MLS, Europe, etc. (pulled from Camp Cupcake 2016)

That is a pretty silly graph and not sure what is says other than there is a high correlation between the number games played and minutes played. Not sure how it refutes my comments about the gap between u19s and a professional league that physicality is rewarded and teams at the top of the roster by foreign players.

 

The graph is a refutation of your point that "(MLS) teams have struggled to progress players from the academy to the first team." There are a lot of players in that graph (about 60--out of about 700 total players in the league), averaging 14 games and 900 minutes in 2019. That's significant. Not mind-blowing, but definitely significant.

 

RSL, NYRB and FCD are ahead of the curve and regularly start 4 or more HGPs but teams like Philly and NYC are catching up fast.

NYC has produced 3 home-grown players of note in their 5 year history. 2 of them have been signed by Bundesliga clubs and the other is tipped to be a future MNT starter.

 

Having a "not mind blowing" amount in 2019 doesnt say anything about what they had done prior to 2019. A graph like this would show how the minutes to players has grown dramatically over the years to get to last years meager numbers.

https://a.espncdn.com/i/infographics/20180219_mls_homegrown/mls_homegrown_total_minutes.png

This chart was right above the one initially posted and actually tells a story. By combining players by team, making the x-axis the number of players, and y-axis the average number of minutes, we can see that it is only a handful of clubs that have "figured" it out. In fact, only 8 teams average more than 500 minutes per HGP. Not surprisingly, FCD, RSL, and Philadelphia lead the way. The most disappointing is of course the LAG with their three players averaging around 200 minutes. It makes me wonder why they are upset and surprised that they have academy players signing in Europe... they have to track record of playing them.

https://totalfootballanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Zoltan-Toth-7.png

 

See previous post. I like what NYRB have done, but the numbers in the second chart dont show it.

 

Do they make a difference in their first team?
How does that translate into successful integrating into the national team?

 

Whatever that chart shows, it doesn't show that MLS has grown a bunch of top starters for their teams. The bulk of players on that chart are even less than starters, but bit players. Getting less than 1000 minutes over 10-20 games. Real contributors would be on the far right top, starting almost all of an MLS team's games. You really only have a handful, and a good chunk are older, 24+. This is due to the fact a HGP stays that way forever it seems and the MLS media always lumps guys who were rookies a decade ago in to inflate the numbers.

Alex Muyl is on that chart for instance, and one of the few key players in the top right. But he is nothing in the grand scheme of things. A partial starter when there are injuries to key foreign players. Teibert is a 27 yo Canadian.

In the whole league, you have a handful of U23 players that are getting major minutes and most starts for their MLS club. In Argentina or Holland, you would have almost a third of all players categorized that way. If MLS was those leagues, there would be 250 players in the top right corner, not 5 or so.

 

As you can see from the first link you posted here, the number of minutes played in the league by homegrown players has been on a steep upward climb from 0 in 2009 (when, presumably, the homegrown rule was introduced which really began the movement towards academies in the league) to 74,400 minutes in 2017 (the last year of that chart).

There are plenty of disappointing clubs in terms of their academy production, but there were then at least 8 teams who gave significant minutes to their homegrown players. 8 out of 24 last year (and 20 in 2016). It seems hard to imagine that any of the 6 clubs that have joined the league since 2016 could reasonably be expected to have begun developing their own talent in that short time frame of existence. The production is ramping up, the clubs with the better academies seem to be going at it harder. Not all clubs will have great academies (but, damn it all, the LA clubs should have it easy, as should the NY area clubs). And I'm still pissed that my Timbers, in 10 years in the league, have nearly nothing to show for player development. Hell, they hardly have an interest in their draftees (aside from Nagbe and Ebobisse). Look at Aaron Long.

 

Yes, but as we're all painfully aware, to end up with a bunch of top-level players you've got to produce bunches and bunches of quality players. Many will be injured (gulp), and many more will never amount to more than mediocre professionals. I don't think I need to be more specific about how this relates to the national team.

I don't know how to manipulate transfermarkt to get to more precise results about how many players are under 23 in the Netherlands or Argentina and what kind of minutes they get, but average age comparison between these 2 and MLS shows: Eredivisie--25.0, MLS-- 26.0, Argentine Superliga--26.8. (For additional comparison, LMX averages 26.9).

Comparisons to the Netherlands and Argentina are good for understanding where MLS stands, but it's an unfair comparison as those are 2 of the very best in the world at young player development and everyone knows it. MLS has been at it for a decade and is clearly making great strides in this regard.

 

I can't do that either ;-)

I think Tenorio on his podcast said MLS gave 8% of minutes to young players. The EPL was about the same and the Eredivisie was around 27%. His rant was that MLS should be much closer to the Dutch and nowhere near the money saturated English. I agree.

You are right that you need large numbers. 5-10 is not a large number , you have identified the problem. Having a bunch of guys sit on the bench and get a sub appearance or two is not development.

Really, what you have is a few clubs with a commitment to play young players and the bulk of clubs not. Some of the latter are spending money on their roster and bringing in talent. But much of the league is rudderless and not doing either with any conviction.

I don't know if money matters to MLS owners, or at least not Davies level transfer fees. It hasn't motivated many of them. Maybe a youth orientated team winning might. But it is hard to win year to year when developing young players and selling them.

Luckily, while MLS maybe evolves on this or at least more clubs (don't need them all) get serious about development; there are alternate paths for the elite players.

 

Cool. Thanks for posting those numbers from Tenorio. Yes, you're absolutely correct that MLS should be much closer to Eredivisie's number than EPL's. I do think that over the next few years it will be, as clubs become better at not only training up young players (and from an earlier and earlier age) but also better at signing them (at higher wages, no less) and, hence, giving them PT.

Part of the perceived hesitance might be the dearth of valuable sales as of yet. Maybe several clubs will really get their asses in gear when Dallas, Philly and NYC start bringing in, say, $10M a year from selling homegrowns. The league is constantly changing its rules regarding homegrowns, but has been on the path of reducing restrictions and increasing benefits (while also increasing requirements). They could revert tomorrow, but it doesn't seem like the league FO is interested in anything but scaling up at this point.

 

Saw a couple of posts about the food that the players are getting in the MLS bubble and it’s not looking great.

 

Is there some comparison of MLS to Europe in this?

 

Well, we do have to consider that half of the teams in the league have been born since 2011. They haven't even developed a first team culture yet, much less a youth and player development culture. The teams you mention there have been investing for the longest. FCD was probably the earliest investor when they hired Pareja to lead their academy in 2007. [Prior to 2007, clubs couldn't sign players from their academies. So their youth clubs were basically community outreach programs.] So even FC Dallas has only been in the game for a dozen years.

Every year the number of minutes given to youngsters increases. Every year the total number of homegrown and academy players making minutes in the league increases.

I'd say one of the big challenges MLS has is that there's an exodus from MLS academies to big teams in Europe. We're all happy about this, but it does mean that the layer of elite youth talent leaves. In recent years RSL has lost Taylor Booth (Bayern Munich), Sebastian Soto (Hannover), and Richie Ledezma (PSV). FCD sold Chris Richards (Bayern Munich) and lost Johan Gomez (Porto), Chris Cappis (Hobro), Weston McKennie (Schalke), and others. LAG have lost Alex Mendez (Ajax), Uly Llanez (Wolfsburg), amongst others. The next LA kid is Kobe Hernandez who's signing for a Bundesliga club. I can keep going to most of the clubs in the league. Bryang Kayo just left DCU for the Bundesliga where he'll join another DCU academy player Michael Edwards (WOlfsburg). Another DCU academy product, U20WC midfielder Chris Durkin, is now in Belgium. I can keep going. Gio Reyna left NYCFC for Dortmund on a free transfer. NYRB passed Tyler Adams to their mother ship in Leipzig for way below market value. Anyway.................

If the top layer of most talented kids all leaves for Europe, which we say we're all fine with................than the layers we're left with aren't as likely to be impact players. There are some of course. FCD retained Cannon and Pomykal, for instance. Of course all anybody talks about is how quickly can both leave for Europe too.

 

I

Is this also the case for the Netherlands and Argentina? Or is MLS making up ground after just starting?

 

Idk to be honest. I don’t think the teams in Europe were in a bubble the same way. Germany might have been. Would like to know.

 

MLS is making up ground, but its hard to judge.
We keep adding expansion teams, who by definition take a while to develop their academies and homegrown programs. They're veteran laden and bring down our percentages. If you take the expansion teams since 2017 out of the equation, the numbers start looking better and better. Minnesota has struggled with their academy programs. Atlanta had some good academy players that fell in their laps from partnerships (Carleton, Bello, etc.), but have fallen back with their own kids. What do we really expect from Cincinnati, LAFC, Inter Miami, Nasheville, etc? I'm hopeful that the teams that started in 2015 will advance in this arena. Orlando now has Pareja in charge, who's been great with young players at two clubs (Rapids, FCD). NYCFC has a nice stable of young players...........with Reyna already moving to Dortmund. They've already sold Scally to Gladbach. James Sands is a good young player, who's been more overlooked by USYNTs than he should have been.

There are a host of these new clubs doing a really good job at the youngest levels that we won't see results for in years. LAFC has a lot of talent in their youngest age groups according to "experts."

We also have to keep in mind that in every league there are clubs that make youth/player development an important component of their business plan....................and others that don't. Not every club in the Netherlands is Ajax.

Note that the Spanish team from the last European U19 Championships had 16 of 20 players from only 4 clubs.

So we don't need EVERY club in MLS to be Ajax. There will be clubs like Portland who don't seem to care about it. I would say we're on the right track, though. We have a group of clubs really taking it seriously and are improving all the time (FCD, Phi, RSL, NYRB, LAG, etc.). We have teams really working hard to catch up like SKC and Seattle. They're really close. Others are talking the talk like San Jose and the new group in Chicago.

Americans aren't known for their patience. This is not something we snap our fingers at to improve. It takes a while to build the infrastructure, coaching fraternity, scouting network, etc. It takes a while to build the culture. Patience is going to be required. We can't be Argentina tomorrow. Can't happen.

 

This makes sense to me. Just to satisfy my own curiosity, here's what those lists look like going back to 2014.

I'm going to lump the year-end Best XI and the All Star Fan XI into one category. And then I'll include a separate category for remaining all-stars (but with Commissioner's picks excluded)

2019
Best XIs: Brad Guzan, Ike Opara, Miles Robinson, Walker Zimmerman, Graham Zusi
Other All Stars: Matt Hedges, Chris Wondolowski
Top 10 U22: Paxton Pomykal (#3), Reggie Cannon (#5), Brenden Aaronson (#7), Jesus Ferreira (#9), Gianluca Busio (#10)

2018
Best XIs: Zack Steffen, Brad Guzan, Aaron Long, Chad Marshall, Michael Parkhurst, Graham Zusi, Darlington Nagbe
Other All Stars: Tyler Adams, Matt Hedges
Top 10 U22: Tyler Adams (#2), Reggie Cannon (#7), Justen Glad (#9), Auston Trusty (#10)

2017
Best XIs: Tim Melia, Tim Howard, Justin Morrow, Ike Opara, Greg Garza, Graham Zusi, Damarcus Beasley, Michael Bradley
Other All Stars: Michael Parkhurst, Matt Hedges, Dax McCarty, Jozy Altidore
Top 10 U22 (from U24 list): Tyler Adams (#4), Erik Palmer Brown (#6), Justen Glad (#7)

2016
Best XIs: Matt Hedges, Matt Besler, Keegan Rosenberry, Sacha Kljestan, Darlington Nagbe
Other All Stars: David Bingham, Brandon Vincent, Steve Birnbaum, Andrew Farrell, Jermaine Jones, Wil Trapp, Clint Dempsey, Chris Wondolowski
Top 10 U22 (from U24 list): Jordan Morris (#3), Kellyn Acosta (#4), Jesse Gonzalez (#7), Justen Glad (#9), Jordan Allen (#10)

2015
Best XIs: Nick Rimando, Luis Robles, Omar Gonzalez, Matt Besler, Matt Hedges, Damarcus Beasley, Michael Bradley, Dax McCarty, Benny Feilhaber, Graham Zusi, Ethan Finlay, Clint Dempsey
Other All Stars: Clint Irwin, Drew Moor, Chris Tierney, Chad Marshall, Tony Beltran, Sam Cronin, Jozy Altidore, Gyasi Zardes
Top 10 U22 (from U24 list): Matt Miazga (#2), Kellyn Acosta (#4), Tommy Thompson (#7), Erik Palmer Brown (#8)

2014
Best XIs: Bill Hamid, Nick Rimando, Deandre Yedlin, Bobby Boswell, Omar Gonzalez, Matt Besler, Chad Marshall, Kyle Beckerman, Michael Bradley, Graham Zusi, Landon Donovan, Lee Nguyen, Clint Dempsey
Other All Stars: Sean Franklin, Michael Parkhurst, Maurice Edu, Dom Dwyer
Top 10 U22 (from U24 list): Deandre Yedlin (#1), Luis Gil (#4), Wil Trapp (#5), Shane O'Neill (#7)

The U22's are the most interesting to me, because players appearing in the top 5 of those lists tend to have at least graduated to the level where they're appearing in first choice lineups for the USMNT: Reggie Cannon, Tyler Adams, Jordan Morris, Kellyn Acosta, Matt Miazga, Deandre Yedlin, and Wil Trapp. Luis Gil is the one clear exception there, while Paxton Pomykal's future is yet to be decided.

However, the lower down you go in those lists, the harder it is to find clear success stories. I stopped at 10 because prior to 2018, the lists were U24, and there were almost always fewer than 10 U22 players on those U24 lists. But even within the top 10 there are names from 5 or 6 years ago that I can barely remember at this point.

The adult lists are a little less interesting to me, because so many of those names were already established USMNT players that it becomes a little difficult to separate 'MLS form being a predictor of national team success' from 'USMNT form being a predictor of MLS recognition.' I do wonder if the diminishing number of American names on those lists has more to do with the waning enthusiasm for the national team in recent years, or with the increasing quality of foreign talent in the league relative to domestic talent.

 

I can tell you that OC has made some major advancements in their development plans over the last few years. The truth is we will have to. We have one of the poorest owners and there is no way we can keep up with the Atlantas and Miamis of MLS without producing our own talent. David Leora and Jordan Bender show the difference. Leora went to college before coming back, while Bender spent one yr in USL before signing an MLS contract. Things are changing.

 

In 2019 Atlanta had the 5th youngest roster in MLS and LAFC the 7th youngest.

MUFC don't really have an excuse for being veteran laden as they've been around since 2010.

 

Interestingly in the list above I like the top 10 U22 list better than the best XI's. The national team is looking for great up and comers not just good starters in a decent but not great league. Looks like a lot of the U22's matriculate abroad and do well. Yedlin, Miazga, EPB, Adams. There are some duds in that age group also but looking at the XI's I don't see any that haven't already been called up that need to be.

 

The increase is due to developing more quality prospects and teams figuring out the things they struggled with early on.

I would translate that line to imply playing significant minutes. Three of the eight have less than 2,000 minutes to HGP. I'm not sure Colorado and TFC have done that great of a job. This leaves you with the three teams that every body knows has committed to it.