Bryan Arguez

With the MLS Superdraft tomorrow, and the amount of players who may never make it in MLS, I thought about Bryan Arguez. Many will not know who I'm referring to as Arguez never played a competitive MLS match. He was selected 11th overall in the 2007 Superdraft by DC United. Arguez was a product of the IMG Soccer Academy in Brandenton, Florida, and featured at the U-17, U-20 and U-23 levels for the US national team. Most recently he played at the U-20 World Cup in 2009.

Arguez spent a season and a half with DC United before transferring to Hertha Berlin, who at the time where in the German top-flight. The fee was estimated at around $300,000 which was a great return for a player who had never featured for the first team. Agruez would play one match for Berlin and spend only a year and a half on the books for the club. This past year Arguez signed with Miami FC making seven appearances while also being loaned to Estoril Praia in the lower leagues of Portugal; but now he is without a club, and hopefully looking.

At only 21, it already seems that Arguez may not get another shot a top-flight soccer, even in the US. Arguez may have fallen out of favor with the clubs he has played for over various reasons, but Arguez's career could be in peril due to another reason. It appears his registration is owned by a third party, Traffic Sports, which is becoming  more and more common place in soccer throughout the world. Third party ownership has been in place in Central and South America for a while now. It is the practice of a sports agency signing a player to a contract and holding their registration, therefore, owning the players playing rights and not the club. The agency then loans the player out for a fee while looking to cash in on their investment by selling the player or continually loaning the player and receiving payments for every loan.

Traffic Sports has the right to advertise Arguez to whatever clubs they see fit as they look to make a profit by selling his registration to interested parties. It's basically a glorified pimp/prostitute relationship. Estoril Praia, who play in the lower leagues of Portugal, has a deal in place with Traffic in which they take Traffic "clients" on loan and basically shop them to teams in Europe. ]The most famous third party ownership deal, of recent time, was that of Carlos Tevez who was owned by Media Sports Investment. MSI had the power to loan Tevez to Manchester United during his time with the Red Devils, and it was MSI who sold Tevez to Manchester City and not Manchester United. MSI made a large profit off of the sale. Cashing in somewhere in over $60 million. Javier Masherano had a similar contract with MSI.

Currently, there are two other American players playing for Estoril Praia as Traffic "clients." One is Tony Taylor who has played well for Estoril since joining the club. The other American is 19-year old full-back Greg Garza.

I doubt Arguez will make a return to MLS, but I hope he gets a second chance in the league. He's a player that had a lot of promise when he was originally taken by DC United nearly five years ago. Unfortunately, his career has gone nowhere. Obviously, not getting on the pitch is down to the player; but a once promising 21-year old American youth international not having a club is down to his agents at Traffic. Who don't seem to have the players future in mind at the moment.

Not a Fan of the Superdraft

As I've stated before I'm not a fan of the Superdraft. It has taken until now for MLS teams to begin their academies which could help put an end to the Superdraft. The problems I have with the Superdraft/college soccer is I don't feel players are developed like they should be like they are in the academies. I know there are players who come out and immediately excel, but compared to the ones who fall off the radar it's not that impressive.

It's hard to develop talent when your goal is to win day in day out. Much like the so called "elite" teams in America it's not hard to have good teams when you take the best talent from one area and put them together. They may be winning and excelling as a team, but they're not improving their individual skills; they're only learning to win together and rely on each other.

I digress as I would like to talk about tweaking the Superdraft. MLS is a league of parity, and it seems that it is time for less parity. It would suit MLS to build stronger teams which in turn could build a full, stronger league. Last year this time, we wondered if MLS would finally grant players free agency. They did in their own MLS way with the re-entry draft. Which was interesting to say the least. It will also be interesting to see if they use the re-entry draft next season.

One way they could tweak the parity of the league is by adjusting the Superdraft and allowing new talent to select the team which they want to join, in a controlled environment. It's a very socialist way that American sports run themselves with drafts. For the most capitalist country in the world it would be more American to run the draft in the opposite direction of the winners taking the top talent. I don't feel it's fair when teams who have worked the hardest and groomed their teams the best to be unrewarded in having a chance at the best college talent unless they make trades to break up their current team.

MLS currently has 18 teams and will have 19 with the inclusion of Montreal in 2012. To make things a bit more even is to group players and teams together. Split the 18 MLS teams into three groups of six. Fifty-four players will enter the draft and they can be split into three groups of 18. The teams should be mixed in regards to where they finished last season. The 54 college players can be mixed by talent/potential. Therefore, we have six teams with 18 players in the group.

Finally, instead of drafting the players the players should be free to sign with any team in their group who is willing to offer a contract. This could possibly give MLS a better chance at signing college players who forgo signing with MLS to go over seas, because they don't want to play for bad MLS teams. This also gives players the chance to select their future with a club that they feel will help them develop as a player; like what happens in Europe.

With the new academies much of the college talent is more impressive than it was in '96, and hopefully the Superdraft's end will be sooner than later. I still feel to become a stronger league MLS needs to put an end to some of the parity it so loves. Continuing to have too much parity will continue to have people looking down on this league.