To my understanding it's that they're getting legit coaching from people paid by each club. They're also playing in competitions and what not. But basically now there's an established path for clubs to access more talent than before.
Also, for anything on this type of subject(overall stability/level of the USSF system), snowfx2 is pretty in touch with that
So does the people running US soccer. Right now they have parents funding youth soccer, why would they want to take money out of their own pockets?
I think a lot of them are cost free, and the LA Galaxy's, RSL's, and Philadelphia's are more European-like where from 8th-12th grade you train and go to school at the academy.
Saw someone write how the us needs an open system with more tiers of soccer than just MLS. Would incentivize clubs all over to invest money and develop talent in hopes of gaining promotion. Also said clubs need to get solidarity payments which is something that I believe is currently being addressed.
Is there enough interest in soccer in the US for fans to watch (and financially support) some tier two pro league?
I want a pro/relegation system as much as anyone, but league support wouldn't last for most the teams who got relegated
And how do you propose there be a financial incentive. Pro sports teams are incredibly expensive to run. Where is the money coming from?
There's no reason for youth clubs to develop real academies and develop players right now. As long as we keep the pay to play model, the USA will never be a real player in global soccer
I'm saying having an open system will encourage local clubs to invest in talent discovery and development because there is the carrot of promotion and financial reward. Right now there's no reason for any youth club to put money in to either of those things. Instead they sit back and collect a small fortune in a pay to play system that just doesn't work
....the onus is on the pro teams to develop the academies. Barcelona starts getting kids into la masia at age 6. They pump millions of dollars into it every year. The youth that can't hack it join standard teams
Well you can stop dreaming about this because this will never happen in the US for a multitude of reasons. Apologies to those that are reading this thread for discussing Pro/Rel pipe dreams.
There are League 1-2 and below teams in England that have recently shut down academies or don't run one in general because they cost too much money and don't benefit the parent club in 1st team players or selling them off.
And that's why us soccer will never be great. It can't happen because....reasons. As long as there is no incentive to invest in player development, it won't happen. The system we have now in this country won't work, maybe a relegation system isn't the answer but you have to build from the youth level up, not from the top down.
MLS clubs lose thousands on their academies. Not sure every club is 100% free for everybody, but the best prospects are not pay for play. It isn't an profit center to milk suburban parents for cash. Also the incentive is to develop players to feed into your team without having to go through the draft. They also are salary relief against the cap for homegrown players, so you can build a better roster with cheap homegrown players. Sounders got to sign Jordan Morris for instance. LA got to sign Zardes. Dallas has a lot of good prospects like Kellyn Acosta and Jesse Gonzales.
Right but the universe of kids that live in those cities and go to those academies are tiny compared to the size of this country. There needs to be incentive for clubs all over the country to develop kids. I don't know but how do those clubs find the kids that get into those academies? Do they have extensive scouting networks or is it kids that play at showcase events? Kids whose parents have paid for them to be there
You're talking an insane amount of resources. i still feel like there's disconnect here, however. I can only speak to Spanish soccer because that's what I'm familiar with, but you're either good enough to hit an academy or you pay to play in a standard league. Maybe in a few years you develop and a scout recognizes you, but most likely you play soccer just for the enjoyment of it. Also, ODP tries to streamline some of that here.
https://streamable.com/wa3y Zelalem came on as a late sub and made his PK (which is the video above) as Rangers defeated Celtic in an Old Firm semifinal Scottish tournament or something
http://tv.dfb.de/video/23-spieltag-staffel-west-alle-spiele-alle-tore/13950/ Haji Wright also scored a brace in his first match with the U19 Schalke team He's hilariously bigger than everyone else and probably older than everyone.
Scored his first goal for Dortmund. I'm trying to temper my expectations but it is getting harder to do so.
TFC doesn't charge it's kids a dime. VWC are the same and actually have a residence program that will bring kids in from across the country. Canada's top youth player, Alphonso Davies is a 2000 who moved up to VWC2 this year. He's from Edmonton. Not sure about Impact. Zero chance promotion and relegation would work here.
I know he is only 17 but I've promoted him to the USMNT thread discussion. Very excited about him https://twitter.com/bvb/status/723878963618152448
How Atlanta United is making academy waves Article Written by Will Parchman Published: April 26, 2016 Comments Last July, eight teams flew into Carson, California for the final grand showpiece of the 2014-15 Development Academy season. Finals week. Most of the country’s development pillars were in attendance: Real Salt Lake’s record-breaking U18 team, the New York Red Bulls’ one-loss U16 side, an FC Dallas U16 team jam-packed with U.S. youth national team prospects. In fact, seven of the teams in attendance had MLS status in common, an unsurprising wrinkle in an academy increasingly dominated by its more heavily funded and supported MLS giants. But there was one non-MLS outlier, hailing from a part of the country without any real wider reputation for player development. Indeed, there was quite a bit about Georgia United that didn’t conform to the narrative. Georgia United sprang out of the red dirt of the south in 2010, positioned in Atlanta and aiming to change the national discussion about the Deep South’s place in American soccer. Tony Annan, one of the club’s three founders, set the bar high. Five years after its founding, Georgia United pushed its U16 squad into the semifinals of the Development Academy Finals last summer. It was an outrageously bold achievement, made even more impressive by the fact that the club sent four of its own locally-sourced players to the most recent U17 Men’s National Team camp. No club, MLS representatives included, had more. Georgia United’s achievement did not go unnoticed. Georgia United lost to the Red Bulls 2-1 in the DA semifinals. Shortly after the game, the club was approached by Atlanta United representatives with the kernel of an idea. Nobody knew it yet, but Atlanta United was pushing to join the Development Academy for the 2016-17 season, a notion that became an announced reality in October. The only problem was that its infrastructure was lacking, given that it hadn’t yet cobbled together a first team, didn’t have a stadium and was still working on facilities. Atlanta United technical director Carlos Bocanegra sat down with Annan and the club’s representatives to hash out a bold plan to make the nascent MLS club a player on the local and national academy scene far sooner than anyone imagined. What if Atlanta United took technical control of Georgia United’s U16 and U18 academy teams for the 2015-16 season, with the goal of absorbing those two teams whole in time for the 2016-17 season? In the future, Georgia United would continue as a U12, U13 and U14 academy while Atlanta United added readymade nationally successful rosters accruing Homegrown minutes from the beginning of the 2015 season. Beginning this past January, Annan became part of the package deal as the club’s academy manager under recently announced academy director Richard Money. For Annan, the deal sounded like an opportunity. Since starting Georgia United in 2010, all of its coaches and administrators worked for free, opting to pour the pay-to-play funds they received back into the club. “You can’t do that forever,” Annan said. The club still managed to identify and produce top players, including U.S. mega-prospect Andrew Carleton and central midfielder Chris Goslin. Both will likely be in the discussion for starting minutes at next year’s U17 World Cup. But with the added backing of Atlanta United, which recently pledged $60 million to a world class training facility in the Atlanta area, Annan knew they could do even more. As a result, Atlanta United’s proposal has been in place since the beginning of the academy season. Atlanta United has been in technical control of Georgia United’s U16 and U18 teams, both of which are on track to make the playoffs this June. Georgia United may still be the name on the crest, but every one of its players are banking minutes toward Homegrown status according to Annan. If the math works out, Atlanta United could conceivably pull off a major coup and sign the 16-year-old Carleton to a Homegrown deal before playing its first official match. At the end of this season, both teams will assume the Atlanta United name and officially kick off the club's academy as a competitive force. One of the shrewdest moves in American academy history took place in quiet. “I think we thought it was the right thing to do,” Annan said. “We had taken Georgia United pretty much as far as we could resource-wise. We’d tapped every resource we could to make Georgia United work as best it could. Making it to the semifinals last year with that group was pretty much the epitome of what we’d been trying to do. We just felt it was time it got taken to another level that we couldn’t take it to.” Annan’s deep roots in the community over 20 years of youth coaching in the Atlanta area allow him unique perspective on the incoming might of Atlanta United. While some newer MLS clubs entered markets like a bull, raging into every corner of the coverage area in an effort to dominate the youth space, that won’t be Atlanta United’s aim. In fact, Annan thinks there’s space in Atlanta’s bourgeoning development landscape for just about everyone, even after Atlanta United moves into the neighborhood. “I think there will always be a market for pay to play,” Annan said. “There will always be enough kids that want to play the sport where the pay to play model works. I don’t think the MLS club coming into Atlanta is going to change the landscape of that any. In the grand scheme of things, we may 100 kids out of the 60,000 that are registered in Georgia. I don’t think Atlanta United is coming in and destroying the landscape or tearing clubs apart. “Those 100 kids will be exposed to the most resources anybody can offer,” Annan continued. “Training facilities, full time sports science, nutrition, individual coaching plans, training where the first team trains. I don’t think Atlanta United is in competition with any of the clubs in Georgia. We’re not competing for dollars. We’re not competing for numbers. I don’t think there’s any competition between us and the pay to play clubs.” As for the potential of Atlanta United, Annan is predictably bullish. He’s seen firsthand the outsized growth of soccer in the non-traditional south, not far from the small Georgia alcove where USWNT staple and 2015 Women’s World Cup winner Morgan Brian was produced in the same stroke as current Seattle Sounder Andy Craven. Georgia is the home of Clint Mathis, after all, the place that produced one of the greatest and most unpredictable scorers in USMNT history. If Annan is right, Atlanta United is about to tap deeper into a reservoir of talent so rich and unexplored that even he doesn’t know quite how deep it goes. “The potential I think is untapped. It has no ceiling,” Annan said. “If we can get the diverse pool of players into the best facilities, training with the best coaches, having the best plan of development, I think you’ll see a lot more players coming out of the Georgia landscape than you have already. They’re there, but I think just that whole environment that Atlanta United is creating, from the facilities to the resources that the owner (Home Depot billionaire Arthur Blank) is putting behind the academy. The owner is the one who’s saying he wants his academy to be the best academy.”
Viktor Fagerström @ViktorFagerLFC 22m22 minutes ago #LFC have been told they have no chance of landing one of their big targets in the summer, Christian Pulisic. (Maddock)
if Klopp wants to manage Pulisic so bad, he can do it when he becomes the USMNT manager after taking over for JK
Now apparently City and Real are throwing their hats in the ring. Fucking hell, pls stay at Dortmund.
zelly and rangers are playing in the scottish cup final today at 10 am. think i read it's on goltv in the u.s.