State of the League

Today Don Garber spoke on the State of the League in a conference call that was streamed on MLSsoccer.com. There was plenty of interesting information coming out of the conference, and at least one thing that makes you just shake your head thanks to Paul Gardner. Some of the key points for me at least are below:

- Garber announced in the next 30-40 days there would be more jersey sponsorship announcements, with KC's announcement tomorrow, one would think that when Omar Bravo walks out in the new jersey there will be a sponsor on the front of the jersey.

- He officially announced the removal of the home grown player rule.

- Salary cap will be $2.67 million.

- The official announcement of the increased roster size was also announced. The 6 new roster spots have to be for players 24 or under and will not count against the cap.

- Also the reserve league is officially back, the season will be 10 games long, and teams will be divided into 3 6-team divisions. Teams will play each team in their division twice. The top 8 teams will make a reserve league play off. There are new eligibility rules, making games only available to the first team roster, trialists, and youth team players. A good move that will avoid front office people suiting up for the teams' reserves.

- Next season will have a 34 game schedule, they haven't finalized the format for next season and whether the schedule will be balanced or unbalanced. They are looking to possibly change and possibly expand the playoff format. MLS Cup will be November 20th, and they are looking at possibly having MLS Cup at the site of the highest seeded playoff team. Most of this is going to be decided at the Board of Governors meeting coming up soon. Garber did say the first game should be announced soon and that the full schedule should be out in January or early February. He also said that the league will never do away with the playoffs.

- The league is looking to potentially increase the salary cap for teams that make the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champion's League.

- Garber basically gave away who the MVP was this year it seemed like saying that the Golden Boot winner was in MLS Cup, but then backing up and saying there was an announcement coming later this week on an award. This seems to point to David Ferreira being the MVP, which is a great call in my opinion, he was my selection.

- New York 2 is still the leading candidate for the 20th expansion slot. Garber thinks we'll see the league expand over 20 in our lifetimes and included Atlanta, Florida (Tampa and Orlando), and San Diego, among others that were looking to get into the league.

- Finally the head shaking came when Paul Gardner from Soccer America was given the chance to ask a question and then proceeded to rant about the playing style in MLS until he was cut off by Garber asking him what his question was. Gardner continued to rant his opinion only shaping it as a very lopsided question that I thought Garber did well to answer. Gardner embarrassed himself more than anything in that exchange and has been laughed at and mocked quite a bit since the press conference.

Wizards Juniors Nationally Ranked

The KC Wizards Juniors youth system is nationally ranked in this year's rankings of the top 30 youth clubs in the US by Soccer America. The Juniors are one of four MLS teams to have their youth team ranked, joining the Chicago Fire (15), Columbus Crew (23), and DC United (29). While the Juniors come in at 30th on the backs of the U-19 Juniors team making the National Finals. Not bad for a youth system only in it's 3rd year.

Wizards Juniors U-17's miss out on SUM U-17 Cup

The Wizards Juniors U-17 team lost in the finals of the SUM U-17 Cup to DC United today, 3-0. The Juniors had made the final by beating Dallas and New York and drawing Chivas in their group play. The team then moved on to the semifinals and defeated the Columbus Crew 3-2 to make the finals. The team is coached by former Wizards player, and former KCFC coach, Paul Rideout. The team is actually most of the players from Rideout's KCFC team.

A nice set of results from the Juniors though.

Wizards Youth System

As MLS Commissioner Don Garber stated a few months ago, all MLS teams will be starting a youth system to help develop home grown players, that would be tied to the parent club. This way players that develop in each teams youth system would not be put into the draft, but rather would could be called up to the reserve team and then the full team of the MLS team.

Today the Kansas City Wizards announced their plans for their own youth system that will start to be put together this summer, to begin playing next fall. The Wizards will start by having U-15, U-16, and U-17 teams, these teams will compete in the Super Y League and the Midwest Regional League, as well as tournaments, although they will not be playing in the 2007 State Cup. The technical staff, that will be overseeing the youth teams, will be looking to pull in players from Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and Oklahoma for the team.

It's good to see the Wizards starting to comply with this part of Garber's plan for the youth system. While the Wizards have got 2 local products on their team right now (Will John and Ryan Raybould), John came to the Wizards after a trade, while Raybould was drafted by the Wizards. Under this new youth system, both John and Raybould could have retained the "professional" rights of those 2 players, meaning that they'd have come to KC a lot easier.

The major question that will remain, is will the best players from MO, KS, IA, NE, and OK come to play for the Wizards youth team? Each of those states have some very good club teams already in exsistence. The Wizards will be joining that already crowded club soccer landscape. This will be a problem that I'm sure will take quite a while to get settled, players in the U-15-U17 age divisions who are already on good teams will probably be reluctant to switch to the Wizards new system. These teams will not be affliated with any current club in KC, so they'll be starting from scratch.