'Caps Residency stars

[Strider]

The players who've spent the most time practicing with the first team from the residency team this year are: Russell Teibert, La’Vere Corbin-Ong, Kevin Cobby, Bedri Gashi, Bryce Alderson, Coulton Jackson, Caleb Clarke and Doudou Toure

[Keegan]

Anyone else a little disturbed that maybe our biggest rival Honduras has 2 players in the residency?

[Richard]

Not in the slightest. The first priority of the residency is the development of talent for the club.

[tmcmurph]

Besides it gives us a chance for some reverse citizenship maneuvers. "Hello this is coach Hart of the Canadian Men's team. How would you like to come play some games?".

The ones who are already capped like Khalfan and Stewart don't play for teams that threaten us but steal a couple of Hondurans? Hmmmm me likes that idea

To be serious for a moment the club needs to stock its res with excellent players regardless of nationality. The locals will get a lot more looks just because the Caps have a province wide network in place. Raising the bar with some foreign talent is a good thing for Canada's MNT in the long run.

[Macksam]

Anyone else a little disturbed that maybe our biggest rival Honduras has 2 players in the residency?

It's alright. If they are willing to play for Canada, great. If not, that's fine to.

[jpg75]

Anyone else a little disturbed that maybe our biggest rival Honduras has 2 players in the residency?

I am. I just hope neither of them are any good.

[tmcmurph]

I am. I just hope neither of them are any good.

They could turn out to be like McDonald or they could turn out like Stewart. The local Canadian kids trying out for the res will know where the bar is set and beat it with talent and hard work. That is where the advantage for the MNT comes in. Kids who come through a system not expecting anything because they are Canuck but because they are better!

[Macksam]

They could turn out to be like McDonald or they could turn out like Stewart. The local Canadian kids trying out for the res will know where the bar is set and beat it with talent and hard work. That is where the advantage for the MNT comes in. Kids who come through a system not expecting anything because they are Canuck but because they are better!

That is the Canadian spirit.

[jpg75]

Canadians need to measure themselves against their opponents on the field, not their foreign teammates. If you recruit mostly Canadian kids and challenge them by playing older, semi-pro players (CSL or PDL) you'll find out soon enough who belongs and who doesn't. The ones that don't cut it get replaced, no coddling - sink or swim. Why give one of the few opportunities for a Canadian player to play pro to a player from a CONCACAF rival?

[Richard]

"Why give one of the few opportunities for a Canadian player to play pro to a player from a CONCACAF rival? "

Why not, if the scouts determine he is a better prospect for the club? The pro club academies are recruting for their parent clubs benefit first and foremost and quite rightly so too, they have businesses to run. Any spinoff for the national team program is good but a secondary consideration.

Carrying your argument to its logical conclusion, would argue in favour of MLS clubs not recruiting any foreign players at any level?

[TFCRegina]

"Why give one of the few opportunities for a Canadian player to play pro to a player from a CONCACAF rival? "

Why not, if the scouts determine he is a better prospect for the club? The pro club academies are recruting for their parent clubs benefit first and foremost and quite rightly so too, they have businesses to run. Any spinoff for the national team program is good but a secondary consideration.

Carrying your argument to its logical conclusion, would argue in favour of MLS clubs not recruiting any foreign players at any level?

Again, get rid of quotas entirely. The best Canadians will shine through in the end. Academies, especially as they extend down further and further, are drawing upon kids of usually equal calibre at that age. In the end, the Canadians that make it through the system will be bred to be the best. We don't need to pump out large quantities of crap, we need to have refined talent.

As I heard on a sci fi video game, "They stopped the horde, but they'll grow to fear the lance."

Weed out the weak through competition, and give incentive to the players to be the best. Coddling is the exact opposite of what we need.

[jpg75]

"Why give one of the few opportunities for a Canadian player to play pro to a player from a CONCACAF rival? "

Why not, if the scouts determine he is a better prospect for the club? The pro club academies are recruting for their parent clubs benefit first and foremost and quite rightly so too, they have businesses to run. Any spinoff for the national team program is good but a secondary consideration.

Carrying your argument to its logical conclusion, would argue in favour of MLS clubs not recruiting any foreign players at any level?

Richard, American MLS clubs are only allowed to carry 7 foreign players, that's less than 25% of their 30 man rosters. Now, if that quota system was in place i'd be fine with Vancouver carrying a couple of foreign kids in their Academy, but for the Canadian clubs there is NO quota! There is no incentive to carry any Canadians, it's ridiculous.

To carry your argument to it's logical conclusion let's apply meritocracy and the free market system to Canadian society as a whole and remove all barriers to foreign investment (ie. CRTC regulations eliminated, banking restrictions eliminated), remove all import tariffs unilaterally without reciprocation necessary and also privatize all essential services such as education, health care, emergency services (police, fire dept., ambulance) and the military. Encourage foreign companies to bid so we can solicit as many competitive bids as possible and get the best deal possible. Get rid of all immigration restrictions, if you want to come here you can. Competition rules the day, if Canadians are better then a foreigner they'll have a job. Get rid of welfare, it stifles competition and rewards the weak. Now that's a Canada you and your buddy Harper would be proud of!

[canucklefan]

Why not, if the scouts determine he is a better prospect for the club? The pro club academies are recruting for their parent clubs benefit first and foremost and quite rightly so too, they have businesses to run. Any spinoff for the national team program is good but a secondary consideration.

I'm getting sick of this argument. To me, that's a poor a way and a poor excuse to look at the sport I love.

Carrying your argument to its logical conclusion, would argue in favour of MLS clubs not recruiting any foreign players at any level?

Given the current structure of the Canadian football system, you know already we have only 4 pro clubs in Canada, meaning that's not enough. So, Canadian/North American quota or not, I think it's not unfair to ask the pro clubs to commit (they already have anyway) to the Canadians who dream to become pro. I don't know how you can't see that. If we had a league who looks like the Argentinean first division, I wouldn't mind having some Hondurans, Mexicans etc. but our reality is another one.

[TFCRegina]

Richard, American MLS clubs are only allowed to carry 7 foreign players, that's less than 25% of their 30 man rosters. Now, if that quota system was in place i'd be fine with Vancouver carrying a couple of foreign kids in their Academy, but for the Canadian clubs there is NO quota! There is no incentive to carry any Canadians, it's ridiculous.

To carry your argument to it's logical conclusion let's apply meritocracy and the free market system to Canadian society as a whole and remove all barriers to foreign investment (ie. CRTC regulations eliminated, banking restrictions eliminated), remove all import tariffs unilaterally without reciprocation necessary and also privatize all essential services such as education, health care, emergency services (police, fire dept., ambulance) and the military. Encourage foreign companies to bid so we can solicit as many competitive bids as possible and get the best deal possible. Get rid of all immigration restrictions, if you want to come here you can. Competition rules the day, if Canadians are better then a foreigner they'll have a job. Get rid of welfare, it stifles competition and rewards the weak. Now that's a Canada you and your buddy Harper would be proud of!

To carry your argument to it's logical conclusion let's apply meritocracy and the free market system to Canadian society as a whole and remove all barriers to foreign investment (ie. CRTC regulations eliminated, banking restrictions eliminated)

Why is foreign investment bad? Why do you have a fear of foreigners?

remove all import tariffs unilaterally without reciprocation necessary

What's the matter with foreign goods? If someone can make a product of equivalent quality, why the hell should I pay a premium because it was produced domestically?

also privatize all essential services such as education, health care, emergency services (police, fire dept., ambulance) and the military

Unfortunately, that's not an efficient market outcome. Privatizing education, and health care would actually give advantages to one group over another but would actually lead to large numbers of inefficient workers being educated, and perhaps large numbers of productive workers being left out. So you're being a drama queen.

Encourage foreign companies to bid so we can solicit as many competitive bids as possible and get the best deal possible.

This is bad why? Why wouldn't we want to maximize the value of Canadian companies?

Get rid of all immigration restrictions, if you want to come here you can.

I'm in favour of this. Why not? What's so bad about immigrants?

Basically all of your arguments, save one, boil down to good old fashion racism/nationalism and are grounded in thinking people who are born here are better than those who move here.

Now, if we get past your political BS, Canadian pro clubs are clubs, they have no obligation to their owners to produce Canadian talent. If Canadian talent is good enough to make the team, wonderful, if they're not, they shouldn't be on the team. Simple as that.

[jpg75]

Why is foreign investment bad? Why do you have a fear of foreigners?

What's the matter with foreign goods? If someone can make a product of equivalent quality, why the hell should I pay a premium because it was produced domestically?

Unfortunately, that's not an efficient market outcome. Privatizing education, and health care would actually give advantages to one group over another but would actually lead to large numbers of inefficient workers being educated, and perhaps large numbers of productive workers being left out. So you're being a drama queen.

This is bad why? Why wouldn't we want to maximize the value of Canadian companies?

I'm in favour of this. Why not? What's so bad about immigrants?

Basically all of your arguments, save one, boil down to good old fashion racism/nationalism and are grounded in thinking people who are born here are better than those who move here.

Now, if we get past your political BS, Canadian pro clubs are clubs, they have no obligation to their owners to produce Canadian talent. If Canadian talent is good enough to make the team, wonderful, if they're not, they shouldn't be on the team. Simple as that.

Thank god there are more people like me then there are like you or we'd be living in Costa Rica North. A society with an artificially inflated GDP thanks to deregulation and over foreign-investment and the creation of a branch-plant economy leading to the domestic populace being priced out of the housing market and those that have scraped together enough are living paycheque to paycheque. Welcome to Vancouver/San Jose everyone!

Funny, you didn't touch on my welfare comment.

Certain strategic industries should never be allowed in foreign hands for obvious political reasons - such as the military (and no, we should not allow foreign companies to bid on running our military) and natural resources. We are living in a world where resources are becoming scarce and will be at a premium. Not only are we taking a short-sighted view of economics, but we're ignoring the long-term economic gains from controlling our own assets and the geo-political implications of surrendering assets that will be in demand by our own industry.

Foreign countries sometimes do not have proper Quality controls in place, they may also have low labour standards and their workers are subjected to deplorable working conditions. But hey, if they can produce cheap, crappy goods that Walmart will buy and sell to you at an unbeatable low price then i'm all for foreign goods - too bad i won't have a job for too long though.

Hyper immigration leads to suppression of wages, which is great if you're a business owner like Harpers buddies. The existing workforce sees their real wages and their standard of living reduced. In the short and medium term the economy becomes bloated with a surplus of workers (the only way to avoid this would be to have a large number of entrepreneurs immigrate and open businesses), alot of whom need to be trained and that exerts a cost of the system as well. Most 1st generation immigrants are subjected to poverty at a far higher rate then Canadian-born workers (especially so now that most of them are visible minorities) and the reason is that the economy is not expanding fast enough to employ them all. We're left with a higher educated workforce where a greater proportion of people are underemployed.

Why are you so afraid of privatizing health and education? If the free market is so great then the best doctors and teachers should be rewarded. If you don't work hard and don't have a good job then you can't afford health care, that's mertiocracy at work - survival of the fittest. What's wrong with that? Why reward ineffecient workers with life?

Your far-right, free market, captialist feelings are grossly naive and labelling me nationalist and racist is typically small-minded.

Oh and as far as the clubs go they are not free to do as they please, the CSA has the right to not sanction them. So they do have an obligation to produce Canadian talent or else they will not be allowed to play in sanctioned competition in Canada - atleast that's how it should go in theory if anyone at the CSA had the stones to enforce the foreign player limit clause.

[Macksam]

Quotas do have a purpose. The Canadian music industry is stronger because of it.

[RS]

Richard, American MLS clubs are only allowed to carry 7 foreign players, that's less than 25% of their 30 man rosters.

Actually, I believe that's 7 of the current 24-man roster. The breakdown of the 30-man rosters has not yet been released IIRC , so the number of imports may go up.

[jpg75]

Actually, I believe that's 7 of the current 24-man roster. The breakdown of the 30-man rosters has not yet been released IIRC , so the number of imports may go up.

The current rosters are 26-man if you count the 2 homegrown players each team is allowed to carry.

[RS]

The current rosters are 26-man if you count the 2 homegrown players each team is allowed to carry.

Yes, but that doesn't change my point.

[jpg75]

Yes, but that doesn't change my point.

And it probably won't change mine either.

[ag futbol]

What's the matter with foreign goods? If someone can make a product of equivalent quality, why the hell should I pay a premium because it was produced domestically?

The question you're failing to answer here is: why are we obligated to give Americans preferred status or why shouldn't Canadians be extended the same working rights were giving Americans here?

We gave up something and we collectively gained nothing. Your argument about cheap foreign goods doesn't follow because the cheapest foreign goods (ie places other than the USA and Canada) have restrictions on them. Not to mention the USSF has slapped restrictions on MLS since inception for the sole purpose of growing their own talent. Now that it's much closer to swimming on their own, they have something to show for it.

This isn't un-precedented in economics either. Korea and many of the Asian Tigers had centralized economies run by large government controlled conglomerates. These pretty much exclusively paved their way for economic growth. The picture you're painting is very much a "free markets and de-regulation always efficient and best policy" idea which is rather outdated.

The context of your policy decision will determine its effectiveness, not the area of the political spectrum you draw it from.

[Richard]

Richard, American MLS clubs are only allowed to carry 7 foreign players, that's less than 25% of their 30 man rosters. Now, if that quota system was in place i'd be fine with Vancouver carrying a couple of foreign kids in their Academy, but for the Canadian clubs there is NO quota! There is no incentive to carry any Canadians, it's ridiculous.

To carry your argument to it's logical conclusion let's apply meritocracy and the free market system to Canadian society as a whole and remove all barriers to foreign investment (ie. CRTC regulations eliminated, banking restrictions eliminated), remove all import tariffs unilaterally without reciprocation necessary and also privatize all essential services such as education, health care, emergency services (police, fire dept., ambulance) and the military. Encourage foreign companies to bid so we can solicit as many competitive bids as possible and get the best deal possible. Get rid of all immigration restrictions, if you want to come here you can. Competition rules the day, if Canadians are better then a foreigner they'll have a job. Get rid of welfare, it stifles competition and rewards the weak. Now that's a Canada you and your buddy Harper would be proud of!

But we're not talking about Canadian society as a whole, we're talking about the game of soccer as played in MLS. Very big difference. We're also not talking about quotas for the first team roster, we're talking about academy recruiting. MLS clubs' first priority for their academies is NOT developing players for the national team, that is a happy byproduct when it happens.

[maccaliam]

My concern about a lack of an enforced Canadian content quota is that because some players are late developers, they will be pushed out of the system early on and may not continue to develop as they would have had they remained in the youth systems. This isn't Germany/Holland/Spain/etc., it is Canada, and we don't have many clubs offering quality development should someone get dropped early on for a foreigner, and therefore we would lose a lot more potential future Canadian players (and by this I mean both CMNT players and simply Canadians maybe not good enough for the national team but still playing the game).

[jpg75]

But we're not talking about Canadian society as a whole, we're talking about the game of soccer as played in MLS. Very big difference.

We're also not talking about quotas for the first team roster, we're talking about academy recruiting. MLS clubs' first priority for their academies is NOT developing players for the national team, that is a happy byproduct when it happens.

Actually Richard you're the one who decided to play the extrapolation game with this quote: "Carrying your argument to its logical conclusion, would argue in favour of MLS clubs not recruiting any foreign players at any level?" Did i insinuate that at any time? No i didn't. So yeah, i took an argument that applies to sports and used it for society to point out how annoyingly simplistic that line of thinking is. Regardless of what you think Sports business is not just business, that's why the word sports is always included and why they are not subject to the same laws of competition here in NA as other businesses.

As you see below in your quote Richard we are talking about the parent team quota because the Academy is recruiting and developing players for the benefit of the first team foremost! The quota directly impacts who you're going to bring in because if you can't sign someone why develop them?

With only 3 clubs that will count Canadians as domestics and their youth academies bringing in top foreign talent to compete for the homegrown spots we're really choking off the talent pipeline aren't we? So as i've said before, it is up to the CSA to ensure the Canadian clubs develop Canadian players and give them adequate opportunity to prove themselves on the same footing every other country gives their domestic players.

"Why give one of the few opportunities for a Canadian player to play pro to a player from a CONCACAF rival? "

Why not, if the scouts determine he is a better prospect for the club? The pro club academies are recruting for their parent clubs benefit first and foremost and quite rightly so too, they have businesses to run. Any spinoff for the national team program is good but a secondary consideration.

[Richard]

We will simply have to agree to differ on this issue.