Post by Holden on May 17, 2024 18:43:55 GMT
The academy guys have given us decent production, arguably as good as the veterans, for a homegrown discount. Georgi was arguably our best player last night. I find it hard to fault him when he's looked better than Chu and Morris this year. Kitahara was set up to fail - playing out of position, working with three different Sounders wingers throughout the game, being ignored by JP and Rusnak offensively, and having to track star Diego Luna all game. He did a better job than I was expecting.
Jon Bell has to be one of the better 4th string CBs in the league. Same goes for Leyva at CDM. Our depth is good. Our Best XI is not.
You mentioned Diego Luna . . . he cost RSL a mere $250K. I'm guessing that wouldn't even fund our youth setup for a month, but Luna is better than anything it's produced since Morris. It's easy and cheap to get MLS role players, so an academy just isn't worth it unless you can produce fairly regular Pepis and Richardses for export. I don't think it's unreasonable to call the Sounders academy a spectacular failure.
Obviously we need to be producing more top talent to consider the academy a success, I just wouldn't call it a failure given the production we've gotten from Vargas, Leyva, Atencio, Baker, RBW. That's not even counting Yedlin and Morris. Hawkins looks promising. I think our academy is top 5 in MLS, though I realize that's not a high standard.
