D.C. United has reportedly bolstered the club’s Homegrown ranks with the signing of one of U.S. Soccer’s top prospects.
The Washington Post is reporting that D.C. United has come to terms with U.S. Under-17 Men’s National Team captain Chris Durkin. The 16-year-old midfielder is expected to finalize a multiyear deal with the club on Tuesday and is expected to be in uniform Wednesday for D.C. United’s U.S. Open Cup clash with the Fort Lauderdale Strikers.
At 16-years-old, Durkin is the club’s third-youngest signing behind only Freddy Adu and Santino Quaranta. Durkin has previously played within the Richmond Kickers youth program, while making his debut as an amateur with the first-team last summer.
In January, Durkin was among 32 players invited to Bradenton, Florida for the U.S. U-17 residency program. Since, Durkin captained the U-17s in a trio of games in India in May while playing both in the midfield and in central defense.
What do you think of the news? What do you expect from D.C. United and Durkin?
Share your thoughts below.
Young kids, and their parents, will only sign pro deals if they value it more then a top notch college program. It most likely has to be huge money for kids to give up a Standford, UCLA, UVA, UNC, etc scholarship. MLS still has a long ways to go to be able to throw large amounts of money at unproven 16 and 17 year olds.
This is a good development that I’m excited for. Although I wouldlike to see this happening throughout every US pro league USL/NASL eventually not just MLS. The entire soccer pyramid needs to be a flowing system. USL and NASL should be competing to sign some of these young players that colleges are recruiting.
Without the promise of helping promote your club to the first team, its hard to convince these kids to give up college for meager pay and no “fame” in the NASL or USL (Rest of the world has it easy, lower division is the only choice for most players). The only advantage NASL has (if you can call it an advantage) is providing an easier transfer to Europe, a la Haji Wright signing for Cosmos instead of LA Galaxy. LA Galaxy wanted to lock him in for 5 years (maybe more), but he wanted to be able to leave as easy as possible at 18.
How many mls academies have u15, u17, u19, u21 or reserve teams although not first team mins it’s gives them games to play rather than just practices. I think not playing hurts the development of the younger players
This is great news if it is part of a larger trend. Development is not really about signing one player, but about creating a funnel for a lot of young players to get professional experience. It is really a numbers game, particularly for the whole USMNT. MLS teams still need to figure out how to bring these players up. Hopefully a combination of USL, Open Cup games, etc will show some success at developing these players.
The current model for MLS creates a number of good players like Steve Birnbaum, but he’s already 25 and just getting Nats experience. How great will it be when someone like him is getting professional experience at 17,18,19??
yeah MLS needs to sign them young so they can get to work immediately. No sense wasting time playing like 12 matches per year in college with limited training schedules when you are losing ground to your age cohort overseas. I think Klinsmann has applied pressure to MLS to make a visible effort to get younger professionals signed and it is working. This might not be one of those cases but early professionalism is generally frowned upon in the US. I am glad we are now recognizing that we limit the potential of our best talent not only for their USA career’s but in their own pro aspirations when they don’t get to play. Hopefully when the time comes, MLS is to the level where they don’t have to leave for Europe and can play their pro career in the US.
This guy gets it – good comments.
It will be interesting to watch how Durkin progresses with D.C. United and how Andrew Carleton progresses with Atlanta United. These two players are 2 years younger than Pulisic, but presumably lack the European passport needed to play in Europe before age 18.
How do you guys think MLS will develop Durkin and Carleton? Will they see the field in the MLS at age 17 like Pulisic did for Dortmund? Will they play in Europe once they are old enough, or stick with MLS?
Agreed – hopefully he’s getting first team minutes soon if he’s good enough. Tyler Adams, from last year’s U17 team, made his first-team debut for RBNY earlier this year and I think he’ll get some more minutes with the busy stretch they have coming up (6 games in two and a half weeks if they win their open cup game tomorrow).
Boy get far away from DC United and Ben Olsen!
Yeah, because Ben does such a bad job with young talents…like Andy Najar?