re: Young Players Tracker and Americans Abroad Thread

Jermaine Jones doesn’t get the love he deserves.

Vint could possibly start playing for AUFC2 in October, but definitely at the start of next season.

Josh Sargent starting for Werder Bremen in a friendly today against SV Meppen

The U.S. U20 MNT beat Jamaica 3-1 on Friday in their first game at the U20 Invitational in Florida. U20s play the U.S. U19s on Sunday.

Sebastian Soto got a brace and Ayo Akinola scored the other one. LINK

Carleton scored for AUFC2

Kunga, Carleton, and Bello all get the start in that game.

Taylor Booth was injured while playing with the U20s today. May be questionable for U20 WC qualifying.

Matthew Doyle
@MattDoyle76

17-year-old Rapids Homegrown CM Cole Bassett about to make his @MLS debut. #PORvCOL

Long post I'm copying from Jamie Hill (@_jameshill) on Twitter...

By my count, USYNT-eligible players (1997 or later) have played 64,557 minutes in the USL so far. Let's take a deeper dive into this.

There are only six clubs that have more than 3,000 YNT-e minutes. All are MLS2 teams, unsurprisingly. LAG (9,052), S2 (9,000), ATL2 (7,370), T2 (6,188), SPR (5,908), BethS (5,019). The top three are pretty bad teams, the next three are middling playoff teams.

This highlights the conflict between giving young players minutes and not getting smoked every week. The two MLS2 teams that hardly use any academy players (NYRB and RSL) are two of the stronger MLS2 teams.
If I'm running a USL team that focuses on academy, @USL_D3 awaits.

Around 70% of YNT-e minutes were at MLS2 teams. 81% counting what I'd call "strong affiliations" — Reno, RGV, Charlotte. Most of the rest were one-off loans. Only 7,595 mins went to players with no current connection to an MLS club.

Even that number is propped up by NCFC right back D.J. Taylor, who has played more than any other YNT-e player in USL. SAFC's Connor Presley is #16 on the list with 1,191.
No surprise that many young players aren't giving up NCAA eligibility for a USL deal with an indy club.

Let's talk about positions. At GK, Marcinkowski '97 has started all year at Reno. Vom Steeg '97 and Lopez '99 have split duties at LAG. 23, 13, and 6 starts respectively. No one else with more than four.
Most MLS clubs seem content to let GK prospects play a bit in NCAA first.

At RB, the list is led by Taylor (2,113), LAG's Jonathan Hernandez (790), and T2's Harold Hanson (461). Not a lot of action here, but at least Cannon & Lennon are playing in MLS. Lindsey & Herrera have split time and each have five USL starts.

At CB, only T2's Lamar Batista (1,224) and LAG's Hugo Arellano (1,126) have played more than 1k mins. ATL's Miles Robinson (802) has split time with MLS. S2's Sam Rogers (778) has been in and out of the lineup. Past that, just bit players and academy guys.

At LB, Sam Vines (1,930) has been a mainstay at Charlotte. Blocked by Castillo at COL for now. Matt Real (1,536) has been steady for Bethlehem. Nick Hinds (1,251) at Seattle played a lot of wing but has made the inevitable transition back.

Aedan Stanley (857) played more than any other academy player (at STL), but is now at Duke. Others have split time between MLS/USL/injury — Bello, Farfan, and D. Acosta. Some interesting irons in the fire at LB.

Five CMs over 1k mins — F. Hernandez (SPR), W. Kuzain (SPR), D. Jones (BTH), E. Williamson (T2), B. Servania (TUL). Jones has worked into PHI's rotation now. Williamson is in Portugal. Kuzain has gotten some looks with KC.
C. Goslin (ATL) is one start away from 1k.

Five AMs over 1k too — S. Hopeau (S2), A. Vera (LAG), L. Kunga (ATL), C. Presley (SAFC), N. Verhoeven (FRE).
Carleton, Efra, and Fontana getting close. (I'm not giving up on the Efra dream yet.)
Feels like half of the bottom of this list are 01s and 02s for Seattle.

Seattle has given USL minutes to 25 YNT-e players so far, which is more than double everyone else except for Atlanta (at 16). They've already signed a bunch of 01s and 02s to USL deals. They have some solid guys in NCAA too. Interested to see how this situation evolves.

At FW, four players with more than 1k mins. E. Zubak (LAG), J. Enriquez (RGV), J. Ebobisse (T2), A. Williams (T2).
Jesus Ferreira, who reportedly is getting citizenship soon, has come on strong for Tulsa lately. 6g in the last 4 games for a very bad USL team.

Looking at minute totals is obviously not that good of way to evaluate players, especially in context of USL. The best ones won't last long there, or will skip it entirely.

So if some of these prospects seem mediocre, it's b/c they are. Too good to be dropped at USL, but not good enough to help in MLS.
What these numbers can tell us is which clubs are committing to giving young players opportunities to grow beyond the DA level.

Some give a fair number of minutes at the USL level but MLS is a totally different story (like Portland).
But as I've said before, MLS clubs have to get good at every step of the developmental process. This is one of them.

It's notable how much more exposure to pro minutes you get if you are in an org with a USL team. How many USL minutes could Joe Scally have? Pomykal? Sands? Lindley? Da Silva? And dozens of academy kids.
DC, Dallas, and Orlando are adding teams next year which is a big positive

Egiluz got a 20 minute sub appearance for his Leioa debut. Seems to have done well.