Could homegrown imports like Minnesota United’s Christian Ramirez help MLS get over its reluctance to mine talent from the NASL and USL?

Every season, Major League Soccer has a crop of breakout players who are new to the league – this year we have Atlanta’s Josef Martínez (the Venezuelan who scored five goals in his first three matches – after netting just seven in three years with Turin). The best of these players often come from Europe or South America and immediately become key starters.

This year, there have been more examples of domestic players moving from the US lower divisions and succeeding in MLS than any year in recent memory. New York Red Bulls center back Aaron Long made his MLS debut in March and has started 13 matches for a potential MLS Cup contender. Meanwhile, expansion side Minnesota United has gotten crucial minutes from NASL domestic holdovers Christian Ramirez and Brent Kallman. Impressively, Ramirez has seven goals in his first 12 MLS matches, three off the Golden Boot pace.

It raises the question: how does a player like Ramirez slip through MLS clubs’ scouting? After all, the striker had 51 goals in the second-division NASL from 2014-2016 – more than any American striker in any league over that time.

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For years, MLS has had a perceived issue signing top talent from the US lower divisions – and for a league still on the rise, the idea of bringing in talent from overseas may seem like a sexier route. But given concerns over the effects of travel, the general physicality of the league, and a league-wide mission to grow academies still being fostered, signing talent from the NASL and USL is gaining importance.

One agent, who asked to remain anonymous, has noticed front offices are wary of bringing these players on. At the center of their concerns is a perceived lack of quality in both NASL and USL. “The lower divisions in other countries are better than the lower divisions in our country right now. The [Matteo] Mancosus and Bradley Wright-Phillipses needed a fresh start and wanted to try something new. You can’t compare Mancosu to a guy in the NASL. It’s so rare to have a guy at that level.”

Amos Magee joined Minnesota’s front office in November 2016 as the club began to build their inaugural MLS roster. Previously, he had worked in Portland, where he recommended a drafted-and-cut rookie named Miguel Ibarra to Minnesota who were then in the NASL. Ibarra was sold in 2015 to Liga MX side Club León for a transfer fee around $1m. Despite the fact that Ibarra had received a few USMNT call-ups while still in the NASL, no MLS club wanted to come close to that figure. Magee told the Guardian that some clubs still are wary to sign second-division players.

“In the past, MLS teams haven’t valued lower-division players to the point of a million dollars. Now, a lot of MLS teams will argue that they may have been wrong. If Ramirez scores as many goals as we think he can, a lot of teams would have spent that much on him, too.”

For Minnesota, however, the abbreviated roster-building timeline presented unique challenges. The club had the rights to any desired holdovers from their NASL side. With Magee and newly appointed head coach Adrian Heath coming in as outsiders, they were able to assess Minnesota’s talent pool with a clearer lens.

“We sorted through players that we thought could take the step forward, and I think it’s turned out that they’re a very important part of our team. Now, we don’t look at them as ‘NASL guys’ as everyone else does. We look at them as players of import on our roster.”

Matt Cairns (a Hertfordshire-born intermediary who represents players in MLS as well as NASL and USL) represents many players who are of interest to MLS sides. To Cairns, there still remains hesitancy to sign players from the leagues below.

“I don’t understand it,” Cairns says of the reluctance. Some NASL clubs ask for transfer fees of merely $50,000 or so depending on the player. “Minnesota priced Ramirez highly, but there wasn’t an MLS team that tested the water. Why didn’t a team that couldn’t score goals take a flier? He’s a final piece of the puzzle for teams that have creative play. Why wouldn’t you pay $50,000 for a chance?”

Along with the aforementioned Kallman, among Cairns’ players are Nazmi Albadawi, currently being scouted by Real Salt Lake and Sporting Kansas City. As the player becomes a free agent in the winter, he’ll face better prospects to come along to MLS. In a sense, Ramirez may be the player who opens the door for many after him.

The USL question

In 2013, MLS and USL forged a partnership to increase the development of young players in the country. It gave MLS sides the chance to have affiliates or “second teams” to help prospects get key minutes. With the USL as an independent league, not all USL sides are MLS affiliates, similar to FC Barcelona B competing in the Spanish Segunda at times.

One of these non-affiliated clubs, FC Cincinnati, is among the hottest teams in the American soccer landscape. They began play last spring to record-breaking crowds, even hosting Crystal Palace for a summer friendly. FCC is also in the midst of an MLS expansion bid, hoping to enter as soon as 2020. General manager Jeff Berding acknowledges that potential berth weighs into future decisions.

“We believe we have young guys that have really high upside. By the time we’d get to MLS, they could have a future shortly after we’d get there, knock on wood that we do.”

Not all of these players, of course, are prospects. Austin Berry won MLS Rookie of the Year in 2012 and signed with his hometown club in Cincinnati in 2016. Per Berding, “we were looking forward to bringing him home as a foundational player for our franchise. He had some interest, and we were able to get him to Cincinnati.”

Another, Sean Okoli, had struggled to find minutes with Seattle Sounders and New England Revolution before 2016. He ended up signing with FC Cincinnati, winning the Golden Boot, and secured a move back to the top flight with New York City FC the next offseason. Unlike Berry, signing Okoli always seemed like a one-year-plan to Berding.

“It was my understanding that we’d have Sean Okoli for the entire 2016 season. Part of our agreement was that we gave him a free transfer window up to MLS at the end of the season. We’re thrilled for Sean Okoli – this is exactly what we had in mind. He scored a lot of goals and helped us have a winning season, and he got back to MLS in one year. It’s an affirmation of what we’re trying to do here.”

As for the affiliated sides, there’s less of an onus on winning and more of a focus on development. The most successful versions of these sides often train in an MLS club’s backyard, sometimes sharing the same name (as with the previously mentioned Red Bulls II side). For clubs that have yet to set up a home-based affiliate, a player’s development can become stunted.

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The aforementioned anonymous agent used FC Dallas as an example. “Of the FC Dallas homegrowns, you’ve got Kellyn Acosta, Victor Ulloa, and Jesse González. Of the other 15 or 16, they’re not getting minutes and their development is stunted. How many have failed? Oklahoma is an actual franchise trying to win. That doesn’t help these Homegrowns who are going back and forth three or four hours between Dallas and Oklahoma.”

With many of the “II” sides, players will dress in the first team’s 18 on Saturday and, if they go without playing, will start with the USL affiliate the next day. When a player is loaned to a club that’s outside of the first team’s control, these players sometimes slip through the cracks.

The agent continued: “Everyone has to play, no matter where they are. They have to be getting minutes. If they don’t, they can’t develop. You can’t tell what a kid can do without a steady run of games over a long time. They need to mess up and go through the mental adversity. It’s a bigger part than people realize.”

With two very different mentalities from club to club, the US lower divisions are still very much developing. Each MLS club seems to need to make a decision: commit to an affiliation that develops players and forgo expectations of winning trophies, or try to build the best second-division side possible, whether that means academy prospects get minutes or not.

Until then, there will always be hidden gems in the lower divisions. Ramirez may be a litmus test and, if he continues to pass, could be seen as the American Jamie Vardy. Both were players who didn’t land with top-flight programs right away. Both toiled in the lower divisions, ultimately landing with a club that made a move to the highest league in their country. For Minnesota, they can only hope Ramirez’s goal tally also follows the Vardy narrative.