Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution published my story about Atlanta United's academy and the first players invited to join. You can read it by clicking here.
Today and either Wednesday or Thursday I’ll publish most of the interview I did with club president Darren Eales and academy director Richard Money last Friday in trailers outside of Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Atlanta United will begin play in MLS in 2017. Its training ground, which will house the corporate offices, first team and academy is under construction in Marietta.
Q: Just run through the process that led to the finalists who were selected for the academy teams. How many tryouts, how many weeks, how many kids, etc.
RM: Rough estimate, maybe 500 across all of the age groups for the initial tryouts.
We narrowed those down to probably 50 in each age group for the last tryout.
Then we sat in an office for four days, four or five of us, going through the evaluations and finished up with the rosters.
Q: The final invitations have gone out to the kids?
RM: The 12, 13 and 14s went out Wednesday. The 16 and 18s will go out today (Friday.)
Q: Was a call, e-mail or special package sent, similar to what was sent to the finalists?
RM: We called everyone that's been successful because obviously we needed to make sure that they really wanted to come and be part of it.
There’s obviously a bit of an element with the older boys, Tony (Annan) knows quite a number of them, so there’s been some personal phone calls.
Q: Was there a difference in what you were looking for for the 12s compared to the 18s?
RM: Yes, definitely. We want everyone comfortable with the ball at every age group, but especially the 12s, you aren't really looking too much tactically. You just want to see a good idea of how to control, pass and move. Good athletics in the body, that type of things.
The 18s are a little bit different. They need to have an understanding.
But the potential to go and maybe play on our first team has always been prevalent the older up the age groups.
We try to find who we think will be the player at some stage in the future.
Q: Was it the same number per position for each group, or was it the best talent?
RM: That's been another part of the process. As we've gone through the week, because clearly if you wanted to pick the best talent you couldn't pick 20 strikers on the squad.
Q: I asked before if you were going to try to go with a standard formation and strategy for every team to make the transition easier, and you said you were going to build formation and tactics around the players. Has that changed?
RM: There's two phases to this. We weren't sure who we were going to get to come to the tryouts in this process. The time frame has been short and were trying to build relationships with some well-established clubs throughout the state of Georgia.
There is an element of looking to see who we can recruit and what arrives at the tryouts, and then that determining what we do in the first 12 months. I think we’ve been particularly pleased with what we’ve seen, so maybe the philosophy part of it will come in a little bit earlier than we thought.
DE: It's fair to say it's been unbelievable the response from the clubs. We weren't sure in terms of the talent pool who we would get from the clubs. I think to a tee every club has been positive, worked with us, exactly what we hoped would happen.
You can see it, 26 different clubs across our 110 players that we’ve gotten.
Everyone has been really helpful. That’s been a positive.
Q: When do the kids go to work?
RM: August. We have a group of our Under-18 players that we may get going earlier. (July), maybe late June. Some type of fitness program.
I think we might want to find out just how close they might be to USL or MLS, as quickly as we possibly can. We want to try to get them going quickly.
Q: Should the 18s feel any extra pressure with the team starting next year and the roster mostly open?
DE: I don't think it's pressure. I think it's a good place to be.
They’ll never be an easier chance to make the roster than this year.
In a way it’s one of the positives we have as we build the club. We really can make youth a priority if we want to, and we want with the way we’ve built the academy and starting the academy before the first team. The academy is a very important part of our overall strategy.
There will never be a better chance to integrate those young players because as Richard knows if you are at the sharp end as the head coach of the team you’re in the middle of a season and there’s pressure, there are players that have been purchased the board expects them to play, this is a scenario where we want to identify quite earlier on if we feel any of those players have got the chance to play for the first team. If they are, this is the time to accelerate them into that first-team structure.
I don’t think it’s pressure, I think it’s a great opportunity.
I think that’s what we will be reiterating to our under-18s.
A lot of development is about talent but it’s also about opportunity. Normally, it’s opportunity that’s the harder part of the equation. The opportunity is there, you have to put the work in and make the most of it.
Q: Were you satisfied with the talent level of the finalists? Were there too many to choose from? Need more?
RM: We could have picked two teams at least, in every age group. The selection process was incredibly difficult.
I’m not used to an environment where people turn up and try out. I’m used to an environment where you are watching players, bringing them into your club and you have much more time to develop. So, to see that many players, and to get every decision right, we know that we haven’t. But if we haven’t made the right decisions now then the next 12 months the challenge is going to be to rectify that and make the right decision next time.
I’m sure there will be people who haven’t been selected who will look at who we selected and think “we’ve always had a much better sort of standing than that player.” We’ve tried to make our evaluations based upon potential for the future, as well as what we see right now. That’s difficult. The more years that we do that the more years that we will get that right.
DE: From my perspective having been here longer than 15 months, we've talked about how fortunate we are in one since that Georgia is a great talent pool for soccer with some great youth clubs. We've talked about we've got our other designated academy, Concorde, that's been one of the top clubs. Things have been done well in this area anyway through the clubs that are already there. It's a testament to the guys buzzing up after the trails on the U16s and U18s that we have got a level of talent here that probably surpasses what we thought going into the process of starting the trials.
Look, that’s the starting point for us.
Our hope now is that we can develop the players through Richard and his team and the things that we will do at the new training ground.
But what a great starting point with what we have already: that great talent pool that is probably surpassed our expectations.
