FCTP Observations...4/2/07...
To those of you who felt like FCTP left you in the lurch over the past week, I apologize. I took a vacation and went skiing in lovely Breckenridge, Colorado for an entire week. It was nice to not feel compelled to check Big Soccer, MLSnet.com and ColoradoRapids.com a few times a day. I did have my Blackberry with the BBS Football page bookmarked, so I was more of a Eurosnob last week.
Now I'm back and better then ever. We're in the final week of the MLS off-season. Denver soccer fans are buzzing about the new stadium. I drove around Dick's Sporting Goods Park on Sunday with my wife and she was genuinely excited about the home opener and getting a light blue shirt to support her Rapids. The rest of the MLS fans around the country are no doubt excited to see what their off-season improvements will mean over the long 2007 season.
The 2007 off-season may be the most active since the league was created. Everyone heard about David Beckham inking a contract with the league. Other famous faces on the field in '07 will include: Conor Casey, Claudio Reyna and Cuauhtémoc Blanco. Other new faces will include the 2007 draft class, or what is left of it, and young Americans like Robbie Rogers who rode the boomerang back across the pond.
Beyond new players joining the league there is a new team starting play in Toronto and two new soccer specific stadiums opening their gates for the first time. As Deputy Commissioner Gazidis recently said, "MLS continues successfully to build a strong and permanent business infrastructure for the sport of soccer in the United States." If Columbus stadium was the snowball at the top of the mountain, Colorado and Toronto have added some significant weight to the MLS snowball storming down the mountain. MLS is showing that contraction stumbles are behind it and the future is bright for the World's Game in the USA.
I could go on and on about the off-season changes that happened between 2006 and 2007, but I know you come here to read about youth soccer players moving up the ranks. So let's again focus on them. Today the league unveiled what they are calling Game First initiatives. Many of these are not related to my topic, but they are interesting to see how the league is trying to elevate the level of the game here in the USA. I applaud MLS for taking these steps to make sure the game continues to improve here. It has to for its long term survival.
The biggest thing I've been waiting to hear about is the league's vertical player development system hinted at so long ago. Here's the new information:
Ok, not totally helpful but at least we now know that young players like Johnny X in NY won't need to go through the MLS draft. The rest of the youth development system will continue to leak out in small bits from the teams themselves. To be honest, I'm ok with that. I don't want a league mandated system making every team do the same thing. Giving the individual clubs the power to make decisions on their programs, based on the local club landscape, means better success in the different regions of the country. Having one league policy would create a program that is too hard to work with most likely. Also, multiple clubs running in different directions should help each other develop their own ideas by watching each others successes and failures.
Another change coming in 2007 is to the playoff structure. Many MLS fans and detractors point to the regular season being "worthless" because four teams in each six team conference make the playoffs. Now with uneven conferences the potential to complain is that much bigger. However, MLS will now send the top two teams in each conference into the playoffs with four "wild cards" which have highest point-totals in the standings, regardless of conference. You still have eight teams making the playoffs but you no longer have a weak team from one conference stepping in to make some noise in the post season after dogging it during the rest of the season. In 2006 LA may have made the playoffs under these new rules, depending on the tie breaker. Similarly, LA may not have made the playoffs in 2005 depending on tie breakers. This new format will hopefully keep the average teams working hard during the regular season, knowing that wins will put them in the wild card spot.
All in all I'm really looking forward to the 2007 MLS season, more then any season before. Throughout the week I'll gather information about the rookies and the second year players who are fighting to make that opening day roster. Are you ready for some Football!?!?!!!!!!
Now I'm back and better then ever. We're in the final week of the MLS off-season. Denver soccer fans are buzzing about the new stadium. I drove around Dick's Sporting Goods Park on Sunday with my wife and she was genuinely excited about the home opener and getting a light blue shirt to support her Rapids. The rest of the MLS fans around the country are no doubt excited to see what their off-season improvements will mean over the long 2007 season.
The 2007 off-season may be the most active since the league was created. Everyone heard about David Beckham inking a contract with the league. Other famous faces on the field in '07 will include: Conor Casey, Claudio Reyna and Cuauhtémoc Blanco. Other new faces will include the 2007 draft class, or what is left of it, and young Americans like Robbie Rogers who rode the boomerang back across the pond.
Beyond new players joining the league there is a new team starting play in Toronto and two new soccer specific stadiums opening their gates for the first time. As Deputy Commissioner Gazidis recently said, "MLS continues successfully to build a strong and permanent business infrastructure for the sport of soccer in the United States." If Columbus stadium was the snowball at the top of the mountain, Colorado and Toronto have added some significant weight to the MLS snowball storming down the mountain. MLS is showing that contraction stumbles are behind it and the future is bright for the World's Game in the USA.
I could go on and on about the off-season changes that happened between 2006 and 2007, but I know you come here to read about youth soccer players moving up the ranks. So let's again focus on them. Today the league unveiled what they are calling Game First initiatives. Many of these are not related to my topic, but they are interesting to see how the league is trying to elevate the level of the game here in the USA. I applaud MLS for taking these steps to make sure the game continues to improve here. It has to for its long term survival.
The biggest thing I've been waiting to hear about is the league's vertical player development system hinted at so long ago. Here's the new information:
The Youth Development program allows for teams that invest in player development to reap competitive rewards for their efforts. Players who are part of an MLS club's Youth Development program for at least 24 months become eligible to sign directly with that team instead of entering the MLS SuperDraft.
Ok, not totally helpful but at least we now know that young players like Johnny X in NY won't need to go through the MLS draft. The rest of the youth development system will continue to leak out in small bits from the teams themselves. To be honest, I'm ok with that. I don't want a league mandated system making every team do the same thing. Giving the individual clubs the power to make decisions on their programs, based on the local club landscape, means better success in the different regions of the country. Having one league policy would create a program that is too hard to work with most likely. Also, multiple clubs running in different directions should help each other develop their own ideas by watching each others successes and failures.
Another change coming in 2007 is to the playoff structure. Many MLS fans and detractors point to the regular season being "worthless" because four teams in each six team conference make the playoffs. Now with uneven conferences the potential to complain is that much bigger. However, MLS will now send the top two teams in each conference into the playoffs with four "wild cards" which have highest point-totals in the standings, regardless of conference. You still have eight teams making the playoffs but you no longer have a weak team from one conference stepping in to make some noise in the post season after dogging it during the rest of the season. In 2006 LA may have made the playoffs under these new rules, depending on the tie breaker. Similarly, LA may not have made the playoffs in 2005 depending on tie breakers. This new format will hopefully keep the average teams working hard during the regular season, knowing that wins will put them in the wild card spot.
All in all I'm really looking forward to the 2007 MLS season, more then any season before. Throughout the week I'll gather information about the rookies and the second year players who are fighting to make that opening day roster. Are you ready for some Football!?!?!!!!!!
Labels: Game First Initiatives, MLS, Youth Development
posted by Bonji at
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