The return of the reserve league

I certainly love it. A few more games for me to watch for free on Sunday. What's not to like?

 

And you get to see the matches in DC's only soccer-specific stadium!

 

Equally important are the 30-man rosters and the 3 divisions.

Obviously the bigger roster, combined with the possibility they get rid of the restriction on "home grown" players will be big. Teams must learn to develop their own players!

Bradenton-style, where the team recruits families. The kid goes to a local school for 4 hours/day, then practice 4 times/week.

As for the 3 divisions, it's the future. I won't be surprised if we see the return of it next year for the regular season. Eventually this league will have 4 division with 5, then 6 teams (24 total). It will be a 33 game schedule (home/away with your "home division" and one other division, 1x with other two divisions - each year the other home/away division revolves).

 

I hope that's a test for 3 divisions again, I liked it when they did that. It sure makes more sense than constantly switching the fly-over teams between Eastern and Western Conferences when they aren't either anyway
And it gives them more leeway with playoff possibilities too, without having to crown the NJ metros as West champs or the Coorsville Rapids as East Champs, since that always goes over so well.

Besides, we need a good tough blue-collar Norris Division

 

Single table.



Just getting that out of the way.

 

Well, the expense of cross-country travel was one of the reasons Gold Pride gave for dropping out of the WPAS. Having divisions that are truly geographic and maximizing intradivisional games should save a bundle.

 

I completely disagree, playing each team twice makes all the competitions exactly the same, no reason to care about any specific team, they're all the same at that point. Boring.

I'll take regional conferences over single table any day of the week, or any 9 months out of the year as it were

There is no reason for us to always play RSL and Colorado on the road every single year. Or Dallas and Houston for that matter since that seems to magically fall in July or August.

I am not offended or confused by an unbalanced schedule - though it might make the rewarding of the Supporter's Shield a bit dicey from time to time. Yet, somehow we seemed to manage, even in the shootout days (which I'll still take over PKs, btw)

 

I doubt that the reserve league will improve player development very much. It didn't in the past. It's certainly good to allow the scrubbies opportunities to play in a more or less competitive situation, but it is just that 'more or less competitive.'

If you want youngsters to improve, they need to play in authentically competitive environments --- which is why clubs elsewhere lend their young players to clubs at lower levels. A number of current Premiership stars have said that it was their time on loan in the lower divisions that really taught them how to compete. Duplicating this in the USA would not be easy, but I think that MLS ought to make negotiating a real working agreement with the Second Division leagues/clubs a much higher priority. A really adventuresome MLS owner would probably go further and acquire an interest in a second division club and use it as something like a farm team along major league baseball's model. Perhaps assign a half dozen players to the lower club each year.

I also am skeptical of the current fad for 'developing your own players.' First, developing young players is risky. The younger the player the harder it is to discern his potential. (Cruyf, for example, did not play for a national side until he was in his twenties.) Second developing young players is expensive. It is not a coincidence that football and basketball in the US are content to allow the NCAA act as its farm system. And most soccer clubs around the world allow other clubs to identify and develop young players. A few big clubs have large academies, but many first division teams do not. They count on buying youngish players from other clubs. And even clubs with allegedly successful academies usually have only one or two starters that are their own products. So for poverty stricken MLS to start down this path seems a stretch.

Working with the NCAA or improving summer leagues would seem more cost effective ways to go.

 

I would argue that you would have to stop awarding the Supporters Shield with an unbalanced schedule spread across a bunch of "conferences*".


*What are they conferring about anyway?

 

I think the expanded roster and NCAA rules revisions will have a big effect on this...essentially in the prior version of the reserve league you had 4 or 5 first team players on the field who's primary focus was either 1) stay in shape without getting injured or 2) recovery, you had 1 or 2 guest players who wanted the challenge but had no stake in results or impressing coaches, and 5 guys busting their asses to try and stand out and get into the first team squad.

Now there will be some first team guys in the stay in shape or recover modes, but it will be 1 or 2 playing a half each, 7 or 8 guys trying to make the first team squad and 2 or 3 trying to earn a professional contract.

You realize you're really swimming against the tide on this one, and while it may be a 'fad', it is THE proven development system throughout the rest of the world. Cruyff may not have played for a national team until his twenties but he joined the Ajax youth academy at ten.

Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Puyol, Pique, Fabregas, Pedro, Bojan Krkic, Mikel Arteta, Victor Valdes, Pepe Reina...these are just some currently playing youth products. From one club.

To have an academy system is expensive, but many of the costs are relatively fixed and the marginal cost of adding players is low...so if you follow the strategy at all making it a prominent part of your overall effort is not much more demanding than making it a PR effort. Plus playing in lower divisions is not the first step in a development process, it is a finishing step for a process that take 5-10 years.

In todays professional environment, developing players like Najar or Hamid can pay for an entire academy system for several years. Hell, the Arguez transfer fee (yes, not academy related, but illustrative for the purposes of showing fees for unproven prospects) would probably cover a good portion of academy costs for a year.

Gotta disagree with you on this one...Just look at some of the young players coming your of Academy systems since MLS really ramped up on the concept (about 3 years ago IIRC); Najar, Hamid, Shanosky and Agudelo come to mind.

 

Boy, there's a news flash for you! FB is comfortable with things that are "unbalanced"!

 

Of course, modern players get their start in academies, but if you are the owner of a low budget club, you want that to be some other club's academy.

You have to keep in mind that the success rate is remarkably low. A recent study showed that of all the 16 year-olds at professional clubs in England, fewer than 5% are still playing professional soccer five years later. Now that's where there are nearly 100 full time professional clubs and a population a quarter of the US's and soccer experts on virtually every street corner.

And you can throw in the destabilizing effect reliance on academies will have on competitiveness in MLS. It's great for NY or DC or LA, but if you are in Utah, it's pretty grim. Their academy is in Arizona as a result.

For me, this academy thing is just like the designated player -- someone's pet notion that the league can't manage to resist. It won't be the end of Western civilization as we know it, but I suspect you will see more than a few clubs losing interest once they calculate the odds on locating a potential starter and start adding up the costs.

 

5%, for even a limited academy like DCU's that would be a player every other year. But I think your second sentence illustrates why any MLS team should be more successful...they get to be more selective. DCU is in a metropolitan area of 7 million, with no competition for soccer talent.

By your previous argument these are the teams that should benefit the most from academies...saving money that they can spend on marketing - or scouting - and then scooping up everyone else's products

For me the biggest reason that the academies are important, and one of the reasons USSF pushed the development is that before players need to be forged by competition (the whole loaning out to lower divisions) they need to play in an environment where they can learn tactics and strategy without the imperitive to win all game at all costs...there is no other elite level where games are viewed more as learning labs than must-win competitions. Youth clubs, especially elite ones, play for wins.

The US has traditionally fielded strong youth teams at age levels where technical skill and athleticism are the main traits influencing games (upt to U18 or so) at levels where tactical considerations become important the US has fallen off (U20 & U23) only to have to make it up at the senior level. It's not an accident.

A slightly different example...Freddy Adu, one of his coaches at Benfica said Freddy's tactical understanding was equivalent to a 3rd grade level. Part of the reason for that was turning pro as a 15 year old, Freddy neve had the luxury of playing multiple positions, being exposed to multiple tactical approaches, and being allowed to experiment in games. He had one job...help his team win the next game. And all he had to do was know how to play the one or two positions that Nowak wanted him to play in the way Piotr wanted him to play it. Now if he had stayed with Nowak for the next 10 years, that might not have been a problem, but he didn't.

 

Gosh, I would have thought that Freddy's career was evidence that adding young players to a MLS roster was not a good idea. Frankly, I believe almost nothing I hear or read about Freddy and his alleged deficiencies, but let's assume for the moment that when he arrived in Europe his soccer development was somehow stunted. He had just spent 4 (?) years playing for what likes to think of itself as a club committed to sophisticated soccer and for a coach generally thought of as one of the better coaches in the US. And now we think that adding five or six young players to every MLS roster is going to help them develop... I sense a major disconnect here.

Nevertheless, my point remains the same. If I am running a club with a small budget, I want to play the percentages. As players get older, it gets easier to decide who will succeed. I would much rather pick from 20 year olds than from 16 year olds. And if I can get someone else to do the hard and expensive work of training young players, I would be still happier.

 

Well Freddy was in a first team non-developmental setting...as opposed to having a developmental academy for players ranging from ages 14-20 where a handful of 100+ players are getting occasional field time with pros in a reserve game.

And I'll take one more shot at changing your mind. If you run that small team, would you rather pick from 20 year olds who play against college players and over 1 weekend play against a group of about 50 other elite college players. Or from 20 year olds who have played against pros for 2 or 3 years and who's attitude and personality you've seen in practice on a regular basis for that same time? And how many wasted first round picks (at $80-100K) start making your academy look a little more fiscally sensible.

Otherwise, I suppose we have to agree to disagree.

Ooh, and I should say, I'm not one of those posters who hates college soccer...I love it, I think it is great that academy and guest players can now play reserve games and not lose eligibility. I think college soccer has more than shown it is a good option for even elite players. I just think the academy teams produce better players than the alternatives and that, especially in MLS - without a lot of competition from lower-division clubs - they are potentially cost effective if not profitable.

 

There is so much wrong with your post I don't even know where to start.

1. The reserve league won't help player development???? Wondo and Cummings are each products of the reserve league....and they were 2 of the best players in MLS this year, I think that speaks for itself.

2. The "fad" of developing young players has been around just as long as the sport....just because MLS just started doing it doesn't mean it isn't a time tested money/player maker.

3. Developing young players is not expensive, in fact it is relatively cheap....there is a reason many of the smaller poorer clubs (Brazilian/Argentine) rely on the developing/selling of youth just to stay alive.

4. Every, let me repeat EVERY first division side in Europe/South America has a youth set up(I'd wager 2nd/3rd divisions aswell but am unsure about the smaller nations)....I have no idea where you get the notion otherwise.

5. A fan of D.C. United should be able to see how valuable the youth set up is just looking at Najar. This player cost pennies to develop now he is the best player on your team, he is winning games he is selling kits and if he/DC are lucky he could be sold for Altidore money in a few years (10 million). If he is that basically sustains DC's academy for the next 20+years without selling another player....so if Hamid or Conor S or hell someone not signed like Jalen Robinson is sold its all right into DC's pockets or reinvested on the field.

6. Working with the NCAA to do what.....add games? change the rules? Neither of those are really options so basically there is so little that can be done to the NCAA...how do you improve summer leagues?? The players that play in them already do...without improving the quality of player at a younger age (at the academy...) nothing can be done. Most player development is done in player in the early teens, and by the time they are 18-20 the level of growth is severely stunted, that is why academies are so important, and why you can't count on the NCAA to develop players like football and baseball do.

 

This. The stars of the team will probably come from the academy and the solid core role players will come from the draft. That why I think DCU needs to do well in the draft this year with 5 picks. With only 1 more potential slot to add an academy player(assuming Najar and Hamid go to the senior team), DCU will need to draft well in order to do well in 2011(much like NY did in 2010 with Tchani and Ream).