YNT-eligible MLS players: 2020 In-season thread

LAFC play Tigres UANL in the CONCACAF Champions Leg final which starts at 10:00 pm eastern on FS2 and TUDN USA.

Phillip Ejimadu, Antonio Leone, Erik Dueñas, Bryce Duke, and Christian Torres are on the bench for LAFC.

 

Well deserved for one of the most underrated young Americans in MLS. He’s going to have a big season next season; NYCFC moved Ring (who many viewed as one of the top mids in MLS) because they believe Parks and Sands are better players. I think it was a perfect move.

Watching LAFC tonight I’m excited to see some youngsters break out for them. After 10 minutes of adjusting they’ve taken control of the game against the best team in North America in the last decade. They still have a half to go but I’ve been impressed .

 

It's interesting to watch the market for young MLS talent shift. European teams seem to be most interested in guys who've shown they can perform in the league while still very young (Adams, Cannon and Aaronson, potentially Reynolds and Busio). It remains to be seen whether demand is there for guys who establish themselves as top performers at an older age.

I really hope guys like Parks, Eryk Williamson, Jeremy Ebobisse and other American U23s can establish themselves as the best in MLS at their positions. But European clubs are not likely to see a lot of potential growth at players their age. And potential is mostly what they're willing to pay for right now. It seems likely that guys like these will remain more valuable to their MLS clubs than to most European suitors.

It could be that by the time these guys get good enough to excel abroad, there's no market for them. As long as that dynamic exists, the "MLSers have no place in USMNT" crowd will have to live with disappointment.

 

There will be some older MLS players that move, if by older you mean early 20s. If you can play at a level of Almiron, you can move. Carlos Gruezo moved. Yangel Herrera at 21. Rossi will move.

Players like Parks, Williamson and Ebobisse will struggle to move for a couple of reasons. For one, they aren't in that upper echelon of MLS players like Almiron or Rossi (though certainly all as good as Gruezo). But more importantly, they don't have the physical upside in most cases.

No matter how good you are, a slow, methodical player is going to end up in a lower European league. This is where Parks is for me unless there's a giant breakthrough there.

 

I’ve been told that both Liverpool and Juventus have informally reached out to #SportingKC in recent days regarding Gianluca Busio.

— Shaun Goodwin (@ShaunGoodwinID) December 22, 2020