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D.C. United sign teen forward Seaton to Homegrown Player deal

Photo by D.C. United

BY DARRELL LOVELL

D.C. United have added another name to their cadre of Homegrown signings Monday announcing that the club has come to terms with forward Michael Seaton.

The 16-year-old is the fifth and youngest Homegrown signing in club history and extends a tradition of rewarding the club’s best young prospects with a place on the first team roster.

“Michael has made big strides in a short amount of time in our Academy system and he is ready to take the next step,” said D.C. United General Manager Dave Kasper in a club release. “As an attacking player, Michael has an excellent work rate and is a real handful for opposing defenses.”

Seaton has been a fixture on the club’s youth scoring chart totaling 26 goals with the D.C.’s U-15 and 16 squads. His exploits earned him a spot on Jamaica’s U-17 squad and an appearance in the final reserve league match of 2012.

While Seaton has represented the Reggae Boyz at the youth level, as a native of Capitol Heights, MD, he has dual citizenship with the U.S. and would be eligible for a call from the Yanks.

For now the young forward will concentrate on joining the first team club full-time in the hopes of continuing to develop quickly, as he has coming through D.C.’s academy system.

“He will have some terrific mentors in Dwayne De Rosario and Chris Pontius, and Ben and his staff will have another young player with an upside to integrate into the first team,” Kasper said.

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What do you think about D.C.’s new young forward? Are you excited about a potential future with Seaton and another young forward in Rafael? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Comments

    • Then I decided to keep reading and found this: “he has dual citizenship with the U.S. and would be eligible for a call from the Yanks.”

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  1. I like it and hoping for another Najar. And also wondering not if but when they will be sigining one of Andy’s younger brothers. From what I understand there are a couple in the Academy doing really well.

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    • I only know about one brother. Don’t know the family at all, but I’ve seen both Andy and one younger brother at different times on a particular high school field. A couple years ago I had heard from kids in that area that this younger brother was better. This last year, Andy was kicking around with some friends during my son’s U-15 team practice. So we asked them if they wanted to join a scrimmage. This was during the MLS season, so I figured no way. But to my amazement, they joined in. My son, in fact, beat Andy on a couple 1v1 situations. He was getting pretty full of himself, so a couple other times, Andy made sure he understood he could prevent that whenever he wanted to. I’m willing to bet Olsen never heard about this impromptu scrimmage, lol.

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  2. Evidently a big motivator for MLS signing him at this point was that they were afraid of losing him to some Central American clubs. He starts of the Jamaican U-17 side, has done well for them, and will be in the CONCACAF U-17 tourney. DCU figured that in front of that many scouts they’d lose him.

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    • Would a 16 year old be likely to move to a Central American country with his family? He can sign in Jamaica and the US, but not anywhere else unless a parent goes with him.

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  3. These kind of signings dont even excite me any more. Just another young player that will be 20 years old by the time he gets to see the field and will probably end up playing for another national team. There is no way you can tell how this player will turn out at this early of an age. Why not let him stay with the academy for a few more years and then make a decision then? I dont see the point of signing 16 year olds

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    • A lot of players are bought at 16 now. I think Najar was signed that young. The reason is that you have locked a player into the club, you can now have him train with your men’s team, you can include him in tournament rosters, you can loan him to a team in a lower league, etc.

      At 16, I doubt he does anything his first year except train with the team and earn a little bit of money.

      As we’ve seen in other leagues for years and we’re finally seeing here, if he’s good enough, he’ll take this opportunity and raise his game. We, DC, are not the best at developing youth products, Najar being the only one that comes to mind, but we do give our academy kids solid looks.

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      • josh, maybe you forgot that freddy adu started at dc united, bobby convey did well to move from dc united on to reading. bill hamid, homegrown player. so many players have gone on from dc united to solid MLS careers. i dont know/

      • Adu played here as a teenager, however, we did not help his development at all beyond playing him. If anything, he stuttered while with us.

        I’ll give you Convey, albeit, the original comment was about 16 year olds and Convey came when he was 17 – I think. Details, I know.

        Hamid is a good shout, but I differentiate between outfield players and keepers.

      • You are forgetting Hamid who also can from the DC youth team as well. Young players being exposed to professionals day in day out can only help their development.

    • the point is keeping some of the regions best youth in mls rather than college or europe. i dont like dc united but with the their youth development they have been the best in mls so far. the key is to keep these guys developing at the senior level which i think skc is best at. so for the sake of usmnt, we should have dc united sign youth then trade them to skc once they are senior team ready.

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    • Yeah. I really can’t see him getting much playing time right away. I’ve seen some U-17 international play. Some impressive stuff, but it doesn’t look like senior soccer. It looks more like really good U-17s than like grown men.

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    • We probably now have the youngest forward line in the league. While I still think we need an actual goal scorer as a center forward, I’m always happy to see us bringing players in from the youth teams.

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