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Post by gaprospects on Nov 20, 2018 20:48:02 GMT -5
The Dream tryouts were put on today at the AU Training Grounds today. Did anyone get a chance to go? Hear the real goal is to help stockpile players for the USL AU II team. Makes sense. AU II signed one guy from these tryouts a year ago, and he was an all-conference graduating senior from a strong D1 program. Essentially, he was already the type of player you'd expect to be able to compete for a spot on a USL roster. The fact that he had a personal connection with Tony Annan didn't hurt either.
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Post by gaprospects on Nov 6, 2018 20:08:30 GMT -5
Young Harris College, the little private Methodist school up in the mountains, has the number 1-ranked men's soccer team in NCAA Division II this season. The Mountain Lions are 16-0-1 this season, with the only draw coming in the Conference championship game, which they won 5-4 on penalties.
The team's roster features 30 players, of which four are from the state of GA. The other 26 are all from European countries, hailing from Spain, England, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Austria, and the Netherlands. They'll begin their NCAA tournament run at home this Sunday. The program has been consistently very good at the DII level over the last few years and won a few conference titles, but this season has been their best in recent memory.
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Post by gaprospects on Oct 21, 2018 12:02:49 GMT -5
I mean, let's be real for a minute here. Training compensation doesn't come into play when a player from a youth club signs a contract with a pro team, it comes into play when that player gets sold by said pro team to a different pro team. If you're a player worthy of a seven-figure transfer fee, you've more than made back whatever your family paid in club soccer fees and then some.
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Post by gaprospects on Oct 14, 2018 11:53:06 GMT -5
Is KC playing anyone else tomorrow? Are they playing a UFAs 17s? Yes they are playing the U17s for UFA and another line-up for the SKC U15s vs AU U16s today. Current scores U17s - SKC vs UFA: UFA up 3-1 U15s/16s - SKC vs AU: AU up 6-1 This was SKC's 04's vs. AU's 03's, correct? Also, that UFA team is looking serious. Lost their NT player and a couple of their other top starters to Concorde and they're still balling, already beat AU and NCFC this season.
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Post by gaprospects on Sept 12, 2018 21:34:28 GMT -5
Not taking the bait on the "stealing" comment, but this does raise an interesting question when it comes to training compensation. Ambush is run by the Alpharetta City Parks and Rec department. Should a city government be allowed to be a beneficiary of a theoretical portion of a transfer fee for a soccer player? There's no guarantee that money would go back into the Ambush program and not into some other city initiative, or even the mayor's next installment payment on his recently-acquired yacht. It is not bait. It is a structural handicap that our federation places on clubs. For the benefit of a handful of NFL owners. You can “what if” any topic into the ground. Meanwhile, more of the same. And that’s not good enough. Never said it wasn't a structural handicap, that's extremely obvious and something that hopefully will be addressed. But there's never been any evidence that USSF is pocketing those fees or that they're being redirected to "a handful of NFL owners." Which is funny, because MLS and USSF are not the same thing and have very dissimilar goals, so which sinister entity is to blame in your conspiracy theory? Look, these issues aren't simple and they aren't solved by a simple black or white answer. You can recognize that training compensation would be a massive benefit to the current system without being a magic bullet that ends pay-to-play. You can also realize that implementing that compensation would be a complex problem in itself, otherwise how are you going to solve those potential issues when they arise? The longer people want to just bicker and lob baseless accusations at "the man" without actually coming up with any solutions, the farther we'll be from actually fixing anything.
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Post by gaprospects on Sept 11, 2018 22:19:53 GMT -5
Good luck George. Go man go. Glad AU has him under contract so he won’t go without a transfer fee. Sad that USSF steals the training compensation money and Ambush and other clubs won’t get a thing. Not taking the bait on the "stealing" comment, but this does raise an interesting question when it comes to training compensation. Ambush is run by the Alpharetta City Parks and Rec department. Should a city government be allowed to be a beneficiary of a theoretical portion of a transfer fee for a soccer player? There's no guarantee that money would go back into the Ambush program and not into some other city initiative, or even the mayor's next installment payment on his recently-acquired yacht.
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Post by gaprospects on Sept 7, 2018 16:47:04 GMT -5
It's more of the coach's decision than the club's, in my experience. Obviously it's the club's money that's going into the scholarship but usually when a club scholarships a player, more often than not it's because the coach wants the kid on their team and the kid wants to play for the coach. Nothing else, really.
I doubt that's the answer Pranjic is looking for, though.
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Post by gaprospects on Aug 15, 2018 12:28:05 GMT -5
Most of them were on the 02 team originally. I can only think of 3 02's who were rostered with the 01's out of the gate, and one of those kids is no longer with the club
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Post by gaprospects on Aug 15, 2018 11:38:12 GMT -5
With the AU U17's it will be interesting to see which 03's get opportunities. Right now of the 26 guys on the roster, 25 are 02's. Last year the U17s were heavily loaded with 01's, and by the end of the year half the starting XI was 02's.
The U19's are thin, and the USL team will be rotating probably 4-5 of those kids in throughout the rest of their season. So there should be chances for some of those 02's to play up, and likewise the 03's.
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Post by gaprospects on Aug 6, 2018 22:34:20 GMT -5
Reading through these, really only two things stick out as not being an improvement over what they already had in place.
1) Limiting the substitution moments to 3 per game at U13-14. Not sure if coaches sending 4, 5, 6 players in at once only a couple times a game is really what we're looking for with allowing re-entry.
2) Part-time players are only allowed to practice with the DA team 1-2 times a week, but they aren't allowed to play high school soccer? So their DA teammates will be at practice without them and their non-DA teammates will be playing for their schools? What are those kids supposed to do?
Other than that, this all seems pretty good, looking forward to seeing how it plays out.
EDIT: Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not really sure how the 1-2 times a week practice rule for PT players will be followed. Take AU for example, if there's a kid playing for the standalone 03 team and he's rostered part-time with the 02/03 DA team, how is USSF going to audit how often Tony Annan tells that kid to join in with the DA squad at training? Maybe that's not a strict rule, because it doesn't seem like it could be practically enforced.
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Post by gaprospects on Aug 5, 2018 23:43:56 GMT -5
So I guess the rumors of not having a stand-alone 03 team turned out to be untrue? Is that team still going to play in the adult amateur leagues?
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Post by gaprospects on Jul 10, 2018 21:39:44 GMT -5
Probably referring to this
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Post by gaprospects on Jul 7, 2018 13:27:59 GMT -5
He was on the old GSA 00/01 team for a while, along with a handful of other kids who have at least played for ATL 2 by now. Was at KSA before joining the AU academy
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Post by gaprospects on Jun 27, 2018 18:21:03 GMT -5
Agree that AU lacked creativity in that match, although outside of the striker and a defensive mid playing out of position, all of the other attackers are 02's. That group has a lot of potential but not much experience at this level. With all respect to the striker, the best 01 attacker in the state is with KSA at Southern regionals.
As for the rest of the playoffs, the clear best team left is the Sounders and I'll be shocked if they don't win. Nearly half their starting XI is already playing in USL.
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Post by gaprospects on Jun 27, 2018 17:55:13 GMT -5
Makes sense that the most "ball-in-play" matches seem to be matches with one team controlling possession and the other defending for their lives. Egypt-Uruguay, Argentina-Iceland, Brazil-Costa Rica, Germany-Sweden.
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Post by gaprospects on Jun 23, 2018 16:00:35 GMT -5
Disagree that the pathway is more defined in other sports. MLS is the only one of those leagues with a direct path from the youth leagues into the pros. All of the others force you to either be subjected to a draft, and/or play for free under the guise of "earning a higher education".
And again, that's ignoring all of the opportunities to play soccer abroad, which largely do not exist in those other sports (other than basketball, which you still have to go through college 99% of the time. And the money overseas is tiny compared to the NBA, which was your original point).
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Post by gaprospects on Jun 23, 2018 14:25:59 GMT -5
Totally agree that what's missing with MLS youth development is financial incentive, specifically in the transfer market. It's still better in terms of financial assets for an MLS team to trade a player within the league than sell them abroad, which makes no sense.
But I lose you on the comparison to NFL, NBA, etc. Statistically, far more people are making 7+ figures a year playing soccer than any of those sports. There are literally less than 500 people in the NBA at a given time. Minor league baseball players barely make a living wage. How is that comparison relevant to this conversation?
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Post by gaprospects on Jun 22, 2018 20:39:36 GMT -5
I think that they ignored the GDA in their announcement is evidence that the change is less about giving DA clubs freedom, and more about giving the MLS backed academies the cover they need to play each other a lot more and move towards a tiered DA. I think the MLS and USSF win if there is even more pressure for the top talent to further migrate to MLS affiliated DA clubs. This change is a pretty subtle way of allowing that to naturally happen. Turn the heat up slowly so the non-MLS clubs don't realize they are being boiled (left-behind). Further insulating DA from outside competition, while playing nearly zero home grown players on the MLS first teams, will put US men's soccer even further behind the rest of the world. You should pay closer attention to how many young domestic players are playing on MLS first teams. Seven teenage Americans have appeared in more than half of their team's matches this season. 16 American teens have appeared in total. And the Canadian clubs are playing their kids more, too. We want MLS clubs to operate more like clubs around the world, specifically when it comes to youth development, but then we continue to complain when MLS clubs take steps towards that goal? We want players in our domestic league to be challenged day in day out in training because iron sharpens iron, but then we complain when MLS signs foreign players that increase that challenge for those players? So much of what is said concerning youth development in USSF, MLS, etc. is contradictory at best, hypocritical at worst. We all should think a bit about the depth of these issues before just declaring an outcome.
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Post by gaprospects on Jun 10, 2018 9:02:57 GMT -5
AU takes 19 guys on road trips in case someone in the 18 gets injured and needs to be replaced. AC was the 19th guy on Saturday. Seems like a bit of a waste imo, but considering that Almiron injured his shoulder and Villalba is still out, it seems like there's a better chance he'll play on Wednesday vs. Columbus.
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Post by gaprospects on May 22, 2018 12:56:58 GMT -5
So I don't know when he was actually playing with the Revs Reserves (who have only existed since Fall of 2016) vs. when he was with the Haiti U17's. I also don't know how long if at all he was in the Atlanta-area prior to Fall of 2016. Somehow Bob Bradley found this guy and he's been with LAFC since preseason in January. So if AU didn't know this kid existed when they were picking their first ever academy rosters, there doesn't seem to have been much of a chance for them to bring him in later.
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Post by gaprospects on May 22, 2018 12:36:44 GMT -5
LAFC signs the former Haitian U17 MNT captain. Thought this was interesting because this is a kid that actually has some local GA Soccer connections. Saint-Duc played in the ADASL Amateur League with the Georgia Revolution Reserves. This is the same league that Atlanta United's 02's spent this season playing in, and the champion of this league actually tried to qualify for the US Open Cup and almost did.
So here's a kid who, as a 16-or-so-year old teenager, was playing outside of the GA Soccer youth system on a men's amateur team, and two years later he's on an MLS roster. Really interesting case study on the talent that exists in this city and state in some of the least obvious places.
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Post by gaprospects on May 22, 2018 12:29:21 GMT -5
On-site reporter at NYCFC training who asked Vieira directly about the Nice rumors, seems this might not actually be as advanced as it was thought
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Post by gaprospects on May 19, 2018 18:36:46 GMT -5
Leaving may be a shift away from DA. DA on boys side has proven ineffective based on USMNT results. Womens side never had GDA and look at their results. One has to wonder if there is a correlation? The class of NT-level boys 97-02 is deeper and more talented than any group the US has ever had, and they were almost entirely trained in the DA. A handful have broken through at the senior national team level, and many more are on the way. The main reason the WNT does well is because unlike on the men's side, most of the rest of the world sees soccer as a masculine sport and therefore pours far less resources into women's soccer than we do. This is an attitude that is slowly changing, and lots of countries have taught their women's teams to play some beautiful, tactically-sound soccer. This generation of US players is not going to be able to win solely on superior athleticism like the last one, and this is being reflected in increasingly poor performances at YNT tournaments. In contrast, the men's youth national teams are coming off of their best year ever in 2017, with both the 17's and the 20's reaching the quarterfinals. Again, nearly all of the players in those teams are products of the DA, and the majority of them are already making an impact at the professional level. Currently, the highest level girls players are committing to D1 schools as high school freshmen and playing there for four years. As we've seen on the men's side, college is not the best environment for developing players, and with the rest of the world making the strides it is, I don't think NWSL can afford to rely on it to supply teams with quality young domestic talent.
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Post by gaprospects on May 19, 2018 0:27:39 GMT -5
OCSC boys DA is now located out of Montverde Academy, yes. An NWSL team leaving the DA would be a massive blow to the credibility of NWSL as a league, in my opinion. I don't think the league has a mechanism for promoting players from youth teams into the professional clubs at this point, but surely that's the point of those clubs having DA teams? If one of the more prominent NWSL clubs doesn't see it that way, it could have a very big impact on the league as a whole. Wouldn't it be the opposite? An NWSL team dropping GDA would indicate a loss of confidence in the DA program, not vice-versa, since one has been around for a little while and the other is brand new. The news across the board is IMO rather resounding. After one year, GDA is a bit of a failure, with so far at least 8 major clubs pulling their membership. US Soccer needs to reevaluate all the people it put in place on the girls side and really consider changes and new leadership. That's kind of my point, an NWSL club does not see the DA as a viable method of developing first team players. But as of now (and the foreseeable future), there is no other way for an NWSL club to develop first team players, at least in a way for them to promote those players directly into their squads. That's a serious red flag for NWSL's viability and long-term stability as a professional league.
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Post by gaprospects on May 18, 2018 22:07:46 GMT -5
OCSC boys DA is now located out of Montverde Academy, yes.
An NWSL team leaving the DA would be a massive blow to the credibility of NWSL as a league, in my opinion. I don't think the league has a mechanism for promoting players from youth teams into the professional clubs at this point, but surely that's the point of those clubs having DA teams? If one of the more prominent NWSL clubs doesn't see it that way, it could have a very big impact on the league as a whole.
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Post by gaprospects on May 18, 2018 15:26:00 GMT -5
Saying that all of these clubs are not close together is sort of a byproduct of NC having 3 sort of metro areas as opposed to one large metropolis like Atlanta. But agree with most of what else is here. With the number of non-DA clubs around here and how spread out the best players are (especially at U11), it wouldn't make much sense to do this here. But it would be cool for the AU juniors to get to play some matches together
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Post by gaprospects on May 18, 2018 11:08:08 GMT -5
www.charlottesocceracademy.com/Default.aspx?tabid=445284&mid=468859&newskeyid=HN1&newsid=40131003&ctl=newsdetail from the Charlotte SA press-release. Teams involved will be Carolina Rapids, Charlotte Soccer Academy, Charlotte Soccer Academy – North, Discoveries Soccer Club, North Carolina Fusion, North Carolina FC Youth – Del Sol, North Carolina FC Youth – North, North Carolina FC Youth – South, and Queen City Mutiny Games will be scheduled in conjunction with the existing U12 DA schedule, same 22-26 player roster size, same 9v9 competition, etc. Interesting development that could be coming to GA soon? With the AU junior's program in full swing, you have to wonder, right?
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Post by gaprospects on May 12, 2018 16:34:03 GMT -5
Upsets and drama so far! Glynn Academy goes down to Alpharetta 3-2, and Chattahoochee defeats Cambridge 2-1 in overtime.
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Post by gaprospects on May 11, 2018 10:38:19 GMT -5
Definitely some questions about their week-to-week competition. Their last 2 playoff games both were 1-0 wins against northern suburban teams
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Post by gaprospects on May 11, 2018 10:18:31 GMT -5
It all happens tomorrow at McEachern HS, games start at noon and go until like 9:30. Quick previews:
Boys 7A: South Forsyth vs. Lambert
The news here is that Gwinnett County isn't going to win the title this year for the first time in a long time. Instead, we get two schools within 5 miles of one another who have played each other twice this season already. South are very solid up the spine and win on strength and set pieces. Lambert are a much more free-flowing, possession-based team who score a lot of goals. Lots of familiarity between players and contrasting styles should make for a great final.
Boys 6A: Cambridge vs. Chattahoochee
Another match-up between region rivals. Cambridge have to be the favorites here, having only lost once all year. They're led by a junior who's one of the best players in the state, already committed to a major D1 program (you don't see a whole lot of that in HS these days). Hooch probably don't have the same talent level but they've been here before and know how to get the job done in pressure situations. Both teams have excellent center back pairings and will be tough to break down, so this could be decided by a single mistake.
Girls 7A: Milton vs. Parkview
Two of the state's heavyweights this season with just 3 losses between them make for a fitting final. Parkview's lead striker broke a school record with 30-something goals so they'll be looking to her to make it happen in this one. Milton last won in 2012, and one of the starters from that team is a coach with this team.
Girls 6A: Alpharetta vs. Glynn Academy
This seems like a David vs. Goliath-type match-up. Glynn Academy are the only South GA school coming to McEachern on Saturday. They've won all 21 games they've played this season, they've outscored their opponents 110-6, and they haven't been scored on in a month. Meanwhile Alpharetta finished 4th in their region and have knocked off some excellent teams already, including the team that won their region in the semifinals. Will they have anything for the juggernaut from Brunswick?
If anyone else has anything about these games or other classifications feel free to pitch in.
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