Talent Search

RSLfrontrowfan · 04-07-2006, 12:37 PM

Jose Luis Luviano · 04-07-2006, 02:40 PM

What he wrote is basically true.

But I've watched Marvin Quijano, Jose Botello and Memo Gonzalez wander around looking lost while Irvine's Joe Max Moore and Palos Verdes' Kevin Hartman and the Westlake Village Boys Eric Wynalda and Cobi Jones have (to varying degrees) competed successfully against the world's best.

prk166 · 04-08-2006, 09:51 AM

I think ODP itself is flawed. The people making the choices don't get paid a lot. More likely than not they're looking for some power and/or presitige in the organization. They're more likely to make safe choices than really go out there and put a lot of work into finding the next Eddie Johnson running around the ghetto. If anything, this just makes me wish the MLS would hurry up and follow the metrostars lead and allow for full out youth academies with teams being able to benefit from the players they discover and develop.

dysko · 04-08-2006, 11:32 AM

I have to agree with this...

When I was a kid, ODP was not an option because of the expense. The one year my parents said OK to it, my brother and I had to decide which one of us could go, because only one of us could. It turned out that the ODP coach was a club coach from our area. He recognized my brother as being from the "second tier" (read league that was less expensive because we traveled less) league in our are and let him go.

The irony of the matter is that we ended up beating his club team in two seperate fall tourny's. So a lot of his club players tried out for our team the following season. And two guys who made ODP didn't make our team, of which my brother was the top player.

I think what Eddie Pope is doing with the Eddie Pope Foundation will help things to a degree. But, you still need coaches who are willing to take the risk of bringing the inner city kids.