DrewDawg said:
We need more academies. I know the MSL teams have them, but that needs to flood down to other leagues--and I'm sure in some cases they do have them--hell, the NPSL team here now has one.
But there's no budget. Who's really out looking at the various U14 or U16 tournaments? And the few people that are looking, are they looking at the right things?
Hopefully JK now takes time to build on this--stressing that the work needs to be done at the youth levels.
First of all, as punishment for writing "MSL", you are hereby sentenced to be talked at by Alexi Lalas for the next 24 hours.
Second of all, yes, there's a money problem. It's out of the question financially for minor league operations to fund an academy. In some cases they might form agreements with local clubs, but that amounts to little more than a branding exercise.
I think you've identified one of the key questions about MLS academies, which is who exactly are the youth coaches? In many cases they are former pros, mostly American. That's fine, as long as they are constantly evaluated and trained, etc. The problem I see is that the academy directors are also often former American pros without many credentials. I'm not saying that ex-MLS players can't be great youth coaches, but I am saying that academy director shouldn't be one of the first two rungs of coaching career ladder. I'd like to see clubs bring in foreign expertise to oversee the academy and focus on coaching development. D.C. United brought a Dutch guy from Ajax's academy. He may or may not be a success, but the point is that we should be doing more of that sort of thing.
The other thing is that there hasn't been enormous ROI yet. Hopefully Yedlin gets sold for big money and that opens eyes. Andy Najar was sold to Anderlecht for around $2m and Richard Sanchez was just sold to Tigres for an unknown sum. Of course, developing players to have them and win games provides value as well.
I'm hoping that one club grabs the bull by the horns and takes the lead on this. I want someone to step up and show the rest of the league how it's done, establish best practices, and force everyone else to catch up. FC Dallas and LA Galaxy are sitting on talent goldmines; Dallas's youth teams in particular annihilate their opposition. Both use academy products in their first team now, but neither have truly hit a home run yet. Kellyn Acosta could be the first real homegrown star for Dallas. Real Salt Lake has established the first residential academy in Arizona and there seems to be a ton of talent coming through. We'll see.
Another thing to consider is the temptation to just poach talent and not focus on improving the market's developmental baseline. As good as DeAndre Yedlin is, Seattle's academy didn't have much of an effect on him. He was recruited prior to his senior year in high school, so he only spent one year with the Sounders U18s before heading off to Akron. After two years in Ohio, he signed with Seattle and the rest is history.
It's obviously a good thing that players like Yedlin have a clearer path to MLS -- before the HGP rule, he'd have had to wait until the end of his college career unless he was offered a generation Adidas contract, which only a handful of underclassmen get each year. But Seattle's gotten a big reward without expending much effort. The recruit/poach method is good because more pro-ready players will get pro opportunities without unnecessary delay, but part of me hopes that that avenue isn't too successful because I want MLS teams not just to vacuum up existing talent produced in the region, but to raise the bar entirely.