Examining the state of MLS's youth development, Part 1

Heading into Year 4 of Major League Soccer's Homegrown Player Initiative, we are starting to see real signs of progress. Here's part 1 of my look at the state of youth development in MLS.

Liverpool midfielder Jay Spearing's bid to establish himself as a viable replacement for Lucas Leiva was disrupted recently with a red card and an injury in quick succession recently, but the homegrown midfielder returned to great effect against Manchester City and Wolves, and according to Liverpool legend Jan Molby, Spearing is becoming one of the most important players in Kenny Dalglish's team,

"Goodbye pal... And yeah, He's cool."PLAYERS CUT, PUNS TO GO UNUSED
A sad day for four young men as Toronto FC made their first four cuts of pre-season today. Sadder still is the effect it will have on blogs as some quality nicknames will forever go stale in Toronto.

As expected, the Columbus Crew signed two-time National Champion and Soccer America's College Soccer Player of the Year for 2011 Ben Speas as a homegrown player. Speas won the 2010 College Cup with the University of Akron before transferring to UNC and winning it again in 2011. Speas scored the only goal in the 2011 final, winning the MVP award.

Photo by ISIphotos.com

Centerback Gale Agbossoumonde and goalkeeper David Bingham have been forced to withdraw from United States Under-23 national team camp with undisclosed injuries ahead of today's opening day of training at the Home Depot Center, according to U.

Morning all.

It's pretty quiet today, really. Still a bit of Thierry Henry stuff around with the manager confirming he'll be in the squad for the Champions League game against AC Milan. Interestingly, he hinted that the reason he loaned out Vito Mannone wasn't for the player's own benefit but so he could make space in the squad for Henry (I guess we were at the limit in terms of the number of 'non-homegrown' players in the squad).

Holgersson: Defensive Help on the Way?"Quiet" doesn't begin to describe the New York Red Bulls media profile since the 2011 season ended. The only addition to date has been young homegrown signing Connor Lade, while a whopping ten players have departed, according to the club's official "Transaction Central" page.

Ream: West Brom Bound?Following a turbulent 2011 regular season for the New York Red Bulls, General Manager Erik Solér and Head Coach Hans Backe have played their cards very close to the vest as they look to reshape and add depth to the squad for 2012. Apart from sanctioning the departure of a half dozen fringe players and exposing highly-paid veterans such as Carlos Mendes, Bouna Coundoul and Chris Albright to this year's Re-Entry Draft (Mendes has since been snapped up by Columbus), there has been little to no action to report.

Major League Soccer released the official list of players left unprotected for the 2011 Expansion Draft. D.C. United left 11 players unprotected including veterans Steve Cronin and Santino Quaranta.
According to the press release from MLS - each current MLS club has had the opportunity to protect 11 players from their 2011 roster.

Here is the official list of protected vs. unprotected players the Houston Dynamo released. I like who's been protected and unprotected generally, but I have a few quibbles (below).

HOUSTON, TX. (Monday, November 21, 2011) - The Houston Dynamo have announced their 11-player protected list for the 2012 Expansion Draft to take place on Wednesday, November 23 at 2 p.

The Philadelphia Union released on Monday its protected list for Wednesday's Expansion Draft.

Philadelphia Union's Protected Players:

1. Califf, Danny (DF)
2. Carroll, Brian (MF)
3. Farfan, Gabriel (DF)
4. Farfan, Michael (MF)
5.

I'm getting this out later than I had planned to, but it seemed like every night when I sat down to write it there was other news that I wanted to get to first and by the time I was done with those I was ready to be done. But now it's time to take a look at the upcoming expansion draft.
First, here are the rules for the expansion draft and how the rules affect Kansas City.

Another MLS Cup, another expansion draft.

For most clubs around the league, that's what the year's final match really means. The day after Sunday's championship game, MLS teams must submit to the league office the list of eleven players they plan to protect in the Nov. 23 expansion draft.

The draft's rules are largely the same as last year, tweaked a bit to account for the Montreal Impact drafting alone, whereas last year's draft had two expansion teams.

Following the 25th anniversary celebrations last week, Gill admitted today that he dreads the day that he will have to replace Sir Alex Ferguson and had said the search for a successor has yet to begin.

One thing is clear, that the new manager, whenever he may come, will have to follow Sir Alex Ferguson in running the club the Manchester United way

"We are a great club whose values go back in history to our heritage to the 50s and 60s and the last 25 years with Alex.

So, amidst all the Steve Nicol farewells and the new coach speculation, the 2012 Expansion Draft is rapidly approaching (November 23rd), and the Revs have some decisions to make-11 decisions, to be precise. For those unfamiliar with how the Expansion Draft works, here's a brief breakdown of the rules, per an October 19th MLS Press Release:

NEW YORK (October 19, 2011) - Major League Soccer will hold the 2012 MLS Expansion Draft via conference call on Wednesday, November 23, at 2 p.

I've been slowly going through the expansion draft protection lists (more coming this week by the way) here and now we have the rules for the draft.

Major League Soccer will hold the 2012 MLS Expansion Draft via conference call on Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 2 p.m. ET. The Montreal Impact, will select 10 players during the 10-round draft.

MLS Announced thr 2012 Expansion Draft

Looks like it'll occur on Wednesday, November 23rd at 2:00pm EST.

As with what happened in 2011 each current MLS team will be able to protect 11 players (not including Generation Adidas and Homegrown players) otherwise non-protected player is fair game for the Montreal Impact to poach.

With the FA indicating that Capello wont be kept on past the European Championships in Poland and Ukraine the search is on to find the next England boss.

David Berstein said that Capello is to stand down from his position of England manager after the tournament. This is not a shock to everyone, as after the string of poor performances at the World Cup in South Africa.

So, yeah, about that whole post where I said the Rapids will be beat by Metapan and the roster selection was not great. Well Colorado proved me an idiot with a 3-1 win last night. The reserve squad, lead by Steve Guppy and augmented by Wells Thompson and Tyrone Marshall, pulled together in a tough environment and dominated the scoreboard.

Liverpool midfielder Jordan Henderson: England have a lot of talented young players

While Germany and Spain have gained attention for their homegrown starlets, the Reds' big summer signing believes that there are plenty of prospects for the Three Lions too

View the full story here: Goal

A news article on 2011-09-29 07:25:00 from: Goal

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

One of my favorite homegrown Chelsea players in recent years was Sam Hutchinson, the young defender who, in his extremely brief senior Blues career, was responsible for providing the perfect assist for this memorable Lampard goal. He retired last year, but has been consistently making appearances for the reserve team this season, prompting me to wonder whether he's back en route in his football career.

Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal By Walter Broeckx When all the dust will be settled of the last day of the transfer window our team should look something like the names I will give you below. Because of the squad rules it is important to know how many homegrown and non homegrown players we have [.

Guest writer David Bolt takes a look at how the new 25-man squad rule will affect Liverpool, and considers whether the club has actually prepared well-enough for its implementation.
After the transfer window closes, Liverpool will have to name their 25-man squad for the Premier League. As it stands, the club has got itself into a bit of a mess with the 25-man squad rule and is facing the prospect of having to pay some players (and not just Brazil's answer to Mr.

Homegrown Houston Dynamo player, Alex Dixon, picks up a late goal giving the Dynamo a crucial 3-2 win over Real Salt Lake this past Saturday evening at Robertson Stadium. Hear Alex Dixon and Dynamo Coach Dominic Kinnear talk to the press after the match:

Homegrown Houston Dynamo player, Alex Dixon, picks up a late goal giving the Dynamo a crucial 3-2 win over Real Salt Lake this past Saturday evening at Robertson Stadium. Hear Alex Dixon and Dynamo Coach Dominic Kinnear talk to the press after the match:

After making the traveling roster for New England's last three games at D.C. United, Colorado Rapids and Sporting Kansas City, New England Revolution Homegrown Player signee Diego Fagundez finally got his chance against Chivas USA on Saturday, making his MLS debut in front of his friends and family at home.

When Steve Nicol brought on Diego Fagundez for his debut with the New England Revolution trailing Chivas USA 2-0 with 22 minutes to go on Saturday, the Revs head coach was hoping the youngster could bring some life to the team's attack. Nicol got far more than that from his talented 16-year-old striker.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - The New England Revolution fell 2-3 to Chivas USA at Gillette stadium on an historic night for the franchise. The match featured the MLS debuts of the Revs' first-ever Designated Player, Milton Caraglio, and also their first homegrown signing from the academy system.

Chivas received excellent contributions from Nick LaBrocca (1 goal, 1 assist) and Alejandro Moreno (2 goals) and managed to capitalize on defensive lapses from New England.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - The New England Revolution's first homegrown player, 16-year-old Diego Fagundez, drew a penalty and scored a goal in his MLS debut against Chivas USA Saturday night, but it wasn't enough to lift his side past the Goats, who got two goals from Alejandro Moreno en route to a 3-2 win.

Fire to sign Kellen Guley as second Homegrown Player

Soccer By Ives reports that the Fire have agreed to terms with Kellen Gulley, a Fire academy player and member of the U-17 USMNT who played very well in the build-up to the U-17 WC but was sidelined with a knee injury before the tournament. Just today Gulley scored the winner in the Fire's 2-1 win over the Galaxy at the U-17 Generation Adidas Cup.

Photo by ISIPhotos.com

The Chicago Fire will be adding another player to its roster, but it won't be a player coming via the international route.

The Fire have agreed to terms with U.S. Under-17 striker Kellen Gulley to make him the latest Homegrown Player signed by the Fire, sources told SBI this week.

By FRANCO PANIZO

The MLS All-Star game is two days away, and although everyone is in good spirits, the tone from the players and coaches is getting more serious as the match nears.

MLS All Star head coach Hans Backe sat down with David Beckham, Thierry Henry and Brad Davis to talk to the media about the game on Monday afternoon.

After missing a number of quality chances against English Premier League team Everton FC on Wednesday night, the Philadelphia Union finally put one away in the 87th minute through U-18 midfielder Christian Hernandez to record a 1-0 victory.

Hernandez, who was recently named the U-17/18 Player of the Year of the U.

Who knew the Internet would be so polarized because Liverpool's actually able to spend money? Oh, right, it's the Internet.
The discord seems to be because the Henderson deal aligns with the post-Carroll 'Liverpool are spending like a drunken xenophobic sailor' narrative. Which is as unfair to Henderson as it was to Carroll.

Welcome to The Weekly Five. Each week I address a topic by presenting a list of five examples that support, oppose or simply relate to the subject.
Last week I looked at what the Premiership could learn from MLS. This time around I'm gonna investigate the flipside of that very same coin; what is it that MLS could learn from the Premiership?

Chicago Fire Homegrown Player Victor Pineda scored in the first half for the United States Under-18 national team, but the Netherlands pulled even in the second half, and the two sides played to a 1-1 draw in the opening game of the Lisbon International Tournament in Portugal on Wednesday.

Photo by ISIphotos.com

Nery Castillo is officially the latest Designated Player bust.

The Chicago Fire declined its option to maintain the Mexican striker on loan from Shakhtar Donetsk ahead of Friday's deadline, and his stint in Major League Soccer is over.

While Utah's MLS side didn't find the back of the net over the weekend, one of the state's homegrown talents bagged himself a hat trick at Red Bull Arena.
MLS
Justin Braun (Salt Lake City) -- Tallied his first three goals of the season for Chivas USA in an impressive performance against the Red Bulls in New Jersey.

The Philadelphia Union's Player Development League affiliate team has spent plenty of time in the last couple of years near the top of the PDL standings. Now the Reading United AC looks to build upon their past successes with a boost by a strong 2011 recruiting class.

"The recruiting class brought in by Brendan Burke is absolutely top notch.

Photo by Jose L. Argueta/ISIphotos.com

D.C. United goalkeeper Bill Hamid has yet to play a minute of first-team soccer this season, but that hasn't prevented the team from showing a sign of good faith in its goalkeeper of the future.

Hamid and DCU agreed to a new contract on Thursday, one that will count against the team's salary cap as opposed to his original deal when he signed as the team's first Homegrown Player.