MLS home-grown prospect update

The MLS offseason has a number of different sub-plots, and one of my favorites is collegiate soccer players with the potential to be signed to home-grown contracts. It’s early in December, but we’re already getting news on the home-grown player front. Between the NCAA College Cup and the initial list of players invited to January’s MLS Combine, we’re getting a good idea of which senior prospects could be signing directly with a club, rather than hoping to be picked in the SuperDraft. (Underclassmen, of course, are another story.)

I was a little surprised to hear so much talk about the draft prospects of Georgetown midfielder Ian Christianson (a senior) and Maryland forward Patrick Mullins (a junior) during the College Cup, given that both were claimed by the Fire on a 2010 list of home-grown claims. That list had yet to be ratified by MLS, however, and claims from a variety of teams later fell through. So I’ve been curious about the specific cases of Christianson and Mullins, and I think I now have answers:

Christianson
It seems that Christianson played for the Chicago Fire Academy in his junior and senior years of high school and then went to Georgetown. Where the situation gets tricky, however, is the fact that Christianson’s hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is a good 220 miles from Bridgeview, much greater than the maximum of 75 miles allowed by the Fire’s specified home territory. Based on the original MLS home-grown player rules, which could have been changed by now, teams were allowed two territorial exemptions (players who live outside the home territory) per age group (there were six age groups at the time; the rules contain no explanation of what happens when a territorial exemption moves up an age group).

MLSsoccer.com’s Daniel Robertson reported on Sunday that Christianson said his lack of home-grown eligibility was a decision made by MLS, but Fire Director of Communications Brendan Hannan said in an e-mail that Christianson was not on the club’s home-grown list because, “the club is left with difficult decisions on who to place on the ‘out of area’ home-grown list.” Reading between the lines, the Fire must have (either now, or at some point during Christianson’s association with the club) decided to prioritize two other prospects from outside the home territory.

Mullins
This is an interesting one. Mullins played youth soccer in Louisiana for Lafreniere SC, one of several clubs that merged to form the Chicago Fire Juniors Louisiana club. Hannan's email said, however, that Mullins had left for college before his club’s official affiliation with the Fire.

Normally this would be understandably clear-cut, but the decision not to accept the Fire’s claim to Mullins (a claim they did make as far back as 2010, and he has since played for Fire U-20 teams) seems to contradict a recent MLS precedent. Last year, MLS accepted the Portland Timbers’ home-grown claim to forward Brent Richards, who played youth soccer for EastSide United way before the MLS Timbers even existed and also played for the Timbers’ PDL team. EastSide United was later folded into the MLS Timbers’ youth system, providing the basis for Richards’ signing. In a somewhat similar situation, I have heard that the San Jose Earthquakes will be able to place a home-grown claim on former U.S. U-17 and current Santa Clara goalkeeper Kendall McIntosh, even though he left for U-17 residency before his club became affiliated with the Earthquakes. This is likely a few years away, but worth noting.

We don’t know how much back-and-forth there was between MLS and the Fire over these two players, but it is interesting to track some of these borderline cases. Believe me, there are a lot more behind the scenes that we don’t hear about.

As for home-grown MLS prospects, here is a summary of what is being reported about some of those already linked to pro deals for 2013, notably from Adam Jardy at the Columbus Dispatch and Ives Galarcep of Soccer By Ives:

MLS club	Player	College	HG claim status	Outlook
Chicago	MF Ian Christianson	Georgetown	none	MLS combine
Columbus	DF Chad Barson	Akron	accepted	likely to sign
Columbus	GK Justin Luthy	Boston College	accepted	likely to sign
Columbus	DF Matt Wiet	UCLA	accepted	likely to sign
Columbus	MF Wil Trapp	Akron (soph.)	accepted	hired agent, could sign
D.C. United	FW Uwem Etuk	West Virginia	club declined	MLS combine
FC Dallas	DF London Woodberry	Maryland	accepted	contract offered
New England	MF Scott Caldwell	Akron	accepted	likely to sign
Portland	FW Erik Hurtado	Santa Clara	denied	MLS combine

Just for fun, here are some other players who could be looking at pro contract offers, even though I haven't seen it reported:

MLS club	Player	College	Resume
Chicago	MF Bryan Ciesiulka	Marquette (jr.)	2nd tm Big East; 5g, 9a
Chicago	MF Harry Shipp	Notre Dame (jr.)	3rd tm Big East; 6g, 6a
Colorado	GK Brendan Roslund	San Francisco (sr.)	6-foot-6; 0.99 GAA
Colorado	DF Patrick Slogic	Cornell (jr.)	6-foot-5; 1st tm all region
Colorado	MF Dillon Serna	Akron (fr.)	1st tm MAC; 2g, 8a
FC Dallas	DF Mikey Ambrose	Maryland (fr.)	2nd tm ACC; 1g, 7a
FC Dallas	MF Danny Garcia	UNC (fr.)	2nd tm ACC; Frosh POY
FC Dallas	DF Boyd Okwuonu	UNC (so.)	1st tm ACC
Houston	DF Sebastien Ibeagha	Duke (jr.)	ACC Def. POY
LA Galaxy	FW Gyasi Zardes	CSU-Bakersfield (jr.)	MPSF POY; 15gls in 17gms
New York	GK Keith Cardona	Maryland (so.)	1.14 GAA
New York	FW Brandon Allen	Georgetown (fr.)	Big East Rookie of Yr; 16g, 2a
Portland (from NY)	MF Bryan Gallego	Akron (so.)	2nd tm MAC
Portland	MF Steven Evans	Portland (jr.)	1st tm WCC; 14g, 3a
Seattle	DF DeAndre Yedlin	Akron (so.)	1st tm MAC; 6a
Seattle	FW Sean Okoli	Wake Forest (so.)	2nd tm ACC; 11g, 3a
Seattle	MF Aaron Kovar	Stanford (fr.)	Pac 12 Frosh of Yr; 3g, 2a
Toronto FC	FW Allando Matheson	UConn (so.)	7g, 1a
Vancouver	MF Ben McKendry	New Mexico (fr.)	MPSF Newcomer of Yr