Dynamo give look at the future
by Martek on Dec 19, 2011 12:36 PM CST
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Strake Jesuit alumnus and Notre Dame goalkeeper Pat Wall via www.houstondynamo.com
If you're like me, you're watching football around the globe, following whatever teams you enjoy following (I hear there are other teams out there that are not Celtic and Barcelona, but that may just be a rumor.), and are just slowly burning, wanting to know why these teams are not in Orange. Well, the Houston Dynamo, like the big guy in the red suit and the reindeer fetish, are here to to answer your desires.
The annual Dynamo Academy Showcase Game will be played tonight at 5 p.m. at Houston Amateur Sports Park. Here's a quick release from Dynamo detailing who will be there (not Sebastien Ibeagha, who as we have heard already, is in Florida at the US Men's Olympic Camp).
HOUSTON, TX (Monday, December 19, 2011) -- The top prospects from the Houston Dynamo Academy, presented by Statoil, will be on display Monday night in the annual Dynamo Academy Showcase, set to kick off at 5 p.m. at the Houston Amateur Sports Park.
First team head coach Dominic Kinnear and his staff will be on hand to evaluate players, with a full match pitting the Dynamo's college-protected players and select guests against players from their U-18 and U-16 teams.
College participants include:
DF Leo Ayala (Challenge Early College), University of Central Florida
DF Matt Boullt (Fort Bend Clements), Tulsa
MF Ábe Matamoros (Strake Jesuit), Tulsa
MF Daniel Roberts (Fort Bend Clements), UNC-Wilmington
MF Johnny Torres (Atascocita), Wake Forest
GK Pat Wall (Strake Jesuit), Notre Dame
MF Miguel Zapata (Katy Mayde Creek), Tulsa
Dynamo Academy home-grown players may be signed to the Dynamo first team without being subject to the MLS SuperDraft or the allocation process. Houston has signed four players from its Academy, goalkeeper Tyler Deric (Klein) and midfielder Francisco Navas Cobo, both of whom made their professional debuts in 2010, and midfielders Alex Dixon (Humble Atascocita) and Josue Soto (Prepa Tec, Mexico), both of whom competed in last year's Academy Showcase.
In case you're wondering what you might see if you can get out there this evening, here's a lookback to the 2010 event.
It's not the first team, but it's a nice Holiday present to those of us who can (A) get down to HASP for the event and (B) just want to see some guys in Orange kick a ball in anger. That's a pretty nice deal, anyway you slice it.
And speaking of Ibeagha, here's an interesting Twitter exchange between Soccer by Ives' Ives Galarcep and Taylor Twellman during the US Olympic Camp intrasquad game yesterday:
@SoccerByIves Ibeagha looks MLS ready. Should sign homegrown deal w/ Hou ASAP. No point in going back 2 coll
Followed by
@TaylorTwellman@SoccerByIves he is a bit of a between the ears project. Athletically gifted but not the brightest esp during college ball
@SoccerByIves@TaylorTwellman Most young CBs need to learn the position, where better than at Houston, w/Dom Kinnear, Boswell and Cameron?
Make of it what you will
Meanwhile, here's an update from the Olympic Camp, including a certain right midfielder with which we are all well-acquainted.
Forza Naranja
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Twellman
Reminds me of Kirk Herbstreit. Pretty boy former player becomes sportscaster. Disliked him at first but has grown on me. Actually makes insightful and intelligent comments. Rare thing in sports announcing.
On the Dynamo, great to see so much young talent on the way up. Cruz, Sarkodie, Bruin, Ibeagha, and the other under 25 players on our team make for a team with a lot of potential for the future. How’s that for rebuilding?
Speaking just for me...
…I find it easier to get behind this kind of rebuilding than just splashing millions of dollars on foreign players like some other AEG-owned teams we could name.
"We don't care who finishes second." -- Celtic's Peter Lowrie
Yup
I’m a fan of the “Morey model” in terms of building a talented team through drafting (in our case, Academy and the like) and then add a star-level talent or two as playmakers who can really create for themselves or the other players. We’re almost there: we’ve been fortunate with the midfield we have, and we’re one star-level CAM from being very dangerous. As you’ve both noted, we’re actually quite stacked with young talent for the next 3-5 years in terms of what’s in and coming through the pipeline of the Academy. Dixon, Soto, Cruz, Sarkodie and Bruin are young talents that are already “here”, but then if you factor in guys like Ibeagha, Odinegwe and the guys listed in the Showcase tonight that’s some very, very good young talent we’ve got growing up. If we get a good signing or two it could definitely bridge the gap until some of these players come to fruition and we may not have to be so desperate to shop around for DP-level talent. Heady times, my friends
Here's a thought
Is it perhaps not too far off the mark to think of Dynamo as the one most like the soccer version of “Moneyball?” Personally, I cringe at these sorts of comparisons because I think that Billy Beane gets far, far too much credit at the expense of quality and smart people like Art Howe (personal disclosure: His daughter and son-in-law are personal friends of mine.). So I do not sling the Moneyball label around blithely.
That being said, if that sort of thing means anything, it means finding diamonds in the rough, scouring lower draft levels for talent, spending wisely, playing smart and being smart. And growing your own players is a big, big part of that. Unlike Beane’s Oakland teams, Dynamo have actually won a trophy (or two or five) and we have that sort of force behind what we do as well as a winning organizational mentality. So the analogy is there, but perhaps does not hold water the whole way.
Whatsay?
"We don't care who finishes second." -- Celtic's Peter Lowrie
Couldn't agree more
I often toss out the Daryl Morey references, but that’s because he’s been likened to the “Billy Beane” of basketball and I’d like to think Kinnear & Canetti (which sounds like it should be a detective drama on TNT) are taking their own approach to that. I like using the Morey reference because like you said, Beane’s situation was a bit more complicated and its simplistic to say it was all him; but that’s another discussion for another place, I suppose. That being said, I’m curious if others around the league are taking a similar track (save of course LAG & NYRB, who apparently live like the 1%) since for most other teams its a matter of making the most with what you have, at least at this point in MLS.
Think about it, in 3 years we could have the following players either in the starting XI (some of whom already are) or on the bench or reserves:
Will Bruin (FW)
Danny Cruz (MF)
Kofi Sarkodie (DF)
Alex Dixon (MF)
Josue Soto (MF)
Tyler Deric (GK)
Ike Ibeaghe (DF)
Leo Ayala (DF)
CJ Odinegwe (DF)
Miguel Zapata (MF)
Daniel Roberts (MF)
And I know there’s a few other kids waiting in the wings and probably a few I missed but wow, that’s a SOLID line-up right there. And think about it: even in 3 years, the oldest of the litter would be Will Bruin at 25 years old. That’s crazy to think about…even if 3 or 4 of those guys don’t make it that far (what I mean is, they actually stay here but that’s unlikely) that still leaves you with a very dangerous-looking line-up for years to come. Add to that the winning tradition of this club and hopefully Dom will still be here and with of course talent from elsewhere (imagine these guys playing with guys like Camargo or maybe another DP with great technical ability) and we could be a serious player in the Eastern conference for years to come. Hopefully we get an owner willing to continue the investment in the Academy and player technical development and things could get even more interesting.
Sorry
Sebastien, not Ike. Brain fart on my part
PS – Hopefully if we were able to keep Cameron during their development they’d grow playing alongside him to develop a defensive mentality but with an attacking mind (no, not a midfielder dammit). He’d be 30 in 3 years and probably start losing minutes to some of them…but still, what a team
Moneyball
I’m not sure that it’s a good analogy since moneyball is predicated on statistics and percentages. Even Morey uses film analysis to determine propensities and success rates. The Dynamo seem to be working more in line with the build through the draft philosophy that the Texans use and adding free agents to fill needs, as mentioned above, rather than the build the team with money like some other teams we know.
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