Reply to DC United Academy - aa strong academy or not

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[quote=Anonymous]And if you really want to know what happened with the homegrown player here you go...

The new DCU coach and GM sat down as they settled into their new jobs and said what is going on in our academy to get a true look at their talent pool.  Smart actually.  They had a look at all of the academy players that have potential and they also looked at the homegrown statistics of DCU versus their competitors because the league is demanding that the clubs sign homegrowns from their academies. It is how the league makes money (on the sales of these players).  That is what the academies are there for.  Once they had a look at the current talent pool, they were like, oh boy, we've got nothing.  No player is ready for the first team.  So then they said, ok we definitely can't sign a player directly to the first team on a non homegrown deal, but can we credibly homegrown any players so at least we look like we are doing our jobs in the academy?

In assessing this here is what they found: Most of the u19s are heading to college (or trying to), and if they aren't thinking about going to going to college, they probably don't want to homegrown at DCU to keep their college options open and they want to keep their options open generally because they are older and have more at stake. Tougher sell for that age group.  The U17s genuinely aren't ready and don't have anyone close to the level.  No national team call ups in that age group and no elite level talents making signing a homegrown from this group very difficult to do because the credibility isn't there.  So, they looked to the u16s.  The one player that had a national team call up recently, they signed to a homegrown deal because they believed it was credible and they also had an easier time selling the prospect of a homegrown deal to a younger player, where the realites of the business of football are still somewhat unknown just due to lack of exposure and experience.

They wanted to get a PR moment out of the signing, which they got, to at least give the brand and the club some visibility for work they are doing in the youth and to give them some time and take some heat off them for an academy that they now realize is totally useless for the goals as a club.

PR is not why you make a homegrown deal.  But here we are.  New front office people are in DCU now and realizing the state of play and recognize it isn't good.  Just a matter of time before they bump up against Levien when they want to make drastic changes and they requires real money which the owner never wants to spend.  Overall, still a very sad state of affairs at DCU. .  [/quote]

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