Timbers Academy Rated One of MLS's Worst

[Unregistered]

100% accurate. Which is why the clubs need to collaborate on a solution. They can't all afford to lose the fees, but together they could swing it.

They won't, of course, as everyone's little empire matters more to them than soccer.

Empire? Spoils of nothing. Just cash flow machine.

[Unregistered]

Keep telling yourself this.

your club always gets stripped of the little label by age 15....

You are Blessed with the IQ of grapefruit,

Oh does that DA certificate at u15 have a special gold star ours doesn't? Do tell and please post a picture!

Is there fine print on the back of extra special u15 USDA certificate that requires high school aged USDA to discard local kids for foreign imports? Its ok, our club will take the local kids in (if they don't want to quit the sport) - some of them can play! - just curious if that is in the extra special HS-aged DA contract we don't see in the regular DA contract.

[Unregistered]

Oh does that DA certificate at u15 have a special gold star ours doesn't? Do tell and please post a picture!

Is there fine print on the back of extra special u15 USDA certificate that requires high school aged USDA to discard local kids for foreign imports? Its ok, our club will take the local kids in (if they don't want to quit the sport) - some of them can play! - just curious if that is in the extra special HS-aged DA contract we don't see in the regular DA contract.

Nope at the HS ages your club is not good enough to be considered a bona fide DA.

It's that really simple.

Even for someone withan IQ of a grapefuit.

[Unregistered]

I think you are all focused on the small picture. The bigger picture is the TImbers DA program should be much better then it is. I realize Mr Pulson does not want to spend a penny more then he has to,and that is his priotiry. However, it would not take any more pennies for the Academy to be much better. There needs to be a change in the Directors of the Academy. The CO Directors have failed miserably. They have failed local talent, which believe it or not there is local talent. They have failed the local community. The list of things that would have avarage people fired from thier posts is ridiculously long. THey dont care about player development. They would rather keep shipping in kids from out of town. One quits and another is flown in. Get rid of these two Directors and hire someone that is truly interested in developing talent. You dont need to spend any more then is currently in the budget

[Unregistered]

I think you are all focused on the small picture. The bigger picture is the TImbers DA program should be much better then it is. I realize Mr Pulson does not want to spend a penny more then he has to,and that is his priotiry. However, it would not take any more pennies for the Academy to be much better. There needs to be a change in the Directors of the Academy. The CO Directors have failed miserably. They have failed local talent, which believe it or not there is local talent. They have failed the local community. The list of things that would have avarage people fired from thier posts is ridiculously long. THey dont care about player development. They would rather keep shipping in kids from out of town. One quits and another is flown in. Get rid of these two Directors and hire someone that is truly interested in developing talent. You dont need to spend any more then is currently in the budget

The Timbers organization's ultimate goal is a successful first team. Start there and work backward to find the best practices to make that happen. Bringing in international talent at the older ages when development has either already happened or not isn't a bad strategy.

Local kids have every opportunity to work hard enough to make it. To expect any coach to baby-step your son to the MLS is ridiculous. Any player that has that type of ceiling should have the self-awareness to know where their deficiencies are and have the work ethic to address them on their own time. That's the secret sauce. Any half-decent athlete knows what they're bad at, but it's the rare few who will spend the thousands of hours on their own building their game to be worthy of replacing a pro on an MLS team.

[Unregistered]

The Timbers organization's ultimate goal is a successful first team. Start there and work backward to find the best practices to make that happen. Bringing in international talent at the older ages when development has either already happened or not isn't a bad strategy.

Local kids have every opportunity to work hard enough to make it. To expect any coach to baby-step your son to the MLS is ridiculous. Any player that has that type of ceiling should have the self-awareness to know where their deficiencies are and have the work ethic to address them on their own time. That's the secret sauce. Any half-decent athlete knows what they're bad at, but it's the rare few who will spend the thousands of hours on their own building their game to be worthy of replacing a pro on an MLS team.

Of Course what you say makes sense, except you comletely overlooked the fact the current Directors fail to spend anytime working with the younger age groups. THey sit and ignore a player for a year then expect the say player to have fully developed on his own, andfor the most part the players brought in from other places are players thaat failed to make thier local DA teams. There has been no International wonderkin that has been brought to Portland.

THe current Directors have failed in everyway imaginable. Dont let them off the hook. They deserve to be Hooked

[Unregistered]

Any player that has that type of ceiling should have the self-awareness to know where their deficiencies are and have the work ethic to address them on their own time. That's the secret sauce. Any half-decent athlete knows what they're bad at, but it's the rare few who will spend the thousands of hours on their own building their game to be worthy of replacing a pro on an MLS team.

This is all obvious stuff from the player-side. We all know players need these things to be successful. That's entirely separate from whether or not an academy is functioning well.

The staff and program - things the club controls - lags comparable offerings. For Portland to produce professionals, they have to do more with less. Right now, they're doing less with less.

[Unregistered]

This is all obvious stuff from the player-side. We all know players need these things to be successful. That's entirely separate from whether or not an academy is functioning well.

The staff and program - things the club controls - lags comparable offerings. For Portland to produce professionals, they have to do more with less. Right now, they're doing less with less.

You are so willing to name excuses. Just like the Directors. Makes one wonder if the call is coming from within the house. THe Directors need to go and at that instant the Academy will start to get better

[Unregistered]

You are so willing to name excuses. Just like the Directors. Makes one wonder if the call is coming from within the house. THe Directors need to go and at that instant the Academy will start to get better

Like when the director's son plays gets to play in a lower age group?

[Unregistered]

I think you are all focused on the small picture. The bigger picture is the TImbers DA program should be much better then it is. I realize Mr Pulson does not want to spend a penny more then he has to,and that is his priotiry. However, it would not take any more pennies for the Academy to be much better. There needs to be a change in the Directors of the Academy. The CO Directors have failed miserably. They have failed local talent, which believe it or not there is local talent. They have failed the local community. The list of things that would have avarage people fired from thier posts is ridiculously long. THey dont care about player development. They would rather keep shipping in kids from out of town. One quits and another is flown in. Get rid of these two Directors and hire someone that is truly interested in developing talent. You dont need to spend any more then is currently in the budget

But they have a waiting list in the thousands just to watch the 1st team live.

[Unregistered]

This is all obvious stuff from the player-side. We all know players need these things to be successful. That's entirely separate from whether or not an academy is functioning well.

The staff and program - things the club controls - lags comparable offerings. For Portland to produce professionals, they have to do more with less. Right now, they're doing less with less.

Do more with less works great until the big markets do more with more.

The player-side stuff is 90% of the equation.

[Unregistered]

Do more with less works great until the big markets do more with more.

The player-side stuff is 90% of the equation.

Plenty of examples globally of academies that greatly out-perform their pools

I'll believe there's something inherently wrong with Oregon players when there's top quality staff doing hard work. As is, no one should be surprised at the results.

[Unregistered]

The Timbers organization's ultimate goal is a successful first team. Start there and work backward to find the best practices to make that happen. Bringing in international talent at the older ages when development has either already happened or not isn't a bad strategy.

Local kids have every opportunity to work hard enough to make it. To expect any coach to baby-step your son to the MLS is ridiculous. Any player that has that type of ceiling should have the self-awareness to know where their deficiencies are and have the work ethic to address them on their own time. That's the secret sauce. Any half-decent athlete knows what they're bad at, but it's the rare few who will spend the thousands of hours on their own building their game to be worthy of replacing a pro on an MLS team.

Hiring international players is an option, but only one of many to secure a strong first team. The point of this discussion is to ascertain why the Timbers Academy is not developing more talented players? It is clear they have a road block at the top of their marketing team preventing the basics of building two brands side by side, the Timbers and the Timbers Academy, same issue for Thorns and Thorns Academy. Culture matters. It starts with brand building across your team, your parents and your community.

The TA organization, presumably they are fearful of brand confusion, is 10000000% missing the boat on building the brand and culture of their academies. This in turn affects everything about those academies from opportunities appearing for the kids, to parent, kids, coach pride, to kids wanting to put in those “famed” extra training hours you mention above, to performance for the organization. A well thought out brand, makes goal setting more clear and public and accountable.

Check out other academies across the US for girls or boys. They have a strong social media presence with Academy, parent and kid user created content being added much more frequently. The culture is clear through day to day posts about their goals that week, that month. There is much more pride seeping out of their organizations and they are leading strong with their club and Academy brand having their own website celebrating successes, offering training videos for their kids, interviews with their older successful kids who may have been invited to national team camps or some other soccer leadership experiences, so they can role model for younger kids in the academy.

The TA’s approach to embedding anything Academy into a link on the first team’s website is not building a brand. It is unbelievably embarrassing. For a marketing team that is clearly strong for their first teams, the fact that they are building no brand or culture for their academies is also shocking. The Thorns Academy links on google can still take you to a page that says Tobin Heath is helping the academy girls program and yet I heard from a friend who has a girl on the team that in two years they have never seen her. Nothing is up to date, no brand is being built, no pride to drive Academy directors or academy coaches. This stuff matters.

I know there are committed academy coaches, but even they feel they are a bastard step child to the first teams. **** or get off the pot TA and stay building well thought out academy club brands. Every one affiliated will feel the affects and this will drive accountability to perform.

[Unregistered]

Meant to say “start” building.

[Unregistered]

Hiring international players is an option, but only one of many to secure a strong first team. The point of this discussion is to ascertain why the Timbers Academy is not developing more talented players? It is clear they have a road block at the top of their marketing team preventing the basics of building two brands side by side, the Timbers and the Timbers Academy, same issue for Thorns and Thorns Academy. Culture matters. It starts with brand building across your team, your parents and your community.

The TA organization, presumably they are fearful of brand confusion, is 10000000% missing the boat on building the brand and culture of their academies. This in turn affects everything about those academies from opportunities appearing for the kids, to parent, kids, coach pride, to kids wanting to put in those “famed” extra training hours you mention above, to performance for the organization. A well thought out brand, makes goal setting more clear and public and accountable.

Check out other academies across the US for girls or boys. They have a strong social media presence with Academy, parent and kid user created content being added much more frequently. The culture is clear through day to day posts about their goals that week, that month. There is much more pride seeping out of their organizations and they are leading strong with their club and Academy brand having their own website celebrating successes, offering training videos for their kids, interviews with their older successful kids who may have been invited to national team camps or some other soccer leadership experiences, so they can role model for younger kids in the academy.

The TA’s approach to embedding anything Academy into a link on the first team’s website is not building a brand. It is unbelievably embarrassing. For a marketing team that is clearly strong for their first teams, the fact that they are building no brand or culture for their academies is also shocking. The Thorns Academy links on google can still take you to a page that says Tobin Heath is helping the academy girls program and yet I heard from a friend who has a girl on the team that in two years they have never seen her. Nothing is up to date, no brand is being built, no pride to drive Academy directors or academy coaches. This stuff matters.

I know there are committed academy coaches, but even they feel they are a bastard step child to the first teams. **** or get off the pot TA and stay building well thought out academy club brands. Every one affiliated will feel the affects and this will drive accountability to perform.

Performance and products that's it.

Many fools live in a digital fantasy land, creating an imagined world of their own design.

Try the red pill and all will be revealed.

Wake up.