Anonymous wrote:Great thread this. A few random thoughts, responding to various earlier messages. Bethesda 04 DA had the best record among the U14s in this area in the DA league last season, with Loudoun following slightly behind. Both these teams had terrific games against the Red Bulls and Union. Only 2 Bethesda players occasionally played "up" for the 03s, to fill gaps in certain positions in that team, which means that the 04s mostly played together, and almost of them will return to U15 so that the core of the team will be essentially unchanged this year. Noone has jumped to DC United, partly because of the driving to Loudon factor and because this is a good group of kids at Bethesda.

DC United U14 had an up-and-down season, but had the most call-ups to sub-regional and national camps. They had 6 to the eastern sub-regional camp that preceded the last YNT pool. Bethesda sent 2 to the sub-regional camp, Arlington, Baltimore, VDA sent 1 or 2 each, Loudon had none! No call-ups to the U15 national team pools for any team other than United. Maybe the scouts see something different, but most of who have seen these teams through the year would agree that DC United seems to have a disproportionate advantage in terms of player call-ups. This may have partly to do with the MLS teams "showing" more as they get to play MLS academy-only tournaments (MLS combine, the recent ICC Futures cup) where other academies aren't invited.

That said, several non-MLS DA players do make it to various YNT pools (e.g. PDA and Bethesda in the east, Sockers in Chicago). The U15 YNT pool is quite large and rotates among many players, which is a good practice. In the sub-Regional camp, there were a few non-DA players from clubs like Virginia Beach (an area where the nearest DA club is in Richmond). The regional training centers (the first layer of national player ID efforts) usually call players from several local non-DA clubs as well. So there seems to be some attempt to improve the reach of scouting. The MLS-preference, even though it's not total, is quite strange though and easy to fix. In a country as big as the US, it is silly to not cast the net for talent as widely as possible at age 14/15, through a player ID process that is fair and also smart (i.e. trying to identify raw talent and late bloomers). After all, Chicago Sockers were one of the best (if not the best) U14 DA teams in the country last year, and that's a non-MLS team.

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Anonymous wrote:Thanks. Still not clear to me that Ajax has so many "full-time" paid scouts, but agree that US soccer could allocate more resources to scouting.
DA still seems a good idea to me in terms of giving an opportunity to good players to play against each other. All European countries have clear hierarchies in terms of youth leagues. When you play there, you have a decent idea of your level.

Yes, question Ajax, but not USSF with its 11 scouts for 50 states...

We can hire more scouts, but I think the problem is that the ones we have don't know what they are looking at or how to judge player potential.

Does anyone have the resume on any of these scouts? Did any of them have a career overseas? Where did they come from? Are they American?

I don't care about licenses, etc., because those things mean crap.

I know that one of these scouts is Thomas Rongen, the guy who said that Messi has low soccer IQ. When he coached our youth teams, he dropped Subotic and publicly declared that he was not good enough to play for US U20 National team. Subotic was offended and switched to Serbia and got to play in the world cup and became a starting CB for Dortmund. By the way, Rongen said that there is only one full time scout at the USSF, others are part time.

God, it’s even worse than I thought.

Crazy to think Subotic and Rossi could have played for the US if not for crappy scouting

The same thing is happening to Efrain Alvarez, who switched to Mexico after US dropped him. http://www.espn.com/soccer/mexico/story/3513800/efrain-alvarez-chose-mexico-after-us-dropped-him-coach-says-la-galaxy-coach

I think Alvarez can still come back, but we definitely lost Jonathan Gonzalez, who used to play for our U20 team.

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Anonymous wrote:Thanks. Still not clear to me that Ajax has so many "full-time" paid scouts, but agree that US soccer could allocate more resources to scouting.
DA still seems a good idea to me in terms of giving an opportunity to good players to play against each other. All European countries have clear hierarchies in terms of youth leagues. When you play there, you have a decent idea of your level.

Yes, question Ajax, but not USSF with its 11 scouts for 50 states...

We can hire more scouts, but I think the problem is that the ones we have don't know what they are looking at or how to judge player potential.

Does anyone have the resume on any of these scouts? Did any of them have a career overseas? Where did they come from? Are they American?

I don't care about licenses, etc., because those things mean crap.

I know that one of these scouts is Thomas Rongen, the guy who said that Messi has low soccer IQ. When he coached our youth teams, he dropped Subotic and publicly declared that he was not good enough to play for US U20 National team. Subotic was offended and switched to Serbia and got to play in the world cup and became a starting CB for Dortmund. By the way, Rongen said that there is only one full time scout at the USSF, others are part time.

God, it’s even worse than I thought.

Crazy to think Subotic and Rossi could have played for the US if not for crappy scouting

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks. Still not clear to me that Ajax has so many "full-time" paid scouts, but agree that US soccer could allocate more resources to scouting.
DA still seems a good idea to me in terms of giving an opportunity to good players to play against each other. All European countries have clear hierarchies in terms of youth leagues. When you play there, you have a decent idea of your level.

Yes, question Ajax, but not USSF with its 11 scouts for 50 states...

We can hire more scouts, but I think the problem is that the ones we have don't know what they are looking at or how to judge player potential.

Does anyone have the resume on any of these scouts? Did any of them have a career overseas? Where did they come from? Are they American?

I don't care about licenses, etc., because those things mean crap.

I know that one of these scouts is Thomas Rongen, the guy who said that Messi has low soccer IQ. When he coached our youth teams, he dropped Subotic and publicly declared that he was not good enough to play for US U20 National team. Subotic was offended and switched to Serbia and got to play in the world cup and became a starting CB for Dortmund. By the way, Rongen said that there is only one full time scout at the USSF, others are part time.

God, it’s even worse than I thought.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks. Still not clear to me that Ajax has so many "full-time" paid scouts, but agree that US soccer could allocate more resources to scouting.
DA still seems a good idea to me in terms of giving an opportunity to good players to play against each other. All European countries have clear hierarchies in terms of youth leagues. When you play there, you have a decent idea of your level.

Yes, question Ajax, but not USSF with its 11 scouts for 50 states...

We can hire more scouts, but I think the problem is that the ones we have don't know what they are looking at or how to judge player potential.

Does anyone have the resume on any of these scouts? Did any of them have a career overseas? Where did they come from? Are they American?

I don't care about licenses, etc., because those things mean crap.

I know that one of these scouts is Thomas Rongen, the guy who said that Messi has low soccer IQ. When he coached our youth teams, he dropped Subotic and publicly declared that he was not good enough to play for US U20 National team. Subotic was offended and switched to Serbia and got to play in the world cup and became a starting CB for Dortmund. By the way, Rongen said that there is only one full time scout at the USSF, others are part time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks. Still not clear to me that Ajax has so many "full-time" paid scouts, but agree that US soccer could allocate more resources to scouting.
DA still seems a good idea to me in terms of giving an opportunity to good players to play against each other. All European countries have clear hierarchies in terms of youth leagues. When you play there, you have a decent idea of your level.

Yes, question Ajax, but not USSF with its 11 scouts for 50 states...

We can hire more scouts, but I think the problem is that the ones we have don't know what they are looking at or how to judge player potential.

Does anyone have the resume on any of these scouts? Did any of them have a career overseas? Where did they come from? Are they American?

I don't care about licenses, etc., because those things mean crap.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks. Still not clear to me that Ajax has so many "full-time" paid scouts, but agree that US soccer could allocate more resources to scouting.
DA still seems a good idea to me in terms of giving an opportunity to good players to play against each other. All European countries have clear hierarchies in terms of youth leagues. When you play there, you have a decent idea of your level.

Yes, question Ajax, but not USSF with its 11 scouts for 50 states...

Anonymous wrote:Fully agree.
If closed to clubs, the DA system is, however, quite open to players.
Considering that the US league mess appears beyond repair, I see the DA as a decent attempt at creating a first-tier league and giving good players better opportunities than in its absence...

Anonymous wrote:Thanks. Still not clear to me that Ajax has so many "full-time" paid scouts, but agree that US soccer could allocate more resources to scouting.
DA still seems a good idea to me in terms of giving an opportunity to good players to play against each other. All European countries have clear hierarchies in terms of youth leagues. When you play there, you have a decent idea of your level.