When Major League Soccer finished signing its 2010 Generation adidas class, it succeeding in landing every single one of its top targets save for one and it appears now that the league may still be able to complete the set.
MLS is in negotiations with U.S. Under-17 national team midfielder Luis Gil and are closing in on an agreement, sources with knowledge of the deal told SBI on Thursday. Gil, 17, is still weighing a variety of options, but talks with MLS have progressed after stalling before the 2010 MLS Draft and Gil could sign with the league before the new season.
A technically gifted playmaker who projected to be a first-round pick in the 2010 MLS Draft, Gil has received interest from high-profile clubs such as Arsenal and Real Madrid, but appears close to signing with MLS.
So how will his MLS destination be determined? Based on MLS precedent, Gil is likely to be assigned to a team via a weighted lottery, with the teams with the worst records in MLS last season having the best chance to land him.
The deal is not yet complete, but if MLS succeeds in signing Gil it will have capped a very successful run of landing several top youth prospects and college standouts.
What is our take? Gil would be a great signing for MLS given his impressive potential, but a move to MLS will only be beneficial if he goes to a team equipped to develop him and ready to devote the time and resources into working with one of the best young prospects in American soccer.
What do you think of this development? Like the idea of MLS landing Gil? Where would you like to see him wind up?
Share your thoughts below.
Ludicrous statement. “The MLS” is a fine training ground for young talent.
Really, they have had a youth scheme with many age groups for years, and yet a nominal fee for a transfer to an English 2nd division team for a player who spent two of his last three years playing for a Dutch youth team is the only money they have to show for it?
NY: $14 million for three players they developed
Vancouver: “nominal” money received
Vancouver’s academy sound like a great program, but Dave Clark touted it as though it were miles (kilometres?) beyond anyone else. Well, that’s not true. IPA, it is far beyond Seattle’s program, but you’re not paying attention to the rest of the league if you rate Vancouver’s academy so much higher.
Maybe in a few years, when Vancouver proves that its academy is a revenue channel, will players like Gil be interested. But why would he aim for the likes of West Brom?
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I was thinking Whitecaps before I read the first mention. This is in spite of the fact that I am a Sounders fan.
Maybe I’m just getting amp’d for 2011??
Caps do have a huge leg up on dev. going in. They have talent at ALL age levels & have been organized for years. They can flat out develop talent. If you thought the Sounders made the Seattle soccer scene look good, just wait for Portland & esp. Vancouver.
Why would the league want him in DC? He wouldn’t run the offense, and I can’t imagine him being a first choice sub, so how would the league be able to market him?
Ives
In a related issue, what’s the word on Sheanon Williams? He seems like a prime candidate for a GA contract, especially since his options abroad have all but dried up.
How is it a secret? There’s typically at least one lottery for a GA player every year (Rogers, Guarda, Davies as recent examples).
And there’s no such thing as a free agent in MLS, especially when it comes to GA players
Why wouldn’t DC have a go? He’d be in a weighted lottery, so they have nothing to gain by not entering. The allocation list has nothing to do with the lottery or DC’s odds, so it’s definitely worth pursuing.
I agree, the Dynamo U-18s last August went to europe, and beat Rangers, Benlloch, and Real Madrid. They lost to Celtic and Barcelona 1-0, but were the first team in over a year to hold Barcelona to one goal. I think our youth systems are getting better, however the loss of the MLS reserves has left a large hole between youth and pros in the US.
Dave, there was no youth team for the Metros at the time. Gambling a senior roster spot was all you could do until 2007. It still paid off more than $10 million for MLS.
And kudos to Vancouver for doing something useful for a couple years prior to handing Marcus off to Holland. But compared to La Liga, Bundesliga, and the Premiership, selling a player to the Coca-Cola Championship for a “nominal fee” ain’t much.
It sounds like Vancouver is on the right track, but a Motel 6 and a tutor isn’t enough for them to jump past MLS teams who have brought in real money for young players. Keep plugging away, and maybe in a decade you’ll find someone like Luis Gil wanting to play there.
Ugh, go to Arsenal. He will develop much better there than for an MLS team that doesn’t have a reserve team, a youth academy, good competition beyond the starting XI, etc.
He’s from garden grove I’m good friends with his brother…well it’s what he told me that they low balled him arsenal made him a cheap offer but he ddnt wanna leave cause he’s close to his family but
he said he wants Seattle but the
league want him at dc…
Because all the young players we sent to Europe have turned into stars like Jovan Kirovski, John Thorrington, Frank Simek, Zac Whitebread ,Kenny Cooper,Bryan Arguez and Johnathan Spector sure has improved a lot since he was first signed by Man U.
why can’t he sign with whatever team he wants?……mls is so screwed up.
HAHAHAHA!
Gil going as a 2010 allocation instead of (probably) the #1 pick in 2011 takes a lot of the luster off of the anticipation of whether Portland or Vancouver will get that #1 pick.
Haber was with the ‘Caps PRIOR to his time as a youth Groningen.
The players you note did not start as youths with Red Bull, but were with the Senior team.
Marcus Haber to West Brom after only 1 season with the senior ‘Caps
I suppose Philadelphia will get him, too! The allocation system needs to die a quick, quick death.
Oh please no.
I don’t think Freddy and his agent feel that sitting in civvies and pulling in big bucks is a downer. Short range thinking, but they seem happy with it.
I’m not sure I buy that. He couldn’t sign a contract until he turned 18, and he certainly wouldn’t be able to get a work permit.
Dallas may be stronger in experienced youth players.
So many debbie downers, if the leagues goal is to develop players for the national team and to help give players an opportunity to develop in their home country then they are doing there part, for every fabregas theres atleast three or four guys we never hear about, you can’t just lump guys together what happen with Adu is his fault and his parents fault for not grounding him and not teaching him the values of hard work, I think GIL is a phenomenal player and he will only get better in a challenging environment one where he is trying to beat out guys older than him for minutes, the best scenario for me is either chivas or New York. Look at england with all there academies, after this group is done who will be on their team? they have kids in academies from the age of ten yet they too don’t feel its adequeatly producing enough top flight talent, we can’t always look for other people to do the job for Us its time that MLS steps to the plate and takes development seriously and this could be the start of that.
I know Luis personally, he told me he wanted to stay here and he wants to play with seatlle but the league wants him at dc but his agent is talking with Seattle and he didn’t sign with arsenal bc they were offering way less money than the mls
Doesn’t RBNY supposebly have the best youth developement academy in America?
yeah because Arsenal’s academy doesn’t have washouts… give me a break! How many Arsenal Academy players are playing on the first team now? Exactly…Wilshere is a brit and he can’t even get time.
That is the problem, he is still soaking up information. In MLS he will not be getting the right kind or amount of information. This is the time he needs to be preparing instead he will be thrown out to the wolves like Adu and fail miserably(although I hope not, I am a huge Gil fan).
someone’s jealous 😉
Freddy Adu 2.0, it is sad to see all of this potential end up in a league like MLS that in no way likes to actually develop players. I don’t even want to hear about Bradley, Altidore, Dempsey, etc….None of those players save for maybe Dempsey (who is finally playing well after a few years of actual development with Fulham). This is probably the number one reason why I hate MLS so much, even countries like South Korea and Japan develop players better than we do.
Does he have a EU passport or are you suggesting he go backpacking?
There are extremely tight restrictions on under 18 year-old player signings from different countries in Europe. See Frederico Macheda. Even if Gil had an EU passport, his parent(s) would have to get a gob in ‘European City’ and prove that getting the job wasn’t for the sole purpose of having thier son play football at ‘European club’.
I don’t think this kid has any more options. Thank God we at least have a league now.
As long as MLS is constructed the way it is, this is a disaster. The only players it’s even been a marginal success for are Beasley and Altidore (I suppose you could stretch it out a little and say Donovan, but that is stretching).
However every other player has to be considered an unqualified disappointment: Beckerman, Quaranta, Convey, Johnson, Mapp, Gaven, Adu. And those are the good ones. Even Beasley and Altidore aren’t exactly world beaters.
The things Gil needs, MLS has been extremely poor at delivering. Either Gil needs to go elsewhere, or MLS has to make some major changes.
Doesn’t look like either is going to happen. As it is there’s been about five months of unproductive waiting.
That applies to returning Americans with national team caps. Not Gil.
Another opportunity for MLS to ruin a young prospect’s chances. We don’t have the capability to develop youth at the pace of Europe and at 17-18, American kids won’t feel the pressure of sitting on the bench and instead will be watching, learning, and playing with the world’s greatest. Who would you rather Gil learn from: Kyle Beckerman or Cesc Fabregas? If they bomb, they can come home to MLS with a couple years of experience that’ll last them a life time.
And I always find it amusing with our US sports: The worst team gets the first chance at the best players but, from a development viewpoint, wouldn’t you want the best and youngest to play for a team that will make them better? There are just certain MLS teams that shouldn’t handle youth (and my DC is at the top of the list – we’re starting to consistently play youth but are putting them in every position we can) while others are just more equipped for it.
Funny, the Marcus Haber I’m looking at spent two years playing for a Dutch club’s youth team, before returning to Vancouver for a season. Then he was sold to WBA for a “nominal” fee.
Compare to MLS teams, who have developed and sold players for years. RBNY/Metrostars, for example, have sold Tim Howard, Jozy Altidore, and Mike Bradley– players they developed before their academy system was fully developed, not unlike Haber’s case– for far more than a “nominal” fee.
That’s not counting the players from the RBNY academy who have gone overseas as the result of MLS’ bizarre approach to teams retaining rights to players they developed.
Vancouver has a nice thing going, but I don’t see any evidence that it’s better than other academies in MLS. It’s different in that there is a a residential academy, but that’s only relevant to Eurosnobs.
Gil to Chivas USA. End of discussion.
Let’s be honest, no team in MLS is equipped to develop a 17 year old attacking midfielder. Where ever he goes, it’s going to be a struggle for him to see the field, but hopefully he goes somewhere that the team provides a good support system, and a mentor. Philly or Colorado would be ok, I think SJ would be awful. That club is a blackhole.
My $.02 = Based on precedent (i.e. preseason MLS signing after the SuperDraft of a player who would be draft-eligible), I believe that Gil would be assigned to a team via a weighted lottery not the allocation process (even if a team was willing to use an allocation to acquire Gil – I am not sure that they can do it – i.e. lots of teams would have been willing to use an allocation on Robbie Rogers when he signed with MLS but they used a lottery to assign him to the Crew as every team entered that lottery). Assuming all teams enter the lottery, the team with the best odds would be New York (based on worst performance in 2009) – Philly would have the lowest odds (i.e. similar to Toronto’s odds in the Robbie Rogers lottery). The lottery is the MLS way to prevent draft-eligible players skipping the MLS SuperDraft process and then shortly thereafter signing with MLS in order to go to the team of their choosing (i.e. why Danny Szetela went to Columbus and not New York).
back in the day of the Boulder Rapids!
Is there an MLS team that develops young players?
As an Arsenal supporter, I was excited last year when the Gil rumours arose. I’ve only seen him play twice, but he certainly has a unique quality about him. I would think the best places for him in MLS would be Houston, either L.A. team, or Chicago. He could get some high quality training and possibly even get loaned somewhere for match time.
Like who?
I would love for him to come to the Galaxy. We have cobi jones, bruce arena, and dave sarachan he can learn from. On top of that cienfuegos routinley comes to practices. We have veterans here that can teach him proffesionalism plus the best player the US has ever produced who he can learn from.
Philly has a core of young players already, plus a former youth national team coach as an assistant and a PDL affiliate team for him to play at down the road in Reading. He and Jack Mack can hang out together around here.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see D.C. make a “magical” play at Gil. They managed to get albright, adu, quaranta, mapp, olsen, etc.
I would love this too, but just like Ives is talking about, we do not have the “resources” to develop him. It’s a damn shame too because I would love a young promise central midfielder instead of continually finding all these stop-gaps like Lima, Elliot, Luiz….
Guys remember what happened to Adu he decided to stay in MLS and not go to Inter when he was 14 being in Arsenal’s academy is much better than rotting on the bench on MLS I hope he does not go to MLS he will become a much better player if he just goes to their academy
New York certainly has enlisted some impressive youngsters in its system, but I think its an open question as to whether the have the best development system. From what I understand, the Fire has a very good set-up, including their new academy in Mississippi. In fact, I understand that no less than 9 Fire PDL players were selected in this last draft. I’d love to see some reporting that compared where the various clubs stack up in regard to their development and scouting systems.
Agreed. This is a pretty solid plan – he’s guaranteed play time sooner than he would be at an MLS team, and it would be good experience for him. Well put!
Ha! I love my Quakes, but there’s no way we’d be training U-17 talent on a community college practice field. We’d need Lew to invest in a youth academy, and we can’t even get him to commit to a DP. If we got him through the allocation order, I fear it would be almost a total waste of talent. Ship him somewhere else first, then bring him back over.