saw Acosta as intense but not that intense.