Yes, agreed. I'm definitely not defending/espousing the virtues of the Monarchs/RSL master philiosophy around leveraging youth. I think there is plenty to criticize there. The only exception I take is the perpetual criticism of RSL/Monarchs not signing these two particular players. There is plenty of room for improvement for this organization across the board, but those two situations are not ones I'd chalk up as the many mistakes this group has made since the descent of this club in 2013.
There was another academy player who got appearances with the Monarchs around that time, Glademir Mendoza, who was in the US youth NT set-up. He has been playing in college but that's about to end; wonder if he'll be a Homegrown signing.
Here's an(other) interesting article from The Athletic that looks at the discussion put forth by Arsene Wagner - FIFA's head of global development, which includes suggesting rule changes - to change throw-ins to kick-ins if they are in your own half. The piece looks at the history of the throw-in (and corner kick), at what Wegner's idea would mean tactically, and then suggests a couple of alternative paths forward.
Not trying to discount your experience, but I just think this has changed since you covered the team. I don't think the NCAA poses any real obstacle to us signing players from the academy anymore. My evidence is the fact that basically every other team in MLS signs their top players without them going through the NCAA first.
A few things of retort here At the time, college was on par (if not better) for these kids in terms of figuring out their lives. A minimum MLS contract was 50k and not much to work with. Whereas a full ride scholarship to somewhere like Virginia was worth a lot more. I worked with a kid from the Monarchs in their early years who talked of the value of college for the young kids just to grow as adults. This was interesting because it was essentially said that the guys who skipped college were immature. That speaks to the club not doing enough for these young guys to help them grow as professionals and humans. Which comes back to something I brouth up before: this club would do well to have a partnership with the U or the Y or even UVU. Get these young guys on contract a college education, as well. Moving into more recent years (Allen and co. are no longer "young") the shift has moved away from going the NCAA route. In that time, though, RSL doubled down. We had a GM who valued UW grads over his own academy. We had a lot of UW guys on the roster pushing that same philosophy to academy prospects, too. Lagerway, meanwhile, was breaking way with Seattle to make the setup for the academy players to go pro and stay in their system. If that isn't irony, I don't know what is. The MLS team IN THAT CITY was saying "nah, we want these guys we already have identified". There are so many teenagers now in the league that this claim that the NCAA route is preferred isn't factual, at least not from a league perspective. That may still be the case here - which would speak volumes to just how far behind our academy structure has become. But even that doesn't add up. We signed a lot of academy products this last year, mostly to secure the bottom part of the roster on the cheap, and a lot of them came straight from the academy as opposed to going to an NCAA team first. Lastly, you gotta wonder how much better someone like Herrera could be as a player if he didn't have to spend some very key years at New Mexico... Was Ledezma ever on a Monarchs contract or was he just an academy player essentially playing as a guest player?
Ledezma was never on a contract, just playing up from the academy. I also want to mention that there are 3 Bundesliga starters who came from MLS academies (Adams, Davies, and Richards) and the MLS club got paid every time. We absolutely, 100% CAN sign players with Euro interest. The key is signing them early and pushing them as much as we can. Soto scored something like 1.5 goals per game his last year in the academy. I watched a couple of the games, and it was very clear that he wasn't challenged at this level. He and Ledezma both routinely toyed with opposing teams. Neither of them should have even been playing for the academy. We should have signed them at 15-16, pushed them to the Monarchs by 17, and had them looking for an MLS debut around 18-19. Instead, we just let them demolish the academy teams, and in Soto's case just made plans to check back with him once he was done at Berkeley.
So with the USL canceling the championship game tomorrow due to positive Covid tests on the Tampa Bay Rowdies, does the Monarchs retain the title? (I am sure they don't but claiming something good from 2020 would be nice.)
According to the soapbox and MLS, Sam mutually agreed to terminate his contract. Maybe they were trying to trade him before the roster deadline? Don't know why any MLS team would take him. I'm guessing his will be one of about nine roster spots that will open up before next season.
Was it going to be 12 and we signed the three guys from the Monarchs, or it is going to be 9 and three of them are the guys from the Monarchs?
RSL academy product Richie Ledezma gets his official debut for PSV Eindhoven. 𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐞𝐛𝐮𝐭 Good luck 𝑹𝒊𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝑳𝒆𝒅𝒆𝒛𝒎𝒂 75' #PSVADO 2-0 pic.twitter.com/iOikou3lHq— PSV (@PSV) November 1, 2020
I was looking at the roster and chose the obvious guys like Nedum, Mulholland, Beckerman, etc. I kind of forgot about the 3 guys from the Monarch's. I don't know contract status of most players. Maybe there won't be many new guys on the senior roster next year. So much is up the new owner/management, but many times you have to wait out guaranteed contracts.
Would be a great signing: Sources: Real Salt Lake finalizing deal to sign Rubio Rubin https://sbisoccer.com/2020/12/sourc...uf0Mfy0MJx_U4fD10X15Z46YzvBtTaPIutZm7CH6_Q_-c
Any help up front should be welcomed, but signing a player out of a minor league in the US is not going to answer our problems putting the ball in the net. When this teams ownership issue is resolved we need to spend the coin to get a proven striker.