Well considering De Gea can't get a sniff in the squad. I'm going to disagree with guy

Don't really know how to figure out a number, but I'd think Geoff is a top 200 CB? He just hasn't played CB lately, but he has started there in the EPL and for the USMNT and there is still a non zero chance he pairs with Besler in Brazil.

Pumped some good players are not playing lol college soccer. Dembakwi Yomba just signed with Atletico Madrid!!! and Andrija Novakovich signed with Reading.

**** the ncaa

NCAA isn't the problem in college soccer

They're overrated just like Spanish midfielders.

When the US has a single player that could play in any position on Spain's under 21 side, let me know.

College soccer in general is the problem.

I totally agree with this, but this still isn't enough for me to not buy season tickets to my hometown's college team. I am stuck supporting UL soccer even though I don't want to support college soccer.

Saying College Soccer is the problem with development of pros/national team players is like saying high schools should stop putting on musicals because they're not the optimal method of preparing young actors for the Broadway stage. A) It misses the point, B) developing national teamers isn't what college soccer is for, and C) having the college system in place is leaps and bounds better than the current alternative.

There's plenty of things that could be fixed about the pipeline. Optimal development for national team prospects should definitely include jumping right to the league a la Agudelo and others... but it cracks me up to see college soccer vilified as one of the main problems with our National Team...it isn't.

In the meantime, while we are developing the youth infrastructure (and we are making good steps), there's not even close to enough money involved (yet) to cast the talent-seeking net wide enough to include everyone without the college system. Like, we're off by several orders of magnitude.

It's a good thing we have NCAA coaches and programs that can find and showcase the talent that the professional teams miss. Suboptimal development > none.

Based on Ives most recent projections of who makes the 23-man roster, here is a list of who did and did not play in college soccer:

Played College (10):
G: Guzan(2)/Rimando(2)
D: Cameron(4)/Besler(4)/Gonzalez(2)/Evans(4)/Goodson(3)
M: Dempsey(2)/Bedoya(4)/Zusi(4)
F: none

Did Not Play College (13):
G: Howard
D: FJohnson/Orozco/Beasley
M: Donovan/Bradley/Jones/Beckerman/Diskerud
F: Altidore/Johannsson/Boyd/EJohnson

If we assume Wondo > Boyd right now, he played 4 years at Chico State.

Pretty sure Bradley played in college

poor demps

Wait **** wondo played for osu? No wonder I hate that guy

I thought he was a project 40 guy, back when that was what it was?

Yeah, I was pretty sure he went to MLS at like 16 (and wikipedia confirmed)

College soccer is actually a major roadblock for the development of the national team. There are many restrictions in place that dictates how much time coaches are able to train players. Take away the college system and replace it with MLS clubs running true, full time, academies that is free to players and then you would see players improve at a much faster rate. Better coaching and more time on the practice field would rapidly increase the quality of players available for MLS and the National team setup.

Considering that a lot of MLS owners come from other sports that use the collegiate system as a developmental program means that there won't be any meaningful changes in the near future.

Should someone tell this guy he's wrong, or am I going to be the one to do it?

You can tell me

Every MLS club has an academy. The best ones (RSL, LA, Dallas, NY, even TFC for all their professional level faults) are producing players who regularly feature on youth national teams and full national teams.

On top of that, you have the agreements from last season between MLS and USL that allows MLS teams to loan out up to 5 of their youth players to USL squads. LA wasn't happy with that setup though, so they actually started their own USL team for youth players, LA Galaxy II. New York Red Bulls are doing the same thing starting next season.

As for the impact that's had, here are the rosters for the youth national teams called in to camp in the last month

U-20s: http://www.soccerbyives.net/2014/04/...rs-dallas.html

8 MLS
4 College
2 Mexico (note that Moreno was poached from NYRB's academy)
2 unattached (Moore just left IMG Academy, Rubin is signing with FC Utrecht on July 1)
1 NASL
1 local club
1 Brazil
1 France
1 England

GOALKEEPERS (2) : Santiago Castano (New York Red Bulls; Union City, N.J.), Zack Steffen (Maryland; Downington, Pa.)

DEFENDERS (9): Jordan Allen (Real Salt Lake; Rochester, N.Y.), Michael Amick (UCLA; Sunnyvale, Calif.), Sullaiman Dainkeh (Maryland; Reston, Va.), Trevor Haberkorn (Furman; Roanoke, Texas), Matthew Miazga (New York Red Bulls; Clifton, N.J.), Shaquell Moore (Unattached; Powder Springs, Ga.), Erik Palmer-Brown (Sporting KC; Lee’s Summit, Mo.), John Requejo Jr. (Real So Cal; Carpinteria, Calif.), Jesus Vazquez (UANL Tigres; San Luis Obispo, Calif.)

MIDFIELDERS (5): Kellyn Acosta (FC Dallas; Plano, Texas), Marco Delgado (Chivas USA; Glendora, Calif.), Luis Felipe (Cruzeiro; Ouro Branco, Brazil), Romain Gall (FC Lorient; Herndon, Va.), Lynden Gooch (Sunderland; Santa Cruz, Calif.)

FORWARDS (5): Benji Lopez (Real Salt Lake; San Diego, Calif.), Amando Moreno (Club Tijuana; Morganville, N.J.), Zach Pfeffer (Philadelphia Union; Dresher, Pa.), Rubio Rubin (Unattached; Beaverton, Ore.), Ben Spencer (Indy Eleven; Albuquerque, N.M.)




U-18s: http://www.soccerbyives.net/2014/04/...es-canada.html

16 MLS (including Orlando City here)
5 local clubs
2 USL
1 England

GOALKEEPERS (3): Christian Herrera (Real Salt Lake AZ; Las Cruces, N.M.), Jonathan Klinsmann (Irvine Strikers; Newport Beach, Calif.), JT Marcinkowski (San Jose Earthquakes; Alamo, Calif.)

DEFENDERS (8): David Chavez (De Anza Force; Redwood City, Calif.), Justen Glad (Real Salt Lake AZ; Tucson, Ariz.), Malcolm Jones (LA Galaxy; Chino Hills, Calif.), Quentin Pearson (Colorado Rapids; Longmont, Colo.), Pablo Pelaez (San Diego Surf; San Diego, Calif.), Mauricio Pineda (Chicago Fire; Bolingbrook, Ill.), Alex Ramos (LA Galaxy; Reseda, Calif.), Tommy Redding (Orlando City SC; Oviedo, Fla.)

MIDFIELDERS (9): Mukwelle Akale (Minnesota Thunder; Minneapolis, Minn.), Kyle Scott (Chelsea; Bristol, England), Collin Fernandez (Chicago Fire; Downers Grove, Ill.), Patrick Jean-Giles (D.C. United; Lorton, Va.), Cameron Lindley (Chicago Fire; Carmel, Ind.), Stephen Payne (Chicago Magic PSG; Birmingham, Ala.), Sebastian Saucedo (Real Salt Lake AZ; Casa Grande, Ariz.), Ben Swanson (Crew Soccer Academy; Grove City, Ohio), Jackson Yueill (Minnesota Thunder; Bloomington, Minn.)

FORWARDS (4): Coy Craft (FC Dallas; Frisco, Texas), Sebastian Elney (Boca United; Boca Raton, Fla.), Christian Lucatero (Houston Dynamo; Pasadena, Texas), Jorge Ruiz (LA Galaxy; Mission Hills, Calif.)

Fail.

You are comparing the college system (with whatever faults it may have), to some fantasy-world system where we have plenty of excellent academies that are fully free to develop our players. OF COURSE that system would be way better. There's not nearly enough money in the game right now for that to be feasible at a level that could catch all the talent in the country.

As we build that network up (hopefully), college soccer is a great "net" that catches the players the academies/MLS first teams miss and can put them in the shop window for MLS and the USMNT.

Your post is like saying:

"My $600k a year job on Wall Street is a huge roadblock to me getting rich. I live in the city, which is expensive, and the frequent nights out on the town are costly. On the other hand, if I just hit the lottery and had someone else pay all my expenses, I would be rich in no time. Damn Wall Street job!"

It always bothers me when people attack the college system without any plausible alternative. College soccer is good for the game in this country right now.

Everyone knows that it isn't optimal development ground. It's not like if everyone just saw the light that we would fix things. There's not enough money in the game yet for an optimal development system, not even close.

Fortunately, we're moving in that direction (see mmbtone's post)... but good thing we have college in place until we get there.

You mean a fantasy world system of excellent academies like every other country in the world?

You are absolutely right about there not being enough money in the game right now for that to be feasible on a national level. I'd be interested to hear how you think they could get enough money in to make that happen. MLS has been operating now for over 20 years. While they've made good strides, they could be much farther ahead of where they are now.

I wasn't attacking the collegiate system. Simply pointing out that it has major flaws and isn't an ideal system in which to develop players. College coaches are there to win games, not to develop players, and if you watch a lot of games the style of play isn't great. Some college coaches do a really good job, but a lot don't.

Liverpool fans living up to their rep

I'm with you. I, in turn, didn't mean to attack you. It's just frustrating because soccer people, including the ones in the college system, know what the flaws of the college system are developmentally.

What it rubs me the wrong way, is when someone comes in and soccer-hipsters it up saying "zomg, I saw a documentary on La Masia and that's totally what we should do. Lol college soccer, it's so terrible. MLS sucks too, I like, totally read Jonathan Wilson and support Dortumnd because I'm so progressive." I'm not saying that's you, just that that's a big part of what rankles me about the anti-college crowd.

As for the stylistic thing, I've never been a huge believer in that stuff. There's no correct way to play. You can win with the ball or without it, Attack-minded or defensive, High press or low block. I agree at the youth level, that kick-and-run is way worse than a possession-based approach for skill development. For the most part though, when kids get to college, I don't think the style that a coach chooses to play is going to have that drastic of an effect.

Plus, what could possibly be done about it? Coaches are trying to win, because if you win enough you can go the Arena/Bradley/Porter et al. route and go on to bigger and better things.

No worries at all.

I'm way too old to be a hipster. I have some pretty strong views on player development that not a lot of people agree with. I'm not completely anti-college. I simply think there is a better way to develop players then to rely on college coaches, who have to win in order to keep their job, to try and develop them.

That's the big problem with relying on college coaches to develop players for the next level. Developing players means that you will sometimes lose games because players are making mistakes. It's much easier to not worry about playing it out of the back and through the midfield when you can play 3 up top and play direct all the time While that may be the easiest way to win games, the players aren't learning how to play the game. That also goes along with my style comments. I think, that in order for players to develop, they need the ball at their feet in all phases of the game.

Altidore out of the 18 again. Good chance he doesn't get another game before the World Cup.