I suspect it's U-16, but anyway, it doesn't matter. Would you agree that he's the second best of the FC Dallas 08's?
With the caveat that I haven't seen much of that group lately, I'd put him and Molomo in the same tier at the top. It's possible some of the new kids are also up there.
This is the U16s. Lineup is maybe: Fuentes Gibson, Hernandez (?), Watkins, Molomo Razo Saucedo, Vo Lee, Wostl, Rosales
Couple of other lineups from today. Can't get the pictures to load in correctly. U19s: Gomez Gallo, Grimm, Bazzell, Anguiano Romero, Marquez Salazar Radilla, Buttrill, Vivo And the U15s: Rios Fumtim, Odom, Wygant, Drygas (?) Kurpiewski, Salm Dias Chukwu, Wegman, Eason At least one 2010 came in off the bench: Theophilus "Tamba" Hallie, a tall USA/France dual-nat that I've seen play both FW and CM.
I’ve got reservations with Swann as a pro prospect, but it’s a similar deal as Eyestone to Duke. If you play a lot as a freshman, there’s very little developmental downside going to one of these top 30ish programs. Swann is one of the best players from the 2025 class. Previously played for Solar. Recruited to FC Dallas. Been a standout at the elite club level for some time. Should be an immediate contributor for the Terps https://t.co/wO8qbWbmV3— J.R. Eskilson (@JREskilson) October 16, 2023
Are we sure he isn’t going to reclassify to 2024? Why announce now? Have you seen any other 07’s announcing yet? I don’t remember any. Seems like he might be on the Eyestone path of graduating high school a year early. Maybe I’m wrong though.
I am going to tend to disagree here. I watch a lot of and have kids and friends kids in college soccer and at many top teams. For a goalie to go to college a year its fine. Goalies develop late. For a field player to go to college is a death knell for his pro career. Most settle in for a year and then wind up staying a second year. At that point, you have the stench of college soccer on you and your pro career just left the building. College soccer is all about size, strength, speed, chaos, power and not much else. The guys grow up playing good soccer in academies and high level teams and when they get to college soccer, they forget all that stuff and just bang around, fly around the pitch, hit each other, hammer the ball and its semi controlled chaos. I would not commit or go to college at any level if I was a real pro prospect. If FCD doesn't want to sign him to a homegrown, find another team that will.
Definitely on the early side but quite a few 07s from pro academies have already committed (class of 2025). Topdrawer has a list; it includes a bunch from St Louis City, as well as some from Atlanta United, Crew, DC United, Rapids, etc. Players can decommit if they get a quality pro offer. Also, recall these players get good scholarship $ that is by itself can be worth more than a 4 year guaranteed MLS contract at league min ($67,360 at present), before you even consider the value of the college degree! This last part is more aimed at the later comment about whether it makes sense to go college at all for a high level player.
Miles Robinson, Daryl Dike, Duncan McGuire, Reggie Cannon, Cyle Larin, Darlington Nagbe, and Jack Harrison all say hi. There's no doubt that college is generally a less effective development path than the pro ranks, but there's still college players with strong pro careers and getting paid.
And which path is better for keepers, CBs, and strikers is a major question. I'd say college is better for the first two.
If those are the best examples, from several years ago, then my point is pretty well taken. In 2023, if a player goes to college, absent maybe a goalie, instead of signing a HG deal or going to USL C, then its most likely his pro aspirations are over. Let's take a look at recent FCD Homegrowns: 1. Nolan Norris ( no college) 2. Tarik Scott ( no college) 3. Colin Smith ( no college) 4. Beni Rezdick ( no college) 5. Justin Che ( no college) 6. Dante Sealy ( no college) 7. Pepi ( no college) 8. Taner Tessman ( no college) 9. Thomas Roberts ( no college) 10 Edwin Cerillo ( no college) 11. Paxton Pomykal (no college) 12. Antonio Careera (no college) 13. Chris Richards (no college) For FCD, going to college is almost 100% the end of your chance to be a HG for that club. Second point was going to college does not help you become a better soccer player. There is very little development in college. Sure, an 18 year old will get bigger, put on more muscle and come back at 22 as a stronger kid, but won't learn much about high level soccer in the college game. College used to be a route, but that route diminishes more and more each year ( zero for FCD) Guys like Dempsey, Lalas, Beckerman et al were the generations of college players going pro. That era is largely over. If a kid is 18 and not on a HG, get to USL 1, USL C, but don't go to college if you think you are a pro prospect. The problem is most of these guys don't realize that if they are not given that HG deal or shot in USL C by the time they are 18, then they likely are not really a pro prospect.
No, it's not. Your post was definitive. "For a field player to go to college is a death knell for his pro career." And my response was simply that while college is probably not the better development path for the vast majority of players, it's not a death knell. Particularly not for one or two years. I think a pro environment is a better route, but one should also note the self-selection bias, and players who want to be pros and are good enough to be pros usually pick that path anyway.
FCD seems to agree with me based upon the facts of who they select for HG, and this thread was about an FCD players. There is very close to zero chance he comes back from Maryland ever plays for FCD as a HG. He would be a huge outlier if he did. I stand by my words on death knell, here in 2023. A kid that is a 2007 goes to college and his pro career is done in our current climate. A few outliers are possible, but very unlikely.
REAM? When he was 18 wasn't everyone playing ASO and doing ODP camps? Yeah, not much has changed in the way players go pro since then. HA..... Alexi Lalas was great at Rutgers..
Here's the thing. I don't doubt at all the idea that college is bad if you want to be a pro soccer player. I don't think for a player of any position it's better to go the college route. Worse coaching, less games, not a year-round calendar, you have distractions with schoolwork that probably aren't present otherwise, and the pathway to eventually becoming a pro is a lot more murky. I think it'd be hard to deny much of that. However, most of these kids that are going to college are the ones that aren't the high level prospects. Does it make more sense for hypothetically the 120th best player in an age group in the country to try to grind it out for virtually minimum wage in USL League One to eventually move up the ladder over the course of years? Do we even have a pro system that allows for that type of path from the lower leagues to MLS to Europe? You are probably better off in your life, not just soccer, to go to college (for basically free, which is different from most at that school ). At that point, you should be well aware pro soccer is not a guarantee. Two of the kids from the 2017 U-17 WC team that went to college ended up not playing the game past college. Would I like a system where all our best players in an age group are playing pro somewhere at age 18, 19, 20? Yes, I would. We'd have a better chance at developing the late-developers in the pro game than through the college system. There will always be late developers. People can point to the late developers in college, but there'd probably be more of them if they were pros at that age rather than playing college soccer. However, what I'd prefer as a soccer fan doesn't necessarily align with what is the individual decision for the kids in that type of situation. This country is not built the way that most others are. It's going to be a very hard sell to get all the kids with true pro potential to start ditching college soccer for USL Championship, USL League One, and MLS Next Pro, like they might in almost every other country in the world. That's one of the realities of this country, good or bad.
This is the crux of it, imo. Similar conversation as the "Should our best players get to the biggest clubs possible as early as possible?" debate. The USMNT would probably be better off in the long run if every single player took the Pulisic/Reyna/McKennie/JoGo/Corcoran route and just rolled the dice on showing up for cheap at a Europa League+ club and hoping to break through, but the median quality of life for the player pool would probably drop precipitously. Frankly, it sucks seeing a career like Beni Redzic: impressed in USL1 out of the academy, leapt at a 2+2 HG deal, didn't seem to progress, and now he's out of soccer and he's lost the ability to have soccer pay for his school. Was he a legit pro prospect? Maybe! He was the best player in USL1 by G+ in 2020 as a 17/18 year old. The truth is most 18-year-old players have much lower chances than you'd think of "making it" in a league where they will have a comfy quality of life. I don't begrudge them extending the runway by six months by going to college. This is a weird list. (A) Close to half the names are spelled wrong, (B) it doesn't seem to be in any discernable order. Since Pomykal (the player signed first on that list) went pro in Sept 2016, FCD signed Cannon, Reaves, Cano, Munjoma, and Servania out of college. So it's closer to a quarter of HGs in the Post-McKennie Era of the Academy that have gone to college. Eddie Munjoma even went to college for all four years, and now he's tearing it up in the USL-C.
IT shouldn't be that confusing or weird of a list if you follow FCD much. Its almost all the HG from the last few years. Added in Pomykal as an old timer. The rest are what kids nowadays can expect. If were born after 01, don't expect to go to college and get a HG deal from FCD.
But FCD isn't the only professional team out there..... Look at Will Sands' career. Went to Georgetown for a couple of years and then to USL L2 before he worked his way up through the Crew system and looked to have a big future before getting injured this season. That's not a common pathway, but it kind of disproves your "death knell" comment.
I agree primarily with the point above that going to college can and most definitely will likely be a better choice than chasing a pro dream, as its really damn hard to be a pro with any staying power. If guys had a realistic sense of where they were, they would know they are not pro potential and then go to college. Eyestone getting a degree from Duke is much better than playing MLS next a few years and then coming back to coach at the FCD academy.
Agree that this is mainly about FCD. But Will Sands is an 00 birth year. I think it started around that time but now, if you are an 06, 07, 08 etc, good luck on making it to MLS if you spend much time in college.
If I had some personal connection to the player in question, I would almost never advise someone to go the pro route. Look at someone like Andrew Carleton. He was as highly rated as they come and now he’s 23 years old and might be done with pro soccer. Even if you are Pulisic or Adams good, your outcome might not be Pulisic or Adams. It might be Carleton or Josh Perez. It could be Taitague, it could be Tommy Redding, it could be Zelalem, or Hyndman. In the end, was it worth it for any of them? These are kids in their 20’s that there can’t be a market to pay them any more than 60-70k on the high end and much lower than that for some of them. Obviously though, a lot will ignore the cold reality of the range of outcomes. Over the years, I’ve gotten a lot of parents that ask me advice on what their son should do. What I’ve arrived at is that it’s a fair gamble to make if you’re like a top 25 player in your age group nationally. There’s a realistic outcome where you could have the career you dream about having as a kid and make a very lucrative life off of it. It’s certainly no guarantee, but it’s also certainly reasonable to take some risks to hit your dreams. However, the other issue is who is a top 25 player. For some, it’s obvious. For others, not so. There’s never going to be consensus on 18 year old players. I’ve had plenty of situations where I’m giving my opinion that “X or Y” is that good, but I’m arguing against the club a player plays for or the market out there. It’s tough because what any of us think outside of those that work at these clubs and make these decisions doesn’t matter. Ultimately I think if a player’s club and the market isn’t dictating as such, you are probably best at that point to believe it and not try to justify why it’s wrong. This is a very tricky topic though, and a big obstacle this country has the luxury of that isn’t so in most countries.
2007s are going to be class of 2029 in college. So it's a tad early to say they won't be in the MLS. We could also just look back to class of 2022 and see how they're doing.... Which means (brain churning), 2000 birth year! https://www.mlssoccer.com/superdraf...h-superdraft-picks-are-most-impactful-in-2022