In the second installment of our two-part feature on Technical Directors in Major League Soccer, L.E. Eisenmenger speaks with Paul Bravo of the Colorado Rapids, Brian Bliss of the Columbus Crew, interim head coach Peter Vermes of the Kansas City Wizards, and Mike Burns of the New England Revolution about what their clubs currently do with player development and what they would like to see from MLS.
By L.E. Eisenmenger - BOSTON, MA (Aug 19, 2009) USSoccerPlayers -- Another of the many roles now covered by the title of Technical Director for some Major League Soccer clubs is acquiring and developing new players. Under the limits of single-entity and the League's cap system, this isn't as straightforward as it would seem. Add to that the college eligibility requirements and lack of a reserve league, and it becomes even more challenging.
LE: MLS gave clubs autonomy in how to develop their academies, but requires every club to have a fully funded U-16 and U-18 team to compete in the US Development Academy League. What’s your role with the academy?
Vermes: I’m more of an overseer rather than being directly hands-on all the time, although I definitely make a connection with the program to know what’s going on with the program and how the coaches are doing and how the players are developing.
LE: How many teams are in your youth academy?
Vermes: Three. The U-16s and U-18s are fully funded and the U-14s are fully funded except for travel. We talked about [adding another age group], we’ve had other age groups, but we’ve combined them now we’ve gotten in the Academy league. I think we’d contemplate going down another two age groups so 18, 16, 14, 12, but that’s a process and we need the right coaches in place to help that process along.
Burns: Last year we started a U-16 and a U-18 boys team that play in the National Academy. The National Academy has had two seasons and there’s been talk about potentially adding a U-14 age group to the National Academy, but that hasn’t been signed off yet by US Soccer.
Bliss: Within our own youth system we have 11 teams, two teams participate in the US Development Academy. We’ve had 11 teams for three, maybe four years, but our two Academy teams, the U-16s and the U-18s, we’ve had for two years. Those two teams are completely funded by the organization and our other nine teams are pay-to-play, like any other club.
Bravo: We have two separate youth development programs. We have our Developmental Academy program, which includes our U-16s and U-18s and then we also have a youth club that is separate to the developmental academy but filters up. That includes our recreational programs, our US youth soccer affiliates, all of our Alliance partners and our Adidas Alliance partners. So I’m staffing all that, making sure we have the right people and we’re doing some good things on that side.
We have a U-11, U-12, U-13, U14, U-15, and U-18. We have girls playing in the club up until the time they hit 11. We have a development program for the girls, but most of those girls end of going to our alliance partners when they get age appropriate.
LE: Are you thinking of adding a U-20?
Bravo: We’ve talked about it. We have a gap within our pyramid. They’re 18-22, so right about the time they’re going to college we have a gap that we need to fill and we’re talking about a U-20 team as well as potentially a Premier Development League team as we move forward.
LE: Do NCAA regulations hamper your program in any way?
Bravo: They do to a certain degree. We can’t have any contact with (college players) from August until May 1st when they can start playing with us full-time. We have moments when we can do that as long as we’re staying within NCAA rules. Those are usually on holidays when school is not in session, so we can have our contacts we those players during those moments. But the majority of those contacts will come between May and August for the college players.
LE: Would relaxing the NCAA rules improve the quality of your program?
Vermes: Would it be a help to us? Of course it would be. It would give the guys more experience, the training would be much better.
Everybody would love to be in the position to do that, there’s not a team in the League that doesn’t. We’ve had these talks before. The NCAA restrictions are what they are and everybody wants to be smart and make sure that they keep the eligibility of the youth player In the forefront.
I’ve heard the League had some meetings around that and I don’t really know where they’ve gone, but it would be a huge help and everyone would welcome the good opportunities for the younger players.
Bravo: Absolutely. Certainly those things that we’ve talked about would be a benefit - being allowed to use those players in our reserve teams, being able to play those amateurs with professional players. Those are things we’ve talked about, but those are things that are off the table from the NCAA standpoint in the past.
LE: What does it take to get them on the table?
Bravo: Working closely with them. It’s not easy because they have their rules and regulations. Being a part of the NCAA in my time at UCLA, I understand where they’re coming from. It’s an education first and that’s the way they look at it, but also from our standpoint being able to work with them would be a huge benefit. It’s just open dialogue really at this point.
LE: How did the League’s decision to cut the reserves affect your job? Did it hurt your team at all?
Bliss: It probably lightened our load in terms of scouting a little, because we’re only looking to add one or two or maybe three players in the new seasons. When you had reserves you had rosters of 28 players, so now your depth of scouting doesn’t need to go as far because you’re only going to need to add two or three players and not five or six or seven every year.
I don’t think it’s hurt the team itself, it’s just one of those things to look at for developing the future. It hasn’t hurt us in League play, but it’s hurt us overall in less competitive games.
LE: Some of the possibilities for rebuilding a reserve league include having reserves compete locally to reduce travel costs, incorporating USL or PDL teams as reserves, or developing academy teams as a reserves. How do you see this unfolding?
Bliss: Those are all possibilities, but the decision-making lies within the ownerships of each team and they meet probably twice a year, usually once at the All-Stars and once at the final.
All those things you mentioned are possibilities. It’s the matter of finding the right one that meets the financial requirements that the owners want it to fit into and what makes sense financially, but also makes sense competitively as well.
Most of us would prefer to go back to the old system where each team fields their own reserve team where they play against other MLS teams rather than a local league or lower league or a USL or PDL. Not a bad idea, but I think you have better control over it like it was before in the older system. But that’s not for me to make a decision. The ownership will decide how it gets reinstated, even if it gets reinstated.
LE: Will it happen?
Bliss: No idea, difficult to say. I’d like to see it come back and I think most of us would like to see it come back reworked and rethought in terms of the cost and the best way to get the most competitive games.
Burns: That’s a League decision and the teams have input. The reserve league no longer exists and that was a decision that was made from team input to the League.
LE: Could you develop your academy teams into a reserve league?
Burns: You have to be careful there. You can’t just develop the academy into the reserve league because you have to keep in mind these kids – 15, 16, 17 years old – they’re not permitted to play with professionals so it jeopardizes their collegiate eligibility. You can’t have a situation where a reserve league can exist with amateur players and professional players.
LE: Is there an ongoing dialogue with the NCAA about that?
Burns: The League has been in a dialogue for a number of years because it’s prohibited by the NCAA to have amateurs play with professionals.
There’s been a lot of discussion about a lot of different ways to bring it back. In an ideal world, purely from a professional soccer standpoint it would be perfect for us if we were able to bring up some of our youth players to play for our reserve team because then you’re actually seeing the kids.
But like I said, we wouldn’t want to do and can’t do anything that’s going to potentially affect their collegiate eligibility because most of these kids are hopeful to go on and play college soccer. That’s a very significant obstacle for us to overcome and I’m not sure that we can ever overcome it. But purely from a professional soccer standpoint, it would be ideal if we could do that.
L.E. Eisenmenger writes for a variety of outlets including covering Boston soccer for The Examiner. Contact her at eisenmenger@soccerlens.com.
