When I talk to players deciding between USL and MLS Next Pro, the one thing I think is crucial is given its connection to MLS and her academies, way more European scouts are watching MLS NP than USL L1 (and possibly even most USL-C) matches. https://t.co/DC1VKVYgXy— Andrew Visnovsky (@AndrewVisnovsky) October 30, 2024 1851769746301292544 is not a valid tweet id
At the same time, USL Championship is a better league and MLS Next Pro has only started improving this year because they’ve brought more older players into the league. USL League One, on the other hand, I have no clue what the strategy is there.
Topic may seem opaque to those not immersed in youth soccer. But it's striking that the age registration issue still haunts us nearly a decade after changes imposed from on high during "an Ivory Tower era of U.S. Soccer" (Klinsmann & Ramos headed the technical side @ the time) https://t.co/SGTPu4Tpty— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) October 30, 2024 Unfortunately I don’t have access to the underlying article but interesting this is something they are looking at.
I'll be honest, I don't get the drama from a developmental standpoint. An arbitrary cutoff is an arbitrary cutoff. School year cutoffs are nice for the average player -- it's just more fun to play with friends from your school, etc., and that increases the chances. But from a hard core developmental standpoint, it seems to me that whatever date you pick kind of doesn't make much difference? And calendar year aligns with youth team eligibility. Age banding and that sort of thing is there to compensate in some ways for physical maturity and progression, right?
Well this is why I wish I had access to the underlying article as I’m interested in what they see as the alternative.
I think might be a movement in youth sports to keep kids in the same grades together for obvious reasons (friendship, parent cooperation etc) Little league baseball switched away from the September 1 cutoff when I was a kid and recently switched back to it
Does this thread have discussion of why 4 u20 starters switched to other countries this summer? Happy to scroll, but only if it’s the right place. Thx.
Sometimes you just lose guys. None of them are really a case of anything having been done wrong (and Buck could switch back still if he wanted). Esmir and Bindon had senior team opportunities we couldn’t offer and Vargas just very clearly preferred Mexico despite lots of opportunities from the US program. It’s nothing more than that.
I think is also, who is ahead of you, and how old is that senior blocker. Most of our players are still relatively young. Meaning youth players may not have an opportunity right away, not like in the old days where we had mostly late 20s early 30s players.