Arsenal invade Denver...What Does The Partnership Mean???

The dust is settling on the big announcement out of Denver. For the past week rampant speculation had the Rapids changing their name to Arsenal, Kroenke Sports buying a piece of the historic club and the Rapids signing some really high profile player for their vacant Designated Player spot. Well my friends, none of these things happened. However, the Colorado Rapids and Arsenal FC of London did sign an historic partnership agreement.

The partnership agreement has three main points. 1) Inception of a Center of Excellence (COE) at Dick's Sporting Goods Park 2) Development of the Arsenal Cup 3) Arsenal building their brand in the US.

If I am connecting the dots correctly, points 1 & 2 could be very big for the development of the game in the US, especially at the youth level.

1) Inception of a Center of Excellence at Dick's Sporting Goods Park: This will no doubt be multi-faceted and can either be great or a disappointment. I see it being great if coaches from London come over and help the Rapids with coaching techniques for all levels. Since MLS is starting youth teams at each club this season, now is the time for international help coaching the youngsters. If this COE is successful the Rapids could have a couple home grown players joining the senior team in five years or so. Arsenal has one of the top youth systems in England and the Rapids will do well taking that system and adapting it here.

The COE will also have an impact on college soccer in the US. If the Rapids youth system graduates one player a year to the senior team, there are going to be ten or more other guys going to college. Training at a professional level will no doubt benefit the college programs signing Rapids academy players. In some ways it will be like another Bradenton is opening up in Denver, but the best from the region will join the Rapids, not the best from the entire nation.

After a recent conversation with Rapids coach John Murphy I was shocked at the level of competition for young players in Denver. Hopefully having Arsenal knowhow in the Rapids Academy, more and more players will be interested in joining the club as opposed to staying with their current clubs.

2) Development of the Arsenal Cup: This is going to be great. Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado will host a youth invitational tournament under the name of Arsenal. The winner of the tournament will go to London to play against the Arsenal U-17 team. This makes the tournament seem focused on U-17 clubs but who cares. I've been waiting for a Dallas Cup type of event in Denver and now we're getting the start. Hopefully this is something that can grow into a great soccer event.

On the youth development side of things it will be exciting for these kids to play at a great complex with the prize being a trip to London. The winners of this cup will have an amazing life experience which will serve as motivation for teams from around the US. A great prize!

There are some Rapids fans out there who are disappointed with the result of the big news we waited over a week for. At first I was surprised to hear Jeff Plush say, "Colorado Rapids." I really had gotten used to the new rumored name of Colorado Arsenal or Arsenal Colorado. As a Tottenham fan I didn't want to, but I had been in Arsenal territory the day they won the Premiership in 1998, so I could get used to that name. Since the dust has cleared on the whole deal I am excited to keep the Rapids name and gain the things I wrote about above. Overall I do think this is the dawning of a new age of the Colorado Rapids. Here's hoping some of this sharing will equal wins on the field and more fans in the stands.

Cheers Arsenal, you're going to help the Americans catch up to your high level of football and I am thankful for it.

Carnival of Soccer VII...Youth Be Served...

In some ways it is hard to imagine that we are on the seventh installment of the Carnival of Soccer. Then again, who am I to talk because I think I have written for one or two of them only. So here we are, Number 7. I decided to offer to host because the suggested topic is right up my alley. For those who don’t know, there is a magical soccer blogger email distribution list. Every once and awhile someone starts the call for the Carnival of Soccer. A blogger volunteers to host, picks a question, and gives the other bloggers time to respond. As I said, this is the seventh time it has been done.

Without further ado…..the Question…

“What does MLS have to do to keep/lure the best and brightest young American soccer talent?”

That was the question posed to the world of soccer bloggers. How many bloggers? I have no idea, as I said, the list is magical and things just float out into cyberspace from my fingers. I can’t tell you if a response of four is good or poor based on some percentage, because I don’t know how many bloggers have been receiving my call to arms. However, I can tell you that I enjoyed reading everyone else’s ideas and putting together my own.

First off, I’d like to thank Jeff Carlisle of ESPN.com for his contribution… Ok, just kidding. It is nice timing that Jeff just published this article on youth bolting. I’d like to think he is on the soccer bloggers list and stole our idea. However, I doubt it.

I’ll also take this opportunity to link to Robert Zigler’s recent take on the youth development going on down south with the Houston Dynamo. Thanks for your indirect contribution, Robert.

To kick things off here, we’ll start with Jeff from It's a Simple Game. Unfortunately, when I try to open this blog, I get a Blogger error. Technology, sometimes I just want to shake my fist at you! Funny enough, my blog was giving me the same error earlier this morning, so hopefully I can come back and revise my comments yet this morning.

Next we’ve got Jason from ZigaZoga. Actually, you’re going to see three posts from ZigaZoga and I believe they were each written by different contributors to the ZZ community. Thanks for all pitching in folks!
ZZ #1, ZZ#2 , ZZ #3 and *all new* ZZ #4. I got a laugh out of the first post that totally disses my question. However, this is the US and speech is still free. Enjoy the ZZ crew’s work.

Thank you for everyone’s submissions. It is always fun to get a lot of ideas on from one question.

Now, to mine…And Chris, I do think this is a valid question.

In some ways I feel like I have talked about this in the past a lot, so those of you who read regularly, please don’t go back and quote me to point out a contradiction. The following are my thoughts today and I reserve the right to have different thoughts today then in the past and in the future.

The knee jerk answer to the above question is, “Pay them more.” First off, remember that we are talking about best and brightest, not Supplemental Draft picks. As I discussed recently, not everyone in MLS should be making the big bucks. Secondly not everyone is motivated by money. Some of these kids will have dreamt of playing in Norway for their entire lives. Ok, I kid. But in all seriousness, MLS has sent the message that they want Americans to stay in America. Those young guys who have always dreamt of going to Europe will take the lower level European League over MLS with the dream of making a switch to a bigger league down the road. Guys like Oguchi Onyewu are proving that hard work in a second tier European league can pay off. Guys like Shalrie Joseph are proving that MLS will not easily let you go (I know Joseph isn’t an American citizen but he was a US college player and is being treated as an American by our domestic league.)

What MLS needs is a plan, and I’m here to give it to them. The Goal: retain more quality, young American soccer talent. To be clear, the league needs to sign the likes of Charlie Davies, Robbie Rogers, Benny Feilhaber, Lee Nguyen, Oguchi Onyewu, Jonathan Spector and Preston Zimmerman before they go abroad to start their careers. Once in the league we won’t be able to keep them forever, but watching the above players grow for a couple years would be better then watching Seth Trembly trip over himself.

Step 1: Improve scouting of American players. Since the league owns all player contracts and benefits from selling players to other leagues, they need to know everyone available to them. This means the league needs to create a scouting office that keeps tabs on all successful youth, college and National Team players. Right now the focus seems to be limited to the Bradenton residency camp and U-20 player pool. When one of these kids goes to college they are followed. The league should be casting a wider net. Additionally, the league shouldn’t see a player already in Europe and turn away. They should actively follow American’s abroad with the idea that someday a contract could expire making a well trained player available on a free.

Step 2: Expand reserve team rosters while also making the entire reserve team outside the salary cap. At the same time, say that all American’s under 24 years old are considered on the reserve team. Currently Generation Adidas players do not count on the cap but other young Americans do. This puts pressure on the teams to push down the salaries of some of the best and brightest who did go through four years of college. There is no reason for the league to punish college graduates. My best example…Jonathan Bornstein. In 2006 he signed a contract for $28,000. In 2007 he earned his first cap for the National Team and scored the game winning goal in a friendly. His stock is rising quickly and if he gets dissatisfied with his MLS deal, he’s going to have a move to Europe itch worse than Clint Dempsey. In fact he’ll be the new Clint Dempsey. If the league considered him a reserve player until his 24th birthday, they could have offered more money right out of the gate (this is also dependant on a good scouting system, so change won’t be over night.) MLS is lucky Bornstein was not working with an agent telling him to go to Europe, because if he had been he probably would already be on my list above or would have gone on a post draft sojourn similar to Greg Dalby. The goal of this change would be to allow more players like Bornstein to come into the league, grow and prosper while making a good living wage.

This is also where Step 1 ties in. If the league does a better job of scouting and can sign more talented young players without having to worry about the salary cap, we’ll see more players like Bornstein who deserve a shot but can’t get one in the current set up.

Step 3: Develop a full academy system at each club and don’t worry too much about how it is run (remember, this is a plan for the league.) Allow the clubs to make the choices; don’t burden them with too many rules. At this point something is better than the current set up where a couple clubs are running youth teams, but not all clubs, and the player chain isn’t integrated to the reserve and senior team.

I know MLS has said that each club will be running a couple youth teams this season, but with all of the Beckham bru-ha-ha the youth development system has been swept under the carpet. Here we are at the start of pre-season and we know little about the plans. So I’m just saying that MLS had better do this one right. I think they will but I have to wait and see.

There you have it, my three step plan to help keep young American soccer stars on our soil. However, there is one last thing. MLS needs to learn they can’t keep talent here forever. Each year select stars are going to be sought after by foreign clubs. There is no way to get around that; it is the way of a global sport where the US is at the bottom of the pecking order. The league needs to use the above plan, to have more native talent in the pipeline so that when one is sold; five more are trying to fill in. Make a smooth transition for players leaving and you’ll be able to keep the light on for them when they want to return. Don’t turn every young American into Clint Dempsey. Foster transfers, make your profit on the sale and watch as more talented youngsters pop up. If a good system bringing players in is created, they’ll be more talent coming in then going out. That is the goal here.

Young American Keepers Going Abroad...Because There Is No Room At Home...

Each year, after the college season ends and before MLS kicks off we start seeing reports of young Americans testing the European soccer waters. Players of all positions give it a go, but it seems Goalkeepers are among the most successful. This year young prospects Tally Hall and Chris Konopka are trying to join the long list of successful American keepers playing abroad. Both were drafted by MLS clubs but they have decided to try their luck on the other side of the pond. Konopka is awaiting a Polish passport to sign with Cardiff City while Hall is considering an offer from top Danish side, Esbjerg fB.

Names like Kasey Keller, Brad Friedel and Tim Howard are well known by all American soccer fans. They're starting keepers in the English Premier League and two of three got their start in MLS. We can't forget about Adin Brown and Marcus Hahnemann. Two more keepers holding down the starting job professionally in European top leagues and two more keepers who earned their current jobs by impressing in MLS.

Hall and Konopka are not the first American keepers to try Europe before MLS, however it seems this is becoming the preferred route for young American keepers. Both of the young Americans fell in the draft. While I don't have information as to why the highly regarded and skilled Hall fell to the last round of the SuperDraft I assume there were two factors. 1) MLS clubs have a couple talented keepers already on the books 2) Hall was already looking to see his options abroad.

I contend that reason #1 is the heart of the matter. Hall was no doubt looking abroad before the MLS draft because he knew his value wouldn't be too high with clubs already deep in keepers. The LA Galaxy drafted Hall and they in no way need another keeper on the bench with Joe Cannon, Steve Cronin and Josh Saunders already on the bench. Cannon has established himself as the best keeper in MLS, Cronin was a highly touted college prospect himself a few short years ago and Saunders is no slouch after splitting time between the Gals and USL-1 Timbers. With keepers being able to play well into their late thirties (Onstand and Meola I'm looking at you) how is a young keeper supposed to break through and earn a starting job and bigger paycheck. At a certain point it becomes impossible when ten keepers are being drafted into the league each season and only a couple leave.

The US is for some reason a perfect breeding ground for soccer goalkeepers. It must be all the good food we eat, making taller and bigger kids every year. At young ages their coaches put them between the pipes and they stay there. We've got a glut of goalies and we're starting to bust at the seams.

Hall and Konopka seem to be making the right move for their careers and I have no doubt this trend will continue and expand. American keepers are in demand abroad why should they rot on the bench while old farts like Pat Onstad continue to mind the nets. This is one situation where I'm happy to see young players bolting from MLS and the USL. We've got enough quality in our league...and the young guys shouldn't be waiting around for an opportunity to prove their worth.