Commentary
USA's No. 1 club aims to produce more pros (Q&A: Red Bulls' Bob Montgomery, Part 1)
- by Mike Woitalla @MikeWoitalla, Apr 26, 2013
Interview by Mike Woitalla
The New York Red Bulls, which last year had more than 20 players called up to a U.S. youth national team, were rated Soccer America's top 2012 boys youth club -- the first time an MLS club claimed No. 1 since the rankings’
inception 10 years ago. In Part 1 of our interview with the Red Bulls' Director of Youth Programs Bob
Montgomery we spoke about the club's quest to produce pro players, the U.S. Soccer Development Academy, and the impact of pro teams on the youth soccer landscape.
SOCCER AMERICA: The Red Bulls (nés MetroStars) were one of the first MLS clubs to launch an ambitious youth program. How would you assess its progress?
BOB
MONTGOMERY: I think it’s going very well. When I came on board five years ago is when we decided to have a fully funded academy and to model it similar to European model, where the
focus is on player development. Now the clubs in the area and people in the area are now recognizing that we are the best place to be for player development.
One of the attractions is
that it’s completely cost-free. We have six teams, five in the regular season, and we bring our college players back and play in the NPSL so we can keep track of them and see how they’re
progressing.
We’ve had seven players sign with the first team and we’ve had numerous players over the last few years who have been selected to U.S. national teams.
SA: The Red Bulls won the U.S. Development Academy’s U-15/16 title in 2012. How important are results?
BOB MONTGOMERY: Wins and losses -- we do
win. Our teams are successful, but the emphasis has to be on individual player development.
It’s important in developing pro players that you want people who want to compete, who
want to win. That’s a trait that’s very evident in professional athletes -- the desire to win and to work hard. Our job is to just make sure they do it in what we feel is developmental and
with proper soccer. So we’re not looking to just play long and over the top and get athletes to run on to it. Because we all know that down the road there’s always someone just as big and
strong as you, and if you don’t have a brain and you don’t have the technical ability, it’s not going to work.
SA: MLS’s investment in youth programs is
substantial -- Commissioner Don Garber says it’s about $20 million league-wide annually. How does a club measure that the investment is paying off?
BOB
MONTGOMERY: You judge yourself on who truly goes to the first team. But if we look around the world, it’s a pyramid and only the very best actually move on and will play in the first
team.
When I came on board, they told me a good number is if you have a player every other a year -- a player who truly makes it.
We have academy players come through the
system, or coming back from college, and are around for one, two, three years and are released. I’m talking about guys who come through your club, the homegrown guys, who become contributing
players who play for your club for eight, nine, 10 years. That’s what we’re trying to develop.
It’s not necessarily a Lionel Messi or Thierry
Henry, a star player, it’s about a guy who is a good club person who comes from within and contributes over 10 years. Those people are very valuable. If Connor Lade can
play for Red Bull and have a career for 10 years, then we’ve done our job.
[Editor’s note: Besides 23-year-old Lade, homegrown players on the current Red Bull roster are
Amando Moreno (17) and Santiago Castano (17). Red Bull homegrown signees now with other clubs: Juan Agudelo (Chivas USA), Matt
Kassel (23, Philadelphia), Sacir Hot (21, Hessen Kassel/Germany)]
SA: What’s your opinion on the impact of the U.S. Soccer Development
Academy, which the Red Bulls have been part of since its launch in 2007?
BOB MONTGOMERY: The Academy is in its infancy. What I would say for U.S. Soccer and its
Academy program and youth development in general – is we started in the middle and now we’re working our way down.
We need to do a better job and get involved in the
grassroots. True development of players is going to occur between 8 and 12 years of age. We need to find a way to impact that.
We do it in the training program where coaches go out and
work in the community. They do summer camps, but it’s not full-time … we can go and can teach and we can recommend, but it’s up to them to adopt the policies, procedures and the
development programs that we think is best.
Quite honestly, across the country, I have heard, you have heard, and everybody else has talked about it for the past 25 years -- that with
young players you should play in small numbers. We should be playing 5-side at certain ages, and 7-a-side and up to 8-a-side, then at 12 or 13, move to 11-side competition, because it’s a
process that they need to go through.
If you look around the country, we’ve got U-12 national championships, all these tournaments, and we’ve got 7-, 8-, 9- year-olds playing
on huge fields, adult fields, and playing 11-side, and it doesn’t make sense.
SA: There seems to be a good amount of strife between Academy clubs and non-Academy clubs, and
pro clubs and independent clubs that begrudge MLS clubs having an advantage in that they fully fund the Academy teams …
BOB MONTGOMERY: I think
there’s issues with some clubs. They think they should keep the players and they don’t want to allow them to come. … But right now I think it’s working well for us. We have a
good relationship with most clubs in our area and the coaching staffs. Many of them understand when their kids want to come. …
Why come to Red Bull? What’s the difference at
Red Bull? Our U-16, our U-18 players are getting into training sessions with our first team. They’re playing in reserve games. We’re averaging four players for each reserve game. Those are
the advantages of playing with an MLS club.
Some clubs understand it. Some clubs still feel they’re our major competitor. Down the road, I don’t how many years – 3, 4, 5
or 10 -- I think eventually MLS should have their own leagues with people that are doing things the same way, funding their programs, developing their players. That way we have control of how we do
things.
But for now it’s not a major problem.
(Mike Woitalla, the executive editor of Soccer America, is the co-author, with Tim
Mulqueen, of The Complete Soccer
Goalkeeper. Woitalla's youth soccer articles are archived at YouthSoccerFun.com.)
It is simple. Th pros should be in the business of making pros. The amateurs should be in the business of making good citizens. Don't mix water with oil. US soccer needs radical change. US soccer needs a soccer Revolution! US Soccer needs to create and mandate a 21st century master plan. We need to establish a Usonian Way.
Don't agree that true development occurs between the ages of 8 and 12, at least not in an organized setting. Many excellent players were playing on town travel teams before the age of 10.
If we limit ourselves to "early bloomers" like some of the BNT players are clearly (6' tall by the age of 12 or 13), we are losing out to every other soccer country. If players are given up on by the age of 13 - either they have it or don't, you are missing out.
I applaud going to four practices per week next year, but I am hoping that affiliations to non-DA programs get organized to require three practices per week, and other adaptations closing the gap between "almost DA" and DA players. Too many parents will take their son out of a DA program because of the vast difference between the commitment of a non-DA top team and DA teams (even poor DA teams, which most others in the NYC area are).
Living in NJ, I know the RBNY program and know its reputation, and I know that there are obstacles such as travel to the practices, games, and tournaments, that leave out the best resource at team near Newark can have - immigrant or first-generation players whose dream it is to play pro soccer to get their family out of poverty. Let's hope that RBNY will get on board with a residential program as soon as possible; with NJ's excellent schools, it should be a magnet for the top HS aged players in the country.
Mike I said this before and I am going to say this again. Soccer America should organize a symposium with our soccer power brokers and grass root leaders to brainstorm in creating a new vision for US Soccer's future.. Soccer Amercica needs to be the driving force behind this symposium because your magazine for many years has had your hand on the pulse of soccer in the US. Time is ticking. It is time to start a soccer Revolution in the USA. SA you are our Parick Henry.
If our recent spate of youth non-success in international competitions is a measure of how well this approach functions, than we need more changes than are discussed here. Watching some of the national youth teams play against other countries is a dramatic demonstration of how poorly skilled and non-intuitive our players are. This is the result of poor player selection (intuitive vs raw athlete) and lousy coaching. We'll always have a problem in this country by clinging to the way youth soccer has unfolded, with the HS programs and college (with unlimited substitutions) probably being our biggest obstacles to international success.
There are 2 Developmental Academy programs. 1) Professional MLS Academies where the player has a chance to go pro. 2) Very competitive Recreational Academy programs that are glory programs for affluent children where foreigners with accents fleece the yokels.