# MLS Next News



## WuTang (Oct 10, 2021)

Anyone hear anything?
Club leaders all meet this past week and now we are having club meeting based on that.

Anyone know anything?


----------



## watfly (Oct 10, 2021)

WuTang said:


> Anyone hear anything?
> Club leaders all meet this past week and now we are having club meeting based on that.
> 
> Anyone know anything?


Likely its about racial slurs at games by players. We had our meeting last Thursday and were given a handout from MLS.


----------



## RedDevilDad (Oct 10, 2021)

Yeah... banned words.


----------



## Dargle (Oct 21, 2021)

This is a fluff piece from the MLS site, but it is an article about MLS Next and its priorities, so I thought I would pass it along and this looked like the appropriate thread.  It does confirm a few details (e.g., Winter Showcase, Summer Playoffs, plus Generation Adidas in Spring) and the creation of a cadre of Scouts working the MLS next games is discussed some.









						Four priorities for MLS NEXT's second season & what the future holds | MLSSoccer.com
					

MLS NEXT was born amid crisis, the product of Major League Soccer’s race to pick up the baton when the U.S. Soccer Federation shuttered its Development Academy youth league in the dark early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.




					www.mlssoccer.com


----------



## watfly (Oct 21, 2021)

Dargle said:


> This is a fluff piece from the MLS site, but it is an article about MLS Next and its priorities, so I thought I would pass it along and this looked like the appropriate thread.  It does confirm a few details (e.g., Winter Showcase, Summer Playoffs, plus Generation Adidas in Spring) and the creation of a cadre of Scouts working the MLS next games is discussed some.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I've been pleasantly surprised with MLS Next.  The MLS appears to be more vested than US Soccer ever was in the DA.


----------



## Dargle (Oct 21, 2021)

watfly said:


> I've been pleasantly surprised with MLS Next.  The MLS appears to be more vested than US Soccer ever was in the DA.


There's some truth to that, although MLS Next is woefully under-staffed for the scale and size of this league.  From an incentive perspective, though, it makes sense that MLS would be more likely to become invested.  Even apart from the cost savings from enabling local play, the league's owners need to find LOTS of great players, while US Soccer really only needs to find a relatively small number of tippy top best players.  Plus, from both a short and long-term perspective, the league benefits if kids grow up feeling a part of it.


----------



## lafalafa (Oct 21, 2021)

Dargle said:


> This is a fluff piece from the MLS site, but it is an article about MLS Next and its priorities, so I thought I would pass it along and this looked like the appropriate thread.  It does confirm a few details (e.g., Winter Showcase, Summer Playoffs, plus Generation Adidas in Spring) and the creation of a cadre of Scouts working the MLS next games is discussed some.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Very fluffy especially the scouting part but yeah let's see how thing go for 21-22.  In July hit this thread up again and see how things really turned out.

MLS academies seem to be exploring other options beyond U17 as UPSL has been expanding,  Atlanta, LAFC, Orlando,  Barca fielding u19ish teams vs adults.

New 2 league starting in 2022 and they gave separated themself somewhat in NEXT with the pro division.

NEXT might become or already is more of non MLS league vs not it seems after certain ages.


----------



## BIGD (Oct 21, 2021)

_Yet as exciting as the broader youth movement may be, the significant disagreements of the DA’s final years have not magically disappeared. Chief among them is schedule balance, homegrown territories and players migrating from elite youth academies to MLS sides, hot-button topics that linger in youth circles.
They're front of mind for Lipka, Eskandarian & Co. as they seek to build a system that meets everyone’s needs and advance the big-picture objectives. It’s a complex and often messy process, but they’re bullish on the future.
“As a country, maybe we have failed in the past, with just so many different egos and politics and this and that. I'm really proud of our group and what we're trying to establish just in terms of our professionalism, communication, *inclusivity*,” said Eskandarian.
*“We truly try and do things the right way and do what's best for the players in North America to succeed.* So that's something that I'm proud of and I hope that we can get more and more influential people in the youth game to buy in and be a part of it, because at the end of the day _*we're all on the same team.”*

I appreciate what they are saying here, but the pay to play system would have to go away to truly achieve this.


----------



## Dargle (Oct 21, 2021)

lafalafa said:


> NEXT might become or already is more of non MLS league vs not it seems after certain ages.


One aspect I've already seen is that the movement between non-MLS teams and MLS Academies is definitely not a one-way street with the MLS Academy teams just sucking up the best players from the non-MLS teams.  The non-MLS teams provide landing spots for players who Galaxy or LAFC let go, especially in age groups where they don't field a team.  That's attractive for the non-MLS teams because they are getting darn good players and its attractive for the players to stay in MLS Next as a league in terms of competition and the opportunity to play with players they perceive as being at their level from being at one of the academies.  They also may position themselves for moves elsewhere by staying in the league.  It's too soon to know if this will repeat itself in MLS Next, but there are players who moved to other MLS Academies elsewhere in the country or to Mexico after a year spent playing with a non-MLS team in DA.


----------



## watfly (Oct 21, 2021)

lafalafa said:


> Very fluffy especially the scouting part but yeah let's see how thing go for 21-22.  In July hit this thread up again and see how things really turned out.
> 
> MLS academies seem to be exploring other options beyond U17 as UPSL has been expanding,  Atlanta, LAFC, Orlando,  Barca fielding u19ish teams vs adults.
> 
> ...


It would seem to me in the next couple of years you won't be seeing MLS academies playing in MLS Next after U15.  They already don't field teams in the U16 age group and I suspect the MLS academies will have their best U17 players in the proposed MLS second league and likely not field a U17 team.


----------

