On September 1, at the 2010 SuperLiga Championship final at Gillette Stadium, MLS Commissioner Don Garber confirmed that MLS is focused on re-launching a version of the reserve league. Greater roster depth would alleviate the challenges of schedule congestion and allow MLS teams to commit more fully to tournaments like CONCACAF Champions League, SuperLiga, and Open Cup without disadvantaging their runs for the ultimate priority, MLS Cup. The recent relaxation of NCAA restrictions and the emergence of the first MLS residential academy, developed by Real Salt Lake, are indicators of initiatives to ratchet up development in the United States. Both developments factor into creating players for MLS, but young professionally-trained players need the transition of an expensive reserve league to be successful. Fortunately, MLS has just extended a valuable contract with adidas, who are focused on youth and amateur player development and committed to investing resources in MLS academy and reserve league endeavors.
“In order for those young [academy] players to have a place to play, in order for us to continue to sign young players in our draft and out of the college system, we need to have places for them to play,” said Garber. “In our view, a reserve league, a modified version of the one we had in the past is the way for us to go. We’re very focused on it, we're looking at that re-launch, and we’ve got a very close relationship with adidas that we’ve just extended and they’re very committed to working with us on that reserve league as well."
“Coming out of the World Cup, [the adidas contract] is probably the best example of the League being able to capitalize on the increased interest in the sport," said Garber. "They're really focused at the youth and amateur player development level. It’s a big part of their core equity and that’s something we want to tap into both financially from a strategic perspective and perhaps even from an opportunity of working with some of their relationships with clubs around the world. If you asked adidas what’s the most important aspect of their relationship with us, it’s about player development and relationships with the emerging growing talent in this country and that’s a very positive thing for us to be able to capitalize on. . .We’re big believers in that we’ve got to make that pyramid bigger and deeper and a big part of the future growth of the sport here.”
Real Salt Lake’s landmark residential academy in Arizona launched in August and now is home to 20 players competing in their U-16 and U-18 Academy League teams. The residential academy, under the direction of former USMNT and Galaxy defender Greg Vanney, is operated at Grande Sports World, a public-private partnership, and in the future could train and educate as many as 80 players in additional age groups as well.
“All of our teams have academies and Real Salt Lake is the first one bringing people in to residence,” said Garber. “The academy system is very, very important to us. Our teams are incentivized to do more with it by being able to sign those players directly to their rosters and we’re going to closely monitor what Salt Lake is doing. I’d like to see all of our teams have deeper academies and make even further commitments to it, so we’ll monitor it closely. … It’s an important part of our future. I met with a young player [at the Revolution] who I think might move up from the academy here into the team.”
Although it appears that MLS will look to the academies and college programs to staff a reserve league built from an expanded roster, Garber did not rule out an increase in the international roster. When asked if the international roster might be increased, he replied, “I don’t the answer to that yet, it’s part of the process, it’s under review.” Further, when responding to a question on expansion Garber responded, “I don’t believe with a global market of players and our ability to modify our rosters, pick from a global pool of players, that dilution is really an issue, it certainly hasn’t proven to be.“
“We’re seriously evaluating the return of the reserve League," said Garber, "and that would require us growing our rosters a bit and making commitments there."
Read: Garber says MLS to review schedule, prioritize CCL, SuperLiga and Open Cup tournaments
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