I don't know what reasonable means in this context, but if you're saying that it would be nice for our country to produce a few hundred legitimate domestic 18-year-old (or thereabouts) pro prospects each year, some subset of which could be quickly integrated into very high-level competitive environments, then, sure -- great! My point was simply that I don't think it makes much sense to sign most mid-teens to a pro contract unless you either 1) think he's ready to contribute at a pro level or 2) you have a clear vision of how making that teen professional, rather than an academy player, will help him become a pro contributor or, perhaps 3) you're not quite sure about 1 or 2 but you think it's the only way to keep him from going somewhere else, and you believe he's worth the risk. Otherwise, what does a kid being a pro (as opposed to someone being a trainee in a fully funded academy) really get anyone? Certainly we need more scale, but signing more guys to pro contracts is just part of the issue. There probably also needs to be a better middle step, run by the clubs themselves, that works for young professionals as well as promising amateurs so that it doesn't come down to throwing a bunch of high schoolers into the USL or NASL. (Some will be; that's great.) While we have the PDL and NPSL, NCAA regulations get in the way there because NCAA players can't play alongside pros on the same team. So maybe teams sign more players to more deals and more aggressively offer educational reimbursement. Or maybe they pay up for more high-end prospects and fill out teams with guys who aren't interested in the NCAA. Or ... something else.
Monty, I'll pick door #2. I would hope in 2016 that we have 30 youth players aged 16-18 on a yearly basis that we 'have a clear vision of how making that teen professional, rather than an academy player, will help him become a pro contributor' or rather commit to becoming a professional player and enter a path of intensive training and the ability to be exposed to all that our country has. I do understand your point what is the advantage of signing a professional contract as opposed to staying under an amateur contract in the DA. Its two fold for me. Committing to a professional path for only the top 1% gets a commitment from the team. Correct me if I'm wrong but by committing to that path allows that player to be truly integrated into playing all levels of that path. True development is to be able to quickly expose a player to a standard of play as push objectives. Pulisic for instance is able to play for U19, Standard League, German League, Europa all when the time is right. I would like to see our top players play in the Academy and when the time is right be able to play some USL, US Open Cup, some champions league minutes, and some MLS play for those able to prove they are ready. I may be wrong but an amateur wouldn't be able to prove to the MLS team and be able to play and be challenged and integrated into all they can be. Its the quick decisions that MLS teams need to play not have to wait a full season to advance a player up the ladder. That's too slow.
Well, it sounds like you're talking as much about rules as you are about spending money to sign players. I certainly agree that there are some rules that get in the way -- though I imagine they exist in some form everywhere. Was Pulisic already eligible for Bundesliga minutes when he moved to Dortmund or did he have to be promoted/re-registered in some way? Can the guy wearing #405 on Tijuana's U15s today play in the Liga MX tomorrow if the club wants or does something else have to happen? I honestly don't know.
Hyperbole aside. It just can't happen in MLS like it does on an International Standard. Its about amateur vs pro with MLS limiting rules and not about #405.
I agree, and I think that addressing some of the rules in place right now could make a real difference. For example, it seems to me that there's little impetus for MLS teams to start PDL or NPSL squads because they can't play NCAA players alongside their young professionals. That essentially means they'd need to have fully professional third teams to go along with their USL squads. Not gonna happen tomorrow.
Mildly unrelated: recently I thought it would be interesting if MLS (I genuinely mean the league and not specific teams) either built its own equivalent of the of a PDL/NPSL, or just started a bunch of teams in random places. From there they could fund the teams better than some of the independent owned team, allowing them to have better equipment and coaches. MLS could do specific analytics and have coaches employeed by them as a resource to teams before the draft. If MLS started their own league it would also make sense for the MLS teams with U23 teams to just join. The MLS teams with out the U23 teams wouldn't have to pay the expansion fee, which probably isn't a real reason for lack of adaption but it's a not going to hurt. My thinking was that this could be a response to the smaller role of the draft recently. MLS could directly justify the money by a higher level of play from draft picks because both: players being better, and a bigger wealth of knowledge about the players thus less Dave Romney type players who maybe don't get drafted, but actually end up good enough for real minutes in the league. Maybe indirectly justify it by MLS adding brand appeal that may let them sell more tickets than the current leagues, or sell adverts on streams. It's possible that doing this could even make the league seem like a better investment for people.
I just don't see it is being worth MLS teams' money and effort. College homegrown players are mostly roster filler at this point, and I don't see better PDL coaches as making that big a difference. It might be interesting to see MLS teams start PDL teams populated entirely by academy grads, but again, I'm not sure te cost-benefit analysis would come out in favor of this. I would, however, like to see the U17 and/or U18 academy teams play in the PDL. I like that some of these academy kids get minutes in the USL, but 14 games against college and ex-college kids would be far better for development than facing the weaker DA teams. Granted, the PDL teams might do to them what they do to the weaker DA teams, but it would be great for their development.
I only saw the last 30 minutes of Revs-Galaxy yesterday, but I thought Agudelo was near-perfect in the minutes I saw.
I only watched one MLS game this week. FCD versus TFC. Most under-rated player in this age group might be Marky Delgado. There's not much difference between Delgado and Acosta in terms of USMNT potential........................ Hugely impressed by the progress he's made. And two more players I never see, but for some reason have high hopes for. Steffen, especially. If he can find consistent first team playing time somewhere, I think he can challenge Horvath in this age group. Caleb Stanko and Zack Steffen both started for Freiburg II in their 6-0 thumping of pro side Neckarelz.— Nats Abroad (@Nats_Abroad) May 8, 2016
That is the core question: How many professionals does an academy have to produce to be called a success? Or to reverse things, what fraction of a team's 18 should be homegrown? I would think that the international standard would be less than 1/2; much less for the top leagues. Of course, many academy players fall down a level or two, but in the US that's less of an option since the USL is barely professional. Two every three birth years becoming MLS starters/near-starters seems like a reasonable standard. Here's some names from the Galaxy crop from 1996 Jamieson signed by Galaxy Fujii signed by G2 Amaya signed by G2 Martin originally with G2 now TB2 Mendez don't know what happened to him Quezada UCSB Chavez UCLA Jamieson actually looked very promising but has had concussion issues which has kept him out of playing and just had another knock to his head. It's still too early to say with the other players, but if Jamieson turned out to be the only one to become an MLS starter, that wouldn't be a bad result.
Late '92, not thread eligible. Agudelo, Wood, Lletget, Gyau were all born in the last four months of 1992. While we might lament that this recent Olympic team didn't have many talented attackers, if the cutoff was September of 1992 instead of January of 1993, we would've had a pretty good attack. At the NT level, there is no cutoff or age requirement, nothing like that, so maybe we should realize that our younger attacking options aren't as bad as we thought. Just like with the recent U-17 WC team, what were we missing? A CB and holding mid? Carter-Vickers was one day too old to play CB for that team, and Kyle Scott was 10 days too old to have been a deep lying playmaker that we could've really used in midfield.
Not much of surprise. He wants to explore "more exciting" opportunities. https://t.co/11iLqeVSE2— Nats Abroad (@Nats_Abroad) May 15, 2016
Pertinent players invited to the "transition camp" ahead of PR match: GOALKEEPERS (3): Brad Guzan (Aston Villa), Tim Howard (Colorado Rapids), Zack Steffen (SC Freiburg) DEFENDERS (7): John Brooks (Hertha Berlin), Geoff Cameron (Stoke City), Eric Lichaj (Nottingham Forest), Matt Miazga (Chelsea), Michael Orozco (Club Tijuana), Tim Ream (Fulham), DeAndre Yedlin (Tottenham) MIDFIELDERS (7): Alejandro Bedoya (Nantes), Emerson Hyndman (Fulham), Fabian Johnson (Borussia Monchengladbach), Perry Kitchen (Heart of Midlothian), Alfredo Morales (Ingolstadt), Caleb Stanko (SC Freiburg), Danny Williams (Reading) FORWARDS (5): Paul Arriola (Club Tijuana), Julian Green (Bayern Munich), Fabrice Picault (FC St. Pauli), Amando Moreno (Club Tijuana), Bobby Wood (Hamburg) http://www.ussoccer.com/stories/201...r-transition-camp-and-friendly-vs-puerto-rico Mildly surprised not to see Kiesewetter here.
We'll presumably add to the number of capped USMNTers from this age group (and younger) Emerson Hyndman (Fulham; soon to be a free agent) Julian Green (Bayern Munich) John Anthony Brooks (Hertha Berlin) DeAndre Yedlin (Sunderland) Jordan Morris (Seattle Sounders) Matt Miazga (Chelsea) Kellyn Acosta (FC Dallas) Christian Pulisic (Dortmund) Brandon Vincent (Chicago Fire) Will Trapp (Columbus Crew) Jerome Kiesewetter (Stuttgart; soon to be free agent) Luis Gil (Queretaro) Am I missing anybody? A bunch were called up to the last camp cupcake, but weren't capped.
Emerson is back in the premier league................ http://www.espnfc.us/story/2895978/us-international-emerson-hyndman-signs-bournemouth-deal
Jack McBean signed with the Galaxy first team again, and is starting tonight. Bradford Jamieson has fallen off the face of the earth. I'm assuming that's related to his concussions. Unfortunate because he was a great prospect, but you gotta take care of your head.
Protestations about another lost generation are exaggerated. The highly competitive Copa America roster featured three 93-96 players. The notable thing is that two of those players are the highly exceptional Brooks and Yedlin who already have a world cup under their belt and seem to have an iron grip on the starter position. The true lost generation are the 89-90s. With Altidore out that group has not a single player in the roster in spite of them being at the prime age of 26. A lot of that group has flirted with the USMNT - Adu, Mix, Brek, Chandler, Johannsson and Hamid - but only Jozy has been a true starter.
I wouldn't say the '93-96 generation is a lost generation, but it's really only about average. Its good defensively. Yedlin, Brooks, Horvath who made the Copa America roster. There are some good defensive players there, and those aren't the only ones. The problem is offensively. Qualifying out of CONCACAF was a complete debacle, but we didn't beat Colombia because the gap between we had almost no talent in the opposing half of the field. The generation before that one isn't great, but I think its an exaggeration to claim its a lost generation. The NT coach has refused to give a number of players in that generation a fair chance, for whatever reason.
Shrug. I think we also over-rate the lack quality since the last thing we've seen with this group is their failure against Colombia. [A nation whose senior team is #3 in the world.] Without, it should be mentioned, the three players you've listed above that ended up on the Copa roster. Also without the recovering-from-injury Rubio Rubin, who I hope gets back on track in Holland. [And now you look at the roster for the CONCACAF championships and there are weird selections across the board.] I mean, we can write a starting XI from this age group of guys that are already USMNT players or potential USMNT players. Are there any Zlatan Ibrahimovic's in the group? No, but we already knew that a long time ago. Although, if you ask me, Brooks has the potential to player for a "major" Champions-league caliber club. We don't tend to count him when discussing our development programs, of course. We can, it should be mentioned, take credit for Matt Miazga's development...............a player that recently moved to Chelsea (he's kinda out of sight, outta mind). If we just take a step back and look at the failed 2012 qualifying team, which group would you rather have going forward? How many players on the 2012 U23 CONCACAF Championships team were just on the Copa roster? The answer is............................one. And that was Perry Kitchen, who didn't impact the team. Of the players on that 2012 U23 Championships team, how many currently play for clubs in "big" leagues. The answer is zero. Gyau is on the roster of Dortmund II, but we'll just see if he actually plays for their first team. I have my doubts [There were some players missing from that team for various reasons. Bobby Wood and Alfredo Morales come to mind, who are now on Bundesliga rosters. Altidore wasn't available, although he's now simply an above average, injury prone MLS player.] The 2016 U23 pool is actually a step up from the 2012 pool. Its just that we're not a patient bunch. Its not as much of a step forward as some want as there don't seem to be any offensive "stars." Of course, we did have a player in the 2016 pool get offered a Bundesliga contract recently. Jordan Morris turned it down, and now he's really starting to impact MLS. I think we do a poor job managing our expectations.