It's interesting to see how these things progress. My son was teammates with five kids that made the Academy when they were U12s or U13s (2022s or 2023s). These were some of the very first SKC academy teams, when they still had open tryouts. Jayvin is the only one of his former teammates that looks likely to make it to the a full contract. He's a quality player and person.
The academy has kids in and out a lot I've noticed (I hadn't paid as much attention until recently because information is regularly hard to find). My son played with a kid who moved on to the academy first as an alternate (3rd GK), then last year was on the academy full time, now is not on the academy.
Getting closer to being able to field a full team. Hopefully this guy turns out more like Blessing and less like the other guy we signed from the Ghanaian league, William Opoku Mensah. https://www.sportingkc.com/news/spo...riker-rauf-salifu-on-loan-from-accra-lions-fc
I hope so too. The fact that SKC is scouting the African nations is a plus because I believe there is a lot of potentially great young players that could find a lot of success in MLS.
I assume he's not as close to 1st team as Blessing was, who was leaving Ghana as the League's top scorer. This kid doesn't appear to have that track record. Granted, he's coming to SKC2 so you'd expect that ... and eventually he could be that good, but I'd say this is more of a flier than Blessing was.
Oh most definitely, leading scorer in the 2nd division in Ghana, has 3 goals this year for his club in 13 games. Can hope because of his age he'll do better than Opoku Mensah (who never actually played for SKCII).
Honestly, I hope we get some similar stories about Salifu as we did about Blessing and his amazing talents from the Ghana media.
So,,,after watching the highlight video of this guy (most highlight videos are awful) you find that he has got very raw talent. Yes, he scores a lot of goals, but a lot came from just terrible defensive blunders and mistakes. Most of the play looks like rec league soccer. Definitely going to be a project.
SKCII now has enough players on their own roster they could actually play, they now have 9 under contract after signing 4 more in the last 2 days.
Schedule is out. Also, they'll play the majority of their games at Rock Chalk Park in Lawrence with them moving to Swope when the college soccer season starts. https://www.sportingkc.com/news/sporting-kc-ii-announces-inaugural-mls-next-pro-schedule
Odd the multi venue, but glad it's not Children's Mercy ... might as well provide access to different fans ... no one going to watch them at Children's Mercy is much different than fans that go to SKC fans ... this may make it easier for a different fan to attend.
Due to inclement weather, the preseason match against @Union_Omaha has been rescheduled to this Sunday. 2 pm kickoff Swope Soccer Village. THE MATCH IS ALSO OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!
MLS NEXT Pro summer transfer window news: July 7 - July 12 https://www.mlsnextpro.com/news/mls-next-pro-summer-transfer-window-news-july-7-july-12
In a WTF are we doing.....SKC II product scores game winning goal in KS 6A final, while playing against a school that is coached by a former SKC Academy coach that also fielded a SKC II product. That's right...KS high school final had two players that are on the current SKC II roster. https://kshsaacovered.com/news/2022...s-game-winner-in-6a-final-vs-olathe-west.aspx
How do they qualify as amateurs for high school play is they play on a paid professional team. My old man memory tells me that even playing on a fully paid club but not for money threatens the status. Maybe that's changed. I know it changed to allow folks to play professionally in a different sport.
Yes, that question is just one part of the bull shit. Previously, KS 6A winners only had a few SKC Academy kids on their roster. Now, both 6A finalists had a SKC II rostered player on their team. It's one thing for a kid who was in the Academy and dropped out to play HS soccer. It's another thing for a kid that was offered a professional contract to play HS soccer. That said, SKC II has ways to maintain amateur status for players, so SKC II soccer doesn't impact their eligibility to play in college. From an SKC perspective, it's two more players that received SKC II contracts and decided they would rather play NCAA D1 college. The list of these players is LONG and grows longer every year. Puts the whole SKC Academy program into question. From what I can see, SKC Academy is excellent at developing players that go to play NCAA D1 soccer. Piss poor at developing players that make an impact on the first team.
That's changed. Players can now play for the professional team in MLSNP, USLC, USL1 on cademy contracts.
The article certainly paints the picture that Pendleton gave up on the SKCII path to play HS/go to college simply based on the quote from his father in the article. The thing I keep fighting with reading these articles is year after year how many players graduate academies world wide and don't make the first team? A lot so in that regard it's not that big of a deal. On the opposite side of it though we've really not hitting on much, at least not lately. EPB was a hit but KC didn't reap the benefits of a sale. Busio was a hit for KC in terms of developing/selling to Europe. Lindsey I guess you could say was b/c they got a decent amount of _AM for him from Charlotte. Salloi has been successful here. Hernandez is coming around. In the last round of HGP signings though the only one that's stuck around is Duke and based on the roster at the end of the season he was not favored by PV. Davis, Rad were barely with the first team. You do have the likes of Harris, Freeman, and Lewis all having decent seasons in the Championship. Then you have the likes of J Rad, Jones, Lenis who are all on pro contracts with SKCII and the academy contract kids, none of whom have really impressed me that much.
No mention of Pulskamp (yeah, I know, but if you give SKC Salloi you have to allow them to claim Pulskamp) as well as Cisneros/Pierre. But in general, I agree with you. With the growth of USL (amount of meaningful options) and the increased roster depth in MLS, it should be more difficult for HGP's to get to meaningful minutes on MLS rosters at younger ages, but we should be getting better development the further from the "start of the Academy age" of MLS as well. I think the new HG rules will help us get a few more players in the pipeline from non KC areas. Either way, it's somewhat of a success when SKC Academy kids go off to high level colleges. Ultimately only a few will make it, so it's good that the bulk get go the college pathway. I think Harris, Freeman, Lewis and others similar stick around SKC in years past due to lack of USL options and that talent level was fine for the end of the MLS roster 5-10 years ago. We just need to "level up" when it comes to development, not entirely sure we're set up to do that soon though.
While I see your point on Pulskamp, Salloi came in when he was a teen and actually played in the academy, Pulskamp came in on a USL contract basically and then we acquired his HG rights from LA.
Yes, Nico chose not to continue with SKCII. In previous years, the players that succeeded in KS/MO HS soccer were those academy products that were cut or just decided to stop. Not those that made it to SKCII. For a kid that made it all the way to getting an SKC II contract, and still be eligible to play against "regular" kids from Dodge City or Salina or wherever KS just doesn't feel right. Again, both schools in the KS 6A final had a SKCII rostered kid. You are correct, the vast majority of players that make it through the full academy progression still don't make it to the pro level. That is world wide. Just simply looking at the odds, I bet that is why many kids from "affluent backgrounds" choose to go the college route over trying to make it all the way to the pros. Affluent background is a problem with SKC's player selection. By the time they get them to an Academy tryout, the kids are 12. Guess what 12 year old got the good coaching, the kid from the barrio or the kid from Brookside? When the Brookside kid turns 18, his parents likely have a significant impact on his decision not to gamble his future on soccer, where one injury and you might be done. Prospects coming from the academy that will make an impact on the first team are thin. Big contrast from other teams that have a reliable academy like Dallas and Philly. PV blames the Midwest. It's not the homegrown region. It's not the Midwest. It's talent evaluation when the kids are young. Having the ability to parse out which U12 is really good because he's been training with a professional coach since he was 6, vs the kid that has amazing talent but is raw, is a very unique skill. Good for the kid, yes. They get to go to Stanford, Northwestern, Marquette, Pitt, etc. at a reduced rate. Good for SKC, not really. Its years of work and tens of thousands of dollars of investment in a player that ultimately provided zero ROI.
I guess I mean it's better than them NOT going off to big time colleges. For SKC to recruit, it's good to show that if you end up being a stud, you can end up in Venice Italy ... if not, that Marquette/insert name of college education at a discount is a decent place to land. I'm not positive we were sending kids to high level colleges consistently enough earlier in the process. Buzz can speak a bit more to this, but we had kids going to West Virginia, Drake, etc. and fewer kids going to higher level schools (and that's not a shot at those schools, to be fair, just a couple I could think of off hand that we have had kids playing at).
We have a kid at Stanford (Dylan Hooper) a kid went to UCLA (Tucker Lepley). One is at Akron (Jayvin van Deventer) that tends to regularly be good. Kentucky has a couple (Enzo Mauriz, Mason Leeth). Those have been some of the kids that are currently at "bigger" soccer schools. Then there's Barber who'd been at Clemson, Wright was at UNC recently.
Jayvin is at Northwestern. SKC also have Mo Abualnadi at Pitt (started at ND) if you want to include other quality schools. Both happen to be SKCII players lost to colleges. Same with Dylan. Same with Nico. And on and on it will go. SKC aren't typically "recruiting" into the Academy system. They don't have to entice club players to play in the Academy, and they aren't really competing with other MLS clubs given the HG territories. The kids tryout as U12s and filter out as the they get older. They used to have tryouts in older ages, but now U12 is literally the only open tryout. After that, a coach has to recommend you. So, if you miss out at 12 you are kind of f'd out of the system. How many great evaluators of 12 year old talent do you know? They need to cast a MUCH larger net at a much earlier age group. And it needs to be free.