Thread by @NatFan9

2019 #PlayYourKids MIDTERM REPORT

There’s been a lot of talk about young domestic players in MLS getting more playing opportunities in recent years, especially in light of the US failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. So I decided to look into it.

This is primarily looking into U20 and U17 players, which is most commonly defined by a player’s birth year.

A large portion of this data comes from @fbref, with supplemental information from transfermarkt.

So far, U20 Americans and Canadians in MLS have played 12,270 minutes in the league. With 211 of 408 games completed, that means they’re on pace to play 23,726 minutes, which would be an MLS record since the advent of the Homegrown Player Rule in 2008.

FC Dallas by far leads the way in terms of minutes for these U20 domestic players, while Colorado and NYCFC round out the top three. On the other hands, 6 teams, Houston, Minnesota, Chicago, Orlando, Portland, and Columbus have not played anybody born in 1999 or later.

FC Dallas also leads the way in minutes for U20 domestic players cumulatively since 2008. Rounding out the top five with FC Dallas are Philadelphia, RSL, Toronto, and DC United.

But young domestic players are also seeing a lot more playing time at the USL level as well. Since the MLS/USL affiliation agreement in 2013, U20 minutes have skyrocketed. This is important because it gives these young players opportunities against professionals.

When combined with MLS, U20 domestic players are on pace to play almost 120,000 minutes in the American professional pyramid this year, which would be nearly 30 times more than a decade ago.

Perhaps the biggest increase this has been in the overall number of minutes played by U17s at all levels. U17 domestic players have already played 8,728 minutes. We’re just shy of halfway through the season, and we’ already approaching last season’s record number of U17 minutes.

Back to MLS specifically. I also compared the league to others around the world to see how it stacks up in terms of giving youth players minutes.

For this I used @fbref’s age denominator to stay consistent across winter and summer leagues. See notes for more info.

Lastly, I also charted the number of MLS minutes played by American players in a given birth year for the data set I looked at.

Can you tell which year Freddy Adu was born?

Note: This, unlike the rest of the thread, is specific to Americans and does not include Canadians.

REPORT APPENDIX

I made 24 charts for this and only used 8, so here’s a few more I found interesting

After 2016, Montreal shut down their USL team in favor of affiliates and after 2017, Vancouver did the same. For 2019, TFC II self relegated to USL League One. That left no Canadian reserve teams in the championship and boy is that apparent.

This was somewhat clear on the domestic chart, but it’s even more striking in the US chart; 1996 born Americans only played 212 minutes as U20s in 2016, part of an overall trend of that birth year simply not getting minutes in MLS at young ages.

REPORT NOTES

Along with listing birth years, fbref lists player ages at the start of the season, which it defines as age on Aug 1 for winter leagues and Feb 1 for summer leagues. I used this when comparing leagues.

Additionally, nationality mapping at fbref is not perfect right now, so for MLS players I cross checked each with transfermarkt, prioritizing senior national team call ups, then youth national team call ups, then listed citizenship.

I wrote an article for @ClassicASN elaborating on this thread: americansoccernow.com/articles/play-…