Next CanMNT manager (Herdman to TFC)

[Sal333]

3 hours ago, Aird25 said:

You've been reminded of this countless times already, but 5 to 10 years ago the national team was often filled with players that were unattached. Of course the commentary would be different.

The CPL has already helped develop quite a few national team level players waterman, loturi, farsi, sirios, mcnaughton, abzi, Alghamdi etc. and the level of youth players they are attracting continues to improve. We'll have quite a few youth national team players that will be competing in CPL this season

 If the CPL didn't exist those youth national players would have found a way through American universities or the various American leagues.

I agree with the poster who said that the CPL's biggest asset is growing interest in the game. Crepeau, David, Davies, Buchanan. Larin, St Clair and Eustaquio all made it by finding other avenues. Unless the CPL's revenues increase exponentially, I don't think the CPL has made or will make a huge difference in the development of elite players. Yes, you'll have the occasional Waterman but if the CPL wasn't there players like Waterman would have found another way.

[dyslexic nam]

12 minutes ago, Sal333 said:

 If the CPL didn't exist those youth national players would have found a way through American universities or the various American leagues.

I agree with the poster who said that the CPL's biggest asset is growing interest in the game. Crepeau, David, Davies, Buchanan. Larin, St Clair and Eustaquio all made it by finding other avenues. Unless the CPL's revenues increase exponentially, I don't think the CPL has made or will make a huge difference in the development of elite players. Yes, you'll have the occasional Waterman but if the CPL wasn't there players like Waterman would have found another way.

But you could make exactly the same argument about MLS.  Before it existed, there were opportunities and pathways for players to develop and turn pro.  But that doesn't negate the fact that MLS has been a valuable tool for deepening the player pool.  And CPL will provide yet another avenue for deepened developmental opportunities.

[Aird25]

11 minutes ago, Sal333 said:

 If the CPL didn't exist those youth national players would have found a way through American universities or the various American leagues.

I agree with the poster who said that the CPL's biggest asset is growing interest in the game. Crepeau, David, Davies, Buchanan. Larin, St Clair and Eustaquio all made it by finding other avenues. Unless the CPL's revenues increase exponentially, I don't think the CPL has made or will make a huge difference in the development of elite players. Yes, you'll have the occasional Waterman but if the CPL wasn't there players like Waterman would have found another way.

And if MLS didn't exist more elite youth players would be in CPL. What's your point?

Waterman was playing for Foothills at 23 and MacNaughton was playing for Alliance United. I'm skeptical either of them would have found a path to pro soccer without CPL. The CPL has already made a big difference in developing National team level players.

[Aird25]

Previously we lost so many players after they finished college, University, or MLS academies because there was nowhere else to go. Thats why we were calling players up that were unattached. Now those fringe players have somewhere to play, and further develop and many of them are moving on to other pro opportunities. The MLS level players have always had a better shot of finding contracts in Europe or elsewhere but the fringe Canadian players didn't used to have a place to play

Edited April 12 by Aird25

[Ottawafan]

36 minutes ago, Sal333 said:

 If the CPL didn't exist those youth national players would have found a way through American universities or the various American leagues.

I agree with the poster who said that the CPL's biggest asset is growing interest in the game. Crepeau, David, Davies, Buchanan. Larin, St Clair and Eustaquio all made it by finding other avenues. Unless the CPL's revenues increase exponentially, I don't think the CPL has made or will make a huge difference in the development of elite players. Yes, you'll have the occasional Waterman but if the CPL wasn't there players like Waterman would have found another way.

Define elite players.

Not arguing against your points, but one of the issues surrounding Canadian football is the identifying of talent and further developing it.  Who a player is at 14-16 is different than 18-20.  The top kids at U15 are many times not on the radar at U18.  I think in time, with more focus being put into kids in the 15-20 age bracket, more kids will come out as higher end players.

[Kent]

21 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

In per capita population terms there are basically as many MLS franchises in Canada as there are in the United States.

It's already been pointed out, but this isn't a useful metric. More pro teams is better. 3 teams makes it likely that there are positions that aren't being filled by any Canadians across our entire domestic pro team pool. Like with MLS's DP rules, it's very possible no Canadians on the 3 MLS teams are getting minutes at striker at one time or another. If your country has 10, or 15, or 20, or 50 pro teams, the odds increase that there is at least somebody getting a chance in every position on the field.

It's not like Iceland would be happy with 0.3 teams because that's about the same as USA in per capita terms.

5 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

What I am pointing out in all of this is that there is no compelling logical reason why CMNT revenues should be handed over to a league like that.

Not handed over. Sold. If MLS wanted to pay Canada Soccer 5 million per year for the rights when the CPL was offering 4 million per year for the rights, I'm guessing Canada Soccer would have taken MLS's deal. Even though Canada Soccer really wanted a pro league to expand the game in the country (number of pro players, interest in the game, interest in the game locally instead of existing soccer fans just looking abroad, and yes, help for developing players for the national team).

[Ottawafan]

25 minutes ago, Aird25 said:

And if MLS didn't exist more elite youth players would be in CPL. What's your point?

Waterman was playing for Foothills at 23 and MacNaughton was playing for Alliance United. I'm skeptical either of them would have found a path to pro soccer without CPL. The CPL has already made a big difference in developing National team level players.

But in your example, if the MLS youth programs didn't exist, players like Waterman and MacNaughten may not have brought into the CPL side.  Point is more opportunities for a younger Canadian kid to play and develop at a pro level is good for the game.  In time it will pay off.

[InglewoodJack]

Has the CPL even been around long enough to determine whether it's actually developed talent yet? Takes a couple years for a league to develop into a viable development pipeline, and it takes a few years after that for a player to go from a promising kid to a big player worthy of the national team. If you hypothetically joined the CPL at 18 in the inaugural season, you're only the age where players make their big move and get integrated into the national team set up now, and we know the league has improved since then.

1 hour ago, Sal333 said:

I agree with the poster who said that the CPL's biggest asset is growing interest in the game.

Ultimately it's this though. Sports is an entertainment product and people go to games to watch entertaining matches, not guys who might be good players in Europe in 5 years and play a handful of national team games each year. In that regard, attendances are up in the CPL, and we've been able to put teams in cities that aren't represented by any other major leagues. Interest in soccer is booming in Canada, there is a league infrastructure in the country ready to welcome these fans as they come, and any nascent sports league will have franchises who can't draw or aren't managed well or anything on their way to becoming a solid, established league. It'll probably take another two decades until we can really judge the CPL's success.

[Aird25]

2 hours ago, Ottawafan said:

But in your example, if the MLS youth programs didn't exist, players like Waterman and MacNaughten may not have brought into the CPL side.  Point is more opportunities for a younger Canadian kid to play and develop at a pro level is good for the game.  In time it will pay off.

I'm not sure what MLS youth programs had to do with bringing Waterman or McNaughton to CPL. I don't think either of them were ever part of them. Regardless, I wasn't arguing MLS wasn't important for Canadian player development. It's the usual suspects suggesting CPL isn't 

Edited April 12 by Aird25

[dyslexic nam]

9 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

Has the CPL even been around long enough to determine whether it's actually developed talent yet? Takes a couple years for a league to develop into a viable development pipeline, and it takes a few years after that for a player to go from a promising kid to a big player worthy of the national team. If you hypothetically joined the CPL at 18 in the inaugural season, you're only the age where players make their big move and get integrated into the national team set up now, and we know the league has improved since then.

This.  For me, the biggest argument against anyone saying it doesn't (and will not) contribute at the National level in a meaningful way is that it already has, despite still being a relatively young league.  Formed in 2019, impacted by COVID, and yet it is already demonstrating a meaningful contribution at the national level.  To me that is a really significant affirmation that it will yield long term payoffs for national level players.  And I discount any argument that simply dismisses the current examples (because they probably would have managed it anyway).  You don't get to ignore facts on the basis of own speculation.  

 

[Kent]

I'm curious how many players in the USMNT in 2001 got their start in MLS. I know they brought most existing national team players to MLS for the inaugural season. But how many guys got their start in MLS and played for the national team within it's first 5 seasons? Not that it's a contest, but I am curious if it is more or less than CPL. I would guess more, after all it did have more teams than CPL, and was a bigger budget league than CPL, but I don't actually know, and I don't know how to reasonably research it.

I just spot checked a couple high profile guys I thought had a shot of being in that window. Clint Dempsey was 2004, so a few years later in MLS's lifetime than CPL is at now. Same thing with Michael Bradley. Landon Donovan played in the 2001 season, which was year 6 for MLS (same as CPL this season) but got his start with Leverkusen. I just thought of DaMarcus Beasley, he started in MLS in 1999 and got his first cap in January of 2001. So there is at the absolute minimum 1 guy who got his start in MLS and was capped, this early into the league's life. Maybe other people can come up with other players.

[narduch]

4 minutes ago, Kent said:

I'm curious how many players in the USMNT in 2001 got their start in MLS. I know they brought most existing national team players to MLS for the inaugural season. But how many guys got their start in MLS and played for the national team within it's first 5 seasons? Not that it's a contest, but I am curious if it is more or less than CPL. I would guess more, after all it did have more teams than CPL, and was a bigger budget league than CPL, but I don't actually know, and I don't know how to reasonably research it.

I just spot checked a couple high profile guys I thought had a shot of being in that window. Clint Dempsey was 2004, so a few years later in MLS's lifetime than CPL is at now. Same thing with Michael Bradley. Landon Donovan played in the 2001 season, which was year 6 for MLS (same as CPL this season) but got his start with Leverkusen. I just thought of DaMarcus Beasley, he started in MLS in 1999 and got his first cap in January of 2001. So there is at the absolute minimum 1 guy who got his start in MLS and was capped, this early into the league's life. Maybe other people can come up with other players.

The ironic thing about this, is even today most of the US's best players are duals they had nothing to do with MLS. 

[InglewoodJack]

1 hour ago, dyslexic nam said:

This.  For me, the biggest argument against anyone saying it doesn't (and will not) contribute at the National level in a meaningful way is that it already has, despite still being a relatively young league.  Formed in 2019, impacted by COVID, and yet it is already demonstrating a meaningful contribution at the national level.  To me that is a really significant affirmation that it will yield long term payoffs for national level players.  And I discount any argument that simply dismisses the current examples (because they probably would have managed it anyway).  You don't get to ignore facts on the basis of own speculation.  

 

We don't really have a comp to how the CPL should develop- ie a major global economy with a relatively massive population starting a soccer league from scratch without a massive injection of cash a la CSL or Saudi Arabia (their league has been around for years though) so it's hard to project where the CPL should be, but to put it into context, MLS has a 30 year start on the CPL, and the european leagues have over a century head start on us. We're about a decade away from any CPL team having "lifelong fans" because even children whose families brought them to games in 2019 are, well, still children. Alphonso Davies has been at Bayern longer than the CPL has even existed.

League building is a generational project, and by the looks of it, we may have our first CPL-trained players compete in the second world cup cycle that the league has existed (maybe one ex-CPLer is on the roster in 26?) and there's a very good chance by 2030, we see a CPL presence both on our team as well as some other CONCACAF nations.

Even if you buy into the argument that Canada's interest in hockey is declining and soccer is taking its place, that also will take a generation to actually show tangible effect- the kids following soccer today had parents who followed hockey, and their kids will be born as soccer fans. Let's wait until the kids of the children attending games today start going to games themselves before making a judgement call on how the league is performing. Maybe the league will crumble like every other former pro league here, but soccer is too big for the 9th biggest economy in the world to not have a professional soccer league on some level.

 

Actually, re comp: assuming MLS/US Market is incomparable, Japan’s league was founded in 1992 may be a decent comp. They made their first World Cup 6 years later (us, 33 years prior), they made their first knockout round 10 years later (at home too- that would be us making the knockouts in 2030), scored their first knockout round goal 26 years later, won their first Asian cup the year the league was founded (we won ours 19 years before the CPL was created), so on.

Edited April 12 by InglewoodJack

[Aird25]

22 minutes ago, Kent said:

I'm curious how many players in the USMNT in 2001 got their start in MLS. I know they brought most existing national team players to MLS for the inaugural season. But how many guys got their start in MLS and played for the national team within it's first 5 seasons? Not that it's a contest, but I am curious if it is more or less than CPL. I would guess more, after all it did have more teams than CPL, and was a bigger budget league than CPL, but I don't actually know, and I don't know how to reasonably research it.

I just spot checked a couple high profile guys I thought had a shot of being in that window. Clint Dempsey was 2004, so a few years later in MLS's lifetime than CPL is at now. Same thing with Michael Bradley. Landon Donovan played in the 2001 season, which was year 6 for MLS (same as CPL this season) but got his start with Leverkusen. I just thought of DaMarcus Beasley, he started in MLS in 1999 and got his first cap in January of 2001. So there is at the absolute minimum 1 guy who got his start in MLS and was capped, this early into the league's life. Maybe other people can come up with other players.

They also didn't have a second more established and higher budget league operating in their country and snapping up players. I'm not really sure there's much value in that comparison 

[Bigandy]

5 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

^^^describes a marginal rather than a critical contribution but no doubt still thinks he is rebutting what I wrote above in some way and people wonder why I talk about goalposts being moved on here. If you went back five to ten years on this subforum the impetus behind CanPL was the notion that deserving Canadian players were being denied opportunities to play in MLS and that CanPL was critical to nurture national team level Canadian talent for that reason. Having 0 out of 60 CanPL players in preliminary major tournament rosters holes that whole notion beneath the waterline.

Beyond that if it wasn't for the Nationalist agenda involved with its launch, CanPL still could have been a lot more useful for the Canadian MLS development pathway than it has turned out to be if affiliate clubs had been allowed. That was actively blocked by Bob Young & Co so most of the best prospects in terms of CMNT youth team selections are still in MLS academies and MLS Next Pro instead. Why hand over the CMNT sponsorship revenues from 2026 if the league in question wasn't going to work cooperatively with the three MLS academies that were and still are doing most of the heavy lifting on elite merit rather than pay-to-play based youth development?

As for TJ and Tavernier et al, clubs like the Ottawa Fury and FC Edmonton existed without the CSB deal and the need to have CMNT and CWNT revenue streams signed over for 20 years lock, stock and barrel. That was described by Victor Montagliani as "scraps off the American table" but the reality is that there was no actual need to hand over the family silver in CSA terms through the CSB deal to facilitate the marginal influence on national team roster depth expansion that is being described above. What is being described probably would have been happening anyway if there had been no sanctioning moratorium back around 2010 and more USL clubs had emerged in Canada.

I'll be watching CanPL this weekend through my Onesoccer subscription. I have no problem with a domestic pro league existing. What I am pointing out in all of this is that there is no compelling logical reason why CMNT revenues should be handed over to a league like that. CMNT revenues should be used first and foremost to boost the national team programs not prop up something else.

The post you are quoting was not a rebuttal to you. Look at who I responded too. 

The post said I agree that the CPL contribution will likely be modest with a goal of having 1 player in 3 categories produced per year. 

Call it 4 seasons. 

(9) Floor CMNT guys from the CPL: Zator, abzi, didic loturi, mcnaughton, waterman, pacsius? farsi, alghamadi Thats 9 in 4 years with 3 duals. 

(many) Some MLS/(other league) Loan guys: Sirios, pantemis, Rea, kane, Iliadis, dias, schiavoni, peruzza, assi, stewart baynes, ferdinand, yao, dunn, habibullah.  Who knows how many turn out for the national team as they are all very young but at least 4 of them are being monitored pretty closely. 

(4) Young high potential prospects: TJ, Tavernier, cameron, Mcdonnell, 

So far, the CPL is overproducing on my goals. Between it being a new league and Covid seasons. Thats pretty fantastic. Now add in that so many of the guys are still so young and who know where they develop. 



However, Im sure that ottawa fury and fc edmonton was creating this sort of contribtion to the national team. Just look at their track record of producing talent for CMNT.... A loan for crepeau, Coupland who made 3 appearances and is still not an established pro. Didic whos very low on the CMNT floor if he is still even anywhere near there. 

Would anyone ever trade coupland and didic for all the names listed above in the CPL. 

If you want to debate my point, feel free to explain how fc edmonton and ottawa fury was a better develoepmental pipeline than CPL. 

[Ottawafan]

36 minutes ago, Aird25 said:

I'm not sure what MLS youth programs had to do with bringing Waterman or McNaughton to CPL. I don't think either of them were ever part of them. Regardless, I wasn't arguing MLS wasn't important for Canadian player development. It's the usual suspects suggestion CPL isn't 

There are only so many spots available for younger players to get a chance to play and develop.  Take the MLS option out of the equation, means fewer chances for those younger players.  Waterman or Mac wouldn't have had the chance possibly.

[Pomoxis]

I am convinced O_t_p is an employee of the CPL, tasked with consolidating positive public opinion for the league.

[InglewoodJack]

38 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

The post you are quoting was not a rebuttal to you. Look at who I responded too. 

The post said I agree that the CPL contribution will likely be modest with a goal of having 1 player in 3 categories produced per year. 

Call it 4 seasons. 

(9) Floor CMNT guys from the CPL: Zator, abzi, didic loturi, mcnaughton, waterman, pacsius? farsi, alghamadi Thats 9 in 4 years with 3 duals. 

(many) Some MLS/(other league) Loan guys: Sirios, pantemis, Rea, kane, Iliadis, dias, schiavoni, peruzza, assi, stewart baynes, ferdinand, yao, dunn, habibullah.  Who knows how many turn out for the national team as they are all very young but at least 4 of them are being monitored pretty closely. 

(4) Young high potential prospects: TJ, Tavernier, cameron, Mcdonnell, 

So far, the CPL is overproducing on my goals. Between it being a new league and Covid seasons. Thats pretty fantastic. Now add in that so many of the guys are still so young and who know where they develop. 



However, Im sure that ottawa fury and fc edmonton was creating this sort of contribtion to the national team. Just look at their track record of producing talent for CMNT.... A loan for crepeau, Coupland who made 3 appearances and is still not an established pro. Didic whos very low on the CMNT floor if he is still even anywhere near there. 

Would anyone ever trade coupland and didic for all the names listed above in the CPL. 

If you want to debate my point, feel free to explain how fc edmonton and ottawa fury was a better develoepmental pipeline than CPL. 

Not to mention, these players are only the Canadian ones. Being that the goal of the league isn’t to develop our national team but to put a great product out that fans will want to see, we can probably find a ton of names who made other national teams.

Hell, guys like Ollie Basset who came from the English 19th division and became a star is a good sign for the league. This is a good place for players to move to, play to relatively decent crowds, and earn good money playing in nice cities. That’s a win for the overall product too.

[Sal333]

4 hours ago, dyslexic nam said:

But you could make exactly the same argument about MLS.  Before it existed, there were opportunities and pathways for players to develop and turn pro.  But that doesn't negate the fact that MLS has been a valuable tool for deepening the player pool.  And CPL will provide yet another avenue for deepened developmental opportunities.

I doubt it. The occasional Waterman I see coming from that league not more than that.

[Sal333]

4 hours ago, Aird25 said:

And if MLS didn't exist more elite youth players would be in CPL. What's your point?

Waterman was playing for Foothills at 23 and MacNaughton was playing for Alliance United. I'm skeptical either of them would have found a path to pro soccer without CPL. The CPL has already made a big difference in developing National team level players.

With such an obvious exaggeration I can see why you think the way you do. Can you name the senior NT players that the CPL developed?

[Sal333]

4 hours ago, Ottawafan said:

Define elite players.

Not arguing against your points, but one of the issues surrounding Canadian football is the identifying of talent and further developing it.  Who a player is at 14-16 is different than 18-20.  The top kids at U15 are many times not on the radar at U18.  I think in time, with more focus being put into kids in the 15-20 age bracket, more kids will come out as higher end players.

I'd define an elite player as someone who can play in the best leagues in the world. David, Davies, Eustaquio, Buchanan, Larin.

[Sal333]

3 hours ago, InglewoodJack said:

Has the CPL even been around long enough to determine whether it's actually developed talent yet? Takes a couple years for a league to develop into a viable development pipeline, and it takes a few years after that for a player to go from a promising kid to a big player worthy of the national team. If you hypothetically joined the CPL at 18 in the inaugural season, you're only the age where players make their big move and get integrated into the national team set up now, and we know the league has improved since then.

Ultimately it's this though. Sports is an entertainment product and people go to games to watch entertaining matches, not guys who might be good players in Europe in 5 years and play a handful of national team games each year. In that regard, attendances are up in the CPL, and we've been able to put teams in cities that aren't represented by any other major leagues. Interest in soccer is booming in Canada, there is a league infrastructure in the country ready to welcome these fans as they come, and any nascent sports league will have franchises who can't draw or aren't managed well or anything on their way to becoming a solid, established league. It'll probably take another two decades until we can really judge the CPL's success.

I'm not denigrating the CPL. I'm just not expecting it to develop many NT players in the short or long term. As I said, it'll cough up an occasional Waterman.

[InglewoodJack]

18 minutes ago, Sal333 said:

I'm not denigrating the CPL. I'm just not expecting it to develop many NT players in the short or long term. As I said, it'll cough up an occasional Waterman.

Why not in the long term? Even if we want to be cynical and assume that every young player in the CPL getting interest or trials from european clubs won't actually make it, you don't think we can produce a single top tier player over the next decade or so from our domestic league? That's very hard to believe, even just from an odds perspective, let alone the reality that the CPL is improving, the young players in 2024 are much better than the numbers in 2019.

Davies was identified from some local club in Edmonton. Jonathan David went to Europe from Ottawa. It's really hard for me to believe that somehow, a league with an actual infrastructure, developed ties with european leagues and a full integration within CONCACAF can't do the same, not even once. Like, you would need coaches and trainers actively sabotaging players for not a single CPL player to ever become "CANMNT starter" quality or whatever you want to describe as a quality CPL export. Bookmark this post, by 2034, we're going to have a player on the tier of our very best current players who will have started in the CPL. That I am completely positive of.

Edited April 12 by InglewoodJack

[dyslexic nam]

24 minutes ago, Sal333 said:

I doubt it. The occasional Waterman I see coming from that league not more than that.

Agree to disagree I guess.  For talented young Canadians, I can absolutely see CPL being a desirable pathway as long as the league can demonstrate a sustained ability to move players into more advanced leagues - which it is already doing.  If I am a talented 16 year old, I think the opportunity to join a pro senior team (albeit one with relatively low salaries) is a viable and desirable option vs joining an MLS academy.  I believe there are already examples of this happening (though I stand to be corrected on that). 

The MLS teams will continue to have a recruitment advantage as long as CPL doesn't have the same youth structures in place (i.e. the MLS team will be able to recruit them earlier) but that isn't necessarily going to be the case over the long term.  Plus the CPL clubs will continue to develop local grassroots pathways that should uncover some gems.  They have a very real chance of finding the next Kone, who wasn't affiliated with an MLS academy structure as a youth player despite being obviously talented. 

For me the bottom line is that the opportunity to step into a competitive pro environment at a younger age will be attractive to some of the guys that don't see the MLS as the final destination.  For anyone aspiring to bigger things, I see no reason why CPL won't be a legitimate pathway.  After that it is just a numbers game.   And there may already be some in the pipeline.  Tavernier just turned 18, plays for Forge and Canada (at the youth level), and is the second youngest Canadian in the modern era to score in the CONCACAF Champion's Cup (the youngest being Phonzie).  Maintaining that a guy like that couldn't materialize into a solid CMNT contributor is just being stubborn. 

[gkhs]

This is a typically off-the-rails (and off topic) conversation.

However, I think this debate misses the larger point. Any country that wants to compete needs as many professional players as possible. It really is a numbers game.

Right now, including CanPL players, there are around 300 professional players identifiable as Canadian; give-or-take a few multinationals or people who fall off (or get back on) a roster.

Very very basic statistics suggest that perhaps 7 of those players would be significantly above average and (including those) perhaps 48 would be, at least, somewhat above average. (2 standard deviations and 1 standard deviation.)

I think this plays out to be (at least in the realm of) accurate. Lets call Davies, David, Eustaquio, Buchanan, Larin, Kone and Johnston the 7; and call the preliminary squad evidence that we have around 48 (or 47) selectable players.

If we accept those premises; for a country to field 23 significantly above average players, it would take ~1,000 professional players.

Now, there is absolutely an argument that you can do more with less; if you are elite at player development, you move the whole bell curve over, and, because your average is higher, your somewhat-above-average is better. I think there is some truth there. Before you point to Denmark:

Cursory research shows that Denmark has over 600 professional players, including close to 400 domestic professionals, but ignoring ~300 third tier domestics (since I have no idea what the level of professionalism there is).

My take is that to thrive we need more opportunity, and we also need to do a better job with development. My instinct is that more is probably easier than better.