Where should an MLS club find talent?

by Dave Clark on Sep 21, 2009 6:39 PM PDT in Sounders: MLS Regular Season

MLS teams have limited resources. They can't scout the entire world, and there are rules concerning the number of "international" players that a team can have (8 of 24), so yes most of their effort should be focused on US players, either through the draft, the USL systems or the Academies, but if you knew that an established MLS team could only focus on four areas for its scouting, where would you want that team to focus?

Basically which areas would enable a club to find the 5-9 players of turnover that happen in a given year?

Which of these do you think is most probable for Sounders to find a starter for next years club?

[poll id="31"]

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Is there any reason why we don’t see that many asian/oceanian players in NA? Is it because of the costs?
Otherwise, I think Concacaf and MLS level CONMEBOL countries could be good places to scout, there’s talent there and they may be more willing to relocate (and easier to adapt due to large hispanic communities) than, say, asian/oceanian players.

by Jeremy on Sep 22, 2009 11:50 AM PDT reply actions

At one time there was a fair number of decent soccer-playing kids in the US DoD schools abroad, kids who were US citizens, as I can say from personal experience. That was, however, decades ago. Nowadays with reduced US presence abroad I don’t know.

The problem with Oceania as a talent source pool is that the population is really tiny, less than California, with vast distances between small groups of people. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have the job of flying around Pacific islands watching soccer, but I don’t think it’d be time-effective to do so.

I think CONCACAF is the way to go. Baseball already taps that well; the difference in terms of soccer is that US soccer isn’t the top-dollar employer of good young players the way MLB is in its sport.

by jabm67 on Sep 22, 2009 1:53 PM PDT reply actions

I think people are really underestimating how untapped Brazil still is for MLS. There are literally hundreds of professional teams in Brazil at all levels and I think one estimate put the number of Brazilians playing professional soccer worldwide at something over 20,000.

Sure, you hear about the high profile transfers of stars from big Brazilian clubs to big European clubs, and might think that Brazilians are out of reach, but what most people don’t know is the sheer number of Brazilian players available, almost all of which would love to play in a first world country.

by CarlosT on Sep 22, 2009 3:56 PM PDT reply actions

I think the rules about “international players” are ridiculous, and in reality a restraint of trade.
I think there’s probably a whole host of talent in nations that haven’t been mined as much as Africa and parts of Asia have been. Of course, digging around South America’s not a bad idea, either. And more from Central American and/or Mexico would be good for the league, too.

by Edward H on Sep 28, 2009 10:19 AM PDT reply actions