Friday, September 20, 2013

MLS Top 21, 21 and Under

MLS released their annual 24 under 24 last week. Most over there seem to think a 24 year old player is a 'youngster'.

It's not.

24 is more a player entering into their prime. To drive the point home here in town for Crew fans, it wasn't that many weeks ago that Adam Jardy of the Columbus Dispatch caught Federico Higuain commenting on Wil Trapp's age:

“I don’t necessarily consider him to be that young,” Higuain said last week through an interpreter. “Young in other countries means 16, 17 years old. I consider him to be a mature kid at this stage. As far as his qualities go, he’s very talented and he brings a lot to this team.”

What a great quote from Higuain. Nothing wrong with a list like MLSsoccer.com put together, but call a spade a spade. It's basically a list of foreign transfer target players, whether the editors of MLSsoccer.com know that or not is irrelevant.

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Since I track such things, here is my 21 MLS player 21 and under in Major League Soccer based on my own player rating model.

1. Oriol Rosell (KC) MF : 1.83m, 76kg : Spain
2. DeAndre Yedlin (SEA) MF : 1.73m, 68kg : Washington
3. Andrew Jean-Baptiste (PDX) MF : 1.88m, 93kg : New York
4. Jack McInerney (PHI) F : 1.73m, 70kg : Georgia
5. Andrew Farrell (NE) MF : 1.80m, 75kg : Kentucky

6. Luis Gil (RSL) MF : 1.73m, 70kg : California
7. Russell Teibert (VAN) MF : 1.70m, 66kg : Canada
8. Shane O'Neill (COL) MF : 1.88m, 86kg : Ireland
9. Fabian Castillo (DAL) F : 1.73m, 68kg : Colombia
10. Soony Saad (KC) F : 1.78m, 75kg : Michigan

11. Olmes Garcia (RSL) F : 1.83m, 79kg : Colombia
12. Jonathan Osorio (TOR) MF : 1.75m, 72.57kg : Canada
13. Jose Villarreal (LA) MF : 1.70m, 75kg : California
14. Carlos Salcedo (RSL) MF : 1.85m, 77kg : Mexico
15. Juan Agudelo (NE) F : 1.83m, 82kg : Colombia

16. Doneil Henry (TOR) MF : 1.88m, 82kg : Canada
17. Marco Delgado (GOATS) MF : 1.75m, 66kg : California
18. Wil Trapp (CREW) MF : 1.73m, 68kg : Ohio
19. Erick Torres (GOATS) F : 1.83m, 72kg : Mexico
20. Jose Correa (GOATS) F : 1.85m, 86kg : Colombia
21. Jack McBean (LA) F : 1.83m, 78kg : California

For Crew fans, it's nice to see Trapp on this list. But consider the difference between Sporting Kansas City's Barcelona La Masia graduate and him.

Pretty proud of my list. Lots of good players here. Thinking most will be snatched up by teams with deeper pockets soon.

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