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FC Dallas sell Mexican U-20 GK Sanchez to Tigres

RichardSanchezMEX (Getty)

By IVES GALARCEP

FC Dallas Homegrown Player Richard Sanchez has quietly been one of the most sought-after young players in Major League Soccer since helping lead the Mexican Under-17 National Team to the Under-17 World Cup title in 2011. Now, two years later, FC Dallas is cashing in on the booming interest in the young U.S.-born goalkeeper.

Sanchez will be joining Mexican side UANL Tigres for the 2013 Apertura season, Tigres announced on Wednesday. Sources have confirmed to SBI that the move is a transfer with a sale price of $1 million. The transfer is believed to include sell-on clauses that will ensure FC Dallas receive a significant amount of any future transfer of Sanchez from Tigres.

Sanchez is poised for an important summer as the starting goalkeeper on the Mexican Under-20 National Team.

The 19-year-old goalkeeper had yet to make an appearance for FC Dallas, and wasn’t expected to be a part of the team’s plans given Peruvian national team goalkeeper Raul Fernandez is the team’s starter and Chris Seitz is the back-up.

By selling Sanchez, a player who didn’t figure in FC Dallas’ first-team plans anyway, Dallas will now head into the summer with a significant amount of transfer money to help improve their roster.

What do you think of this development? Think it was a smart

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. I’m a Tigres fan. N to me that’s a stolen valuable piece for us. He will basically sit for half a season, n will most likely will play for the second team. N he will b worth probably 4-5 million. But I’m sure tigres will use him as a future player in the next few season. But great for FCD. I’m from here n would of luv seeing him play gor the first team but seems like ge never had a chance.

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  2. I like the move for Dallas, I’m glad Sanchez is getting his wish to move, and I like the precedent of selling an untested academy player for a million.

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    • well, he was from Atletico de Madrid academy, he moved to Dallas to finish highschool, now that he has his diploma there is no reason for him to stay in the MLS.

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  3. I bet this is just the first move in a series, culminating in the perfect buy/trade. Beefing up the midfield and D likely, since the top of the pitch is covered with scoring threats. Way to go Hunt family, Coach, and FCD Academy system! And MLS!

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  4. Congrats to Richard – I hope he does well. I imagine the partnership FCD has with Tigres played a role in this transaction.

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  5. Any idea how he ended up playing for the Mexican youth team, instead of the US? Were the Mexican coaches on the ball in tracking his development? Did they make him an offer he couldn’t refuse? Anyone with some idea of the history here?

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    • Mexican parents, born and raised in the US. Richard has stated many times, he feels more Mexican than American. His dreams were to play for Mexico as a kid (he still is one). He’s been extremely open about his national team intentions with FCD through interviews.

      Last round of qualifiers ESPN had a piece where he featured and states word for word some of the items I mention. I’ll dig for a link, perhaps youtube has something.

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      • I don’t want to come across as xenophobic and I realize that the dynamics with citizenship, culture, and personality are very complex, but I still feel a little betrayed when immigrants who come here for a better life end up representing other countries.

        blah blah blah John Anthony Brooks, Mixx, Bunbury. I got it. Yes I realize that it is a double standard.

      • That isn’t a double standard at all…

        You mentioned that you feel betrayed by players who move here for a better life then play for their parents country. Then you mentioned two players who came to the US and adopted it as their home and choose to represent us, those are not similar at all so you’re still good.

        In fact it is hard to draw a true parallel for anybody in the US set-up with what you feel betrayed by because there are almost no Americans who leave for a better life elsewhere and then choose to represent the US. We have dual-citizens in other countries, but not guys that had to escape a crap life in this country.

      • you need to consider that not everyone WANT to live in the US, many immigrants do it because of NEED, they work hard to earn their place, probably harder than most citizens.

      • If they come here it is because they wanted to. Maybe they NEEDED to get out of wherever they are from, but we are far from the only developed country in the world. At the end of the day they felt the US was their best option.

      • The reason he came here is cuz he got recruited. Common sense. Who does want a shot a pro. League team. At 17Yrs. Old

    • I think they keep 2/3rds is what someone said above since it is a Homegrown player….makes sense according to how MLS is a single entity….the league gets some and the team gets the rest….

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  6. Not Tigres!!! now he will never play, Tigres loves getting young guys and then playing veterans. So much for that Chelsea trial 🙁

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  7. good sell by FCD. Raul Fernandez is beast, Richard was never going to see 1st team mins as long as Raul is there. Fans in Frisco love Raul, even have a Chant for him.

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  8. Wow, $1 million for a third-string keeper? Very nice piece of business FCD. Plus homegrown rules let teams keep 2/3s of the fee as opposed to half.

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  9. Freaking good business, and I am proud of my FCD. Now we need another CM so that we can move Michel back to LB. Maybe we can pry Wilson Palacios from Mark Hughes and Stoke for a small fee…he only had 4 substitute appearances under Tony Pulis this season.

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  10. I think it’s also key to note that they signed Sanchez and thus were able to sell him on and be reimbursed. If they had allowed him to remain in the academy, Tigres could have poached him for nothing. This is a problem with the academy structure in America. I forget his name, but DC had a kid plucked up by Arsenal; no training reimbursement, no nothing. That’s the next step, creating incentives for teams (not just mls clubs) to train up and sell on bigger and better talents.

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    • Apparently this is a big problem with the Galaxy academy as Tijuana do an annual raid on the Galaxy academy. Also Toronto FC lost two of the highly regarded youths to Queens Park Rangers. There’s nothing really keeping foreign clubs at bay from sniffing around. Part of the learning curve I guess, MLS is a young league and academies have only been around for a few years.

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    • The problem is that a lot of kids are trying to straddle the fence between college and professional. If they knew for sure at 16 or 17 that a large professional contract was going to come in a few years, they would sign up with a club for the smaller amount now. However, since they aren’t sure, they would rather keep their college eligibility alive rather than take $35,000 per year to be on the reserve squad. That way, they can take a $100,000+ contract later on, but if that doesn’t come then college is still an option.

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  11. I would really like to see how the sell-on deal works and how often that happens.

    Either way, it’s good for FCD. The more teams invest in training and dev infrastructure the better everyone gets. I’m surprised there’s nothing out there about what teams are doing at that level.

    Training ground review and ranking? Anyone?

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    • FCD has Moises Hernandez on loan to Saprissa right now, he’s starting for them, loan ends mid 2014. Expect Moises to be a first team FCD player in the next couple of years.

      FCD has a great youth program with somewhere around 900 athletes in their system. We just dropped Ruben Luna (Atl Silverbacks now) and Bryan Leyva before the season kicked off. Both are products of our system as well, we didn’t move fast enough to sell or loan them and had to drop to make roster space for incoming guys with us now.

      There’s another 8-12 guys you can expect to see FCD looking to take in or move around in the next 2-3 years already. Youth is a big part of FCDs future plans.

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      • As it should be for all MLS teams. The Gals also have a very nice system going and producing first team products along with other coveted players in their system.

  12. This is great for FC Dallas….maybe it will encourage them to keep pumping out Academy products… I am glad he’ll get a shot in Mexico tho….and the Liga Mx fans can see a product out of the MLS youth and US clubs succeed there….

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    • Expect Liga MX fans to give MLS and FC Dallas exactly ZERO CREDIT for developing Richard Sanchez. They will give all the credit to the Mexican National Team Youth System.

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      • I have to agree…..which is fine by me….because if this kid takes the rain from say Memo Ochoa in about 5 or 6 years….I will so rub it on their faces….the kid grew up here, played club ball, was found my Mexican clubs HERE playing a tournament I believe, he’s from LA I think, and then he went to FC Dallas…..but yes they won’t give ANY credit to MLS…even tho that is the one thing we do produce….great keepers

      • Richard Sanchez is a good prospect but he’s not actually that good… he was the 3rd keeper for Dallas and will mostly be 2nd/3rd option for Tigres, nothing will change that much. Jonathan Orozco and Guillermo Ochoa were already well seasoned in the league at his age and are still young, so I doubt Richard will make any noise in the senior NT in a long, long time… (if he’s lucky and Toño Rodriguez or William Yarbrough doesn’t pan out and become great keepers too).

      • Not exactly, I watch all if not most of Mexico national team games, n FCD has been give its credit. Plenty of times. So yall shoudnt say that they won’t when they have mention many times his development from FCD.

  13. This is the way it’s done. Good work FC Dallas.

    Interesting that FCD got $1 million for essentially a 3rd string keeper, while DC only got $2 million for Najar, a key cog in attack and defense.

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    • DC got closer to 3 Million for Najar (at least according to my memory of the reports on that trade.) And while he was a starter, he was also less heralded/had no youth championships and limited national team exposure to bolster his transfer value.

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      • Well, if we’re doing the apples vs. oranges thing — Najar was playing first-team for his club — so, he had greater value for his club. He was also getting first-team minutes for the senior Honduran national side. so he might have been more coveted. Finally, the top Belgian team probably has more money to throw around.

      • Sort of on this note:

        Does anyone else think that MLS clubs give away too much to European teams in negotiation? Seems that MLS teams want the “prestige” that comes with being a feeder to top leagues, and that MLS players are so keen on Europe that they will take less just to get in the door.

  14. All FCD fans knew this was going to happen sooner or later. He’s too young to start and too valuable to sit. This kid is already very well-known in Mexico. A good piece of business IF they reinvest the proceeds.

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