Speculation: Long Island Rough Riders to USL?

Is that really practical?

You have to think that NYCFC are a bit encouraged to pursue a two prong approach to development. Jack Harrison shows what their academy can potentially produce. Likewise, RJ Allen has been an amazing addition -- and he was plucked out of obscurity!

Another thing to consider - NYCFC have the money to try this out. While the Red Bulls and several others have (once again) cut budgets for next year, NYCFC are expanding (again) across the board. The question is -- does it hurt to try? Especially if you find another RJ? I would say the reward outweighs the risk.
 
You have to think that NYCFC are a bit encouraged to pursue a two prong approach to development. Jack Harrison shows what their academy can potentially produce. Likewise, RJ Allen has been an amazing addition -- and he was plucked out of obscurity!

Another thing to consider - NYCFC have the money to try this out. While the Red Bulls and several others have (once again) cut budgets for next year, NYCFC are expanding (again) across the board. The question is -- does it hurt to try? Especially if you find another RJ? I would say the reward outweighs the risk.


NYCFC is casting the widest net possible allowable by MLS. As NJRB retreats, we will be the team of choice for young players. The next Matt Miazga will be developed in our Academy.
 
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Is that really practical? I feel like having an MLS team, and a USL team, and a PDL team all training together is too many players for the first team coaching staff to effectively oversee and evaluate, even if they have the USL/PDL coaching staff there to run the actual exercises.

I know that my only experience is European football, and maybe this kind of mass training already happens in US football and I just don't appreciate it, but in European football if the manager wants to check out some of his youth players he'd never invite more than 6-10 at a time to join first team training. Even on preseason tours, when the whole team travels away for 2-3 weeks with players then want to evaluate, they wouldn't take more than a dozen youths and triallists.

I feel like if you have a USL team and a PDL team then the way to do it is to train them separately and periodically send a quarter of the squad off to spend a week with the seniors, rather than have all three squads together all the time.
I don't think they have to train together all the time, but using the same facilities I think is important. We are going to have to convince some of our PDL players to sign HGP contracts with us and not to do the SuperDraft. We are going to have to convince our non top tier prospects that USL is a path to MLS.
 
I don't think they have to train together all the time, but using the same facilities I think is important. We are going to have to convince some of our PDL players to sign HGP contracts with us and not to do the SuperDraft. We are going to have to convince our non top tier prospects that USL is a path to MLS.

Surely the system I proposed would do that perfectly well, though? Have a system where every week a different group comes in from one of the teams to train with the first team. Week One, the PDL team's keepers, Week Two, the USL team's keepers, Week Three, the PDL team's defence etc. The players get just as much exposure and they can still train in custom-designed facilities, they just don't share the same fields as the first team the whole time. I think it'd be more than enough incentive to persuade a young player to join NYCFC.

It'd be great to have a system where all three teams trained at the same facility, but I can't see those teams being able to share a one-and-a-half pitch facility. There's just not enough there to accommodate them all. If we are going to have our own USL and PDL teams, I think they'd have to each have a training ground.

That said, this is all speculation at the moment of course. The trend is very much towards teams owning and operating their own B-teams in the rest of the league, but I'm still yet to see any clear-cut indication from NYCFC that the board are actually committed to this idea themselves. Even the article which triggered this debate made it clear that NYCFC have specifically not yet tied themselves down to a course of action which would see them either buying the LIRR or making their own PDL team. The evidence at present suggests that the FO is quite happy to just keep making affiliation deals.
 
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Surely the system I proposed would do that perfectly well, though? Have a system where every week a different group comes in from one of the teams to train with the first team. Week One, the PDL team's keepers, Week Two, the USL team's keepers, Week Three, the PDL team's defence etc. The players get just as much exposure and they can still train in custom-designed facilities, they just don't share the same fields as the first team the whole time. I think it'd be more than enough incentive to persuade a young player to join NYCFC.

It'd be great to have a system where all three teams trained at the same facility, but I can't see those teams being able to share a one-and-a-half pitch facility. There's just not enough there to accommodate them all. If we are going to have our own USL and PDL teams, I think they'd have to each have a training ground.

That said, this is all speculation at the moment of course. The trend is very much towards teams owning and operating their own B-teams in the rest of the league, but I'm still yet to see any clear-cut indication from NYCFC that the board are actually committed to this idea themselves. Even the article which triggered this debate made it clear that NYCFC have specifically not yet tied themselves down to a course of action which would see them either buying the LIRR or making their own PDL team. The evidence at present suggests that the FO is quite happy to just keep making affiliation deals.
I personally don't believe that our end game is 1.5 pitches at the training facility. I don't think being across from World Class FC is coincidence either. There's just not reason to announce training fields for teams that do not exist.
 
I personally don't believe that our end game is 1.5 pitches at the training facility. I don't think being across from World Class FC is coincidence either. There's just not reason to announce training fields for teams that do not exist.
Absorb WCFC and their facilities?
 
I personally don't believe that our end game is 1.5 pitches at the training facility. I don't think being across from World Class FC is coincidence either. There's just not reason to announce training fields for teams that do not exist.
Absorb WCFC and their facilities?

dont think so but sure will use their facilities fairly frequently....according to the NYCFC academy twitter videos they used that field for friendlies for the academy.
 
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Even the article which triggered this debate made it clear that NYCFC have specifically not yet tied themselves down to a course of action which would see them either buying the LIRR or making their own PDL team. The evidence at present suggests that the FO is quite happy to just keep making affiliation deals.

My speculation about this is that CFG surveyed the American 16+ player pool and gagged a bit. Why create a team for players they don't ultimately want? Only when their academy is overflowing with talent and then need a place to hold all those squabs will they look at doing anything bigger than an affiliation.

Let's not kid, CFG is here to make money and build a top tier men's first team. If it doesn't do either of those things, they're not going to do it.
 
My speculation about this is that CFG surveyed the American 16+ player pool and gagged a bit. Why create a team for players they don't ultimately want? Only when their academy is overflowing with talent and then need a place to hold all those squabs will they look at doing anything bigger than an affiliation.

Let's not kid, CFG is here to make money and build a top tier men's first team. If it doesn't do either of those things, they're not going to do it.

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