The San Jose Earthquakes, in the space of a year, went from just one homegrown signing to five. That development is a welcome one, considering that aside from all the positive feeling that developing local talent generates, it also allows more efficient use of roster resources including non-senior spots and the salary cap, to say nothing of getting exclusive rights to a player rather than having to go out and spend for a transfer.
As such, I thought I would take a look at the six San Jose Earthquakes academy products currently in college who have the best chance of inking that next homegrown deal:
LB – Christopher “CJ” Grey (UC Berkley ’21)
We might as well start with the position with greatest need, and a player that I am fairly confident will be offered a homegrown deal at some point (although, as he’s still just a Freshman, it might not be this winter). Grey is highly-regarded, with appearances for both the US and Jamaican youth national team setups, and made 12 starts in his freshman season at Cal. I’ve heard from one academy insider that he is regarded as one of the top left-back prospects in the college ranks.
In my limited experience with youth development, it seems as though most pro-level fullbacks are either converted wingers or converted center-backs. Nick Lima is the former, but Grey is the latter, where his natural left foot made him an ideal ball-playing center half in Paul Holocher’s play-out-from-the-back system. He was always a bit undersized for that role at the pro level, however, and as I predicted two years ago, he ended up on the left of the back line. He has the ball skills and defensive nous to thrive in the role, but I would describe him as “quick” before I would describe him as “pacy.” Essentially, he’d be more of a traditional fullback and less of a flying wingback.
I could easily see him as a starting left back in MLS, possibly even by 2020. Just keep in mind that he’s still just a teenager, so fans shouldn’t necessarily expect him to be ready to fill the gaping hole at left back in the Quakes first team this summer.
CB/CDM/RB – J.J. Foe Nuphaus (UC Berkley ’22)
Foe Nuphaus has been on the radar of hardcore San Jose fans for quite a while now, given his US youth national team call-ups and stint in Germany (the nation of his mother’s citizenship) training with Hoffenheim. He’s for a long time been regarded as one of the very best prospects in the academy, but he hasn’t even started college yet, so he’s still got a lot of developmental time in front of him.
One tricky thing for him is position. In the academy, he played center-back, but he may be undersized for that position at the pro level (unless he’s grown since I last saw him, which, considering he was about 16 at the time, is entirely possible). He’s reasonably athletic and would have well-above-average ball skills for a center back, so I could see him fit in as a defensive midfielder or a right back as well. We’ll see how Cal elects to use him, and how he develops physically and technically.
Regardless, I think he is a fairly likely homegrown candidate, probably a few years down the road, given his tender age.
GK – Drake Callender (UC Berkley ’20)
The front office loves Callender as a prospect, and it doesn’t take a sophisticated goalkeeping scout to see why: he looks like an elite GK prospect, with ideal size and build that speaks to his athleticism. I never got to see him play much at all in the academy, since he dealt with injuries during my last year in San Jose, but he was Cal’s number 1 last year as a Sophomore, and all indications are that he had a solid season: he was named to the All-Pac 12 first team and allowed just 1.22 goals against per game, averaging a staggering 7 saves per match.
All young keepers need refinement of their technique, decision-making, and distribution, and given J.T. Marcinkowski’s age, I’d imagine the Quakes are more than happy to let Callender finish college to continue that development before they sign him ahead of the 2020 season.
CDM – Andrew Paoli (UCLA ’21)
Paoli was the apple of the academy coaches’ eyes as a youth as a cerebral, technical number 6. He isn’t a particularly stand-out athlete, and is on the smaller side, too. As such, he’s neither the Diego Chara/Ngolo Kante “cover every blade of grass” model, nor the Nigel de Jong “enforcer” model. If everything goes right, his upside looks quite a lot more like Wil Trapp, another undersized, relatively slow deep-lying player who nonetheless dictates games with his vision and his passing.
Still just a freshman at UCLA, Paoli made 13 appearances and 4 starts for the Bruins, and his sophomore season could be his breakout year. The one trouble with prospects who lack ideal size or athleticism is that they must be fairly elite at the things they can do to win a place at the professional level, so it’s up to Paoli to prove at each step up the developmental rung that he can be just as influential as he was at the prior one. Dominating the NCAA level next season is the next step, but even then, he’ll have to prove his game still translates to the professional level. He’s therefore definitely plausible as a homegrown signing, and perhaps even a stellar one, but I could also imagine a world in which he reaches a sort of developmental ceiling, as Josh Morton did, and never quite gets there.
ST – Arda Bulut (Stanford ’21)
I like Bulut quite a lot. He’s a very traditional facing-goal, counter-attacking poacher in the mold of Jermain Defoe. He makes excellent runs, he works hard, and he’s a clinical finisher with both feet. He positively thumped in goals at the academy level. As a freshman at powerhouse Stanford, he made 9 appearances and didn’t get on the score sheet, but with Foster Langsdorf and Corey Baird graduated, there is ample opportunity to seize some playing time as a sophomore in the Cardinal attack. I think he’s a good fit for coach Jeremy Gunn’s conservative, counter-attacking system, so I’d bet on him claiming a much larger role.
I will say that I’ve never really seen him do much back-to-goal work, and that’s something that he’ll need to have at the pro level given how many teams run a lone-striker look. He’s is listed at 6 feet tall, but this element of his game will take some physical development in addition to the technical. He’s definitely quick, but not exactly a pace merchant, so like Paoli, I can imagine him being an excellent pro, but I can also imagine him being one of those guys who scores bags of goals at lower levels but lacks the elite traits to project all the way to the top. It’s all about how much he refines and improves his game in these crucial 18-21 years whether he becomes a star homegrown or fades out. I have heard that he’s a hard worker with the right attitude, so he’s the sort of guy you’d bet on to make good on his promise.
FW – Amir Bashti (Stanford ’19)
Bashti is the oldest prospect on this list, going into his senior year, which means that the homegrown decision will come the soonest: some time before the 2019 MLS Superdraft. In terms of ability, he has quite a lot of it, with excellent close control, classy technique, incisive vision, and a delightful suddenness in small spaces. He’s one of those diminutive attacking midfielders that all elite teams have to open up opposing back lines. However, he’s yet to truly impose himself at the college level, only becoming a regular for the Cardinal as a junior, and even then, not exactly dominating the competition. In all those respects, he reminds me quite a lot of Tommy Thompson.
It’s a bit of a frustration for those of us who watched him positively dazzle at the academy level, but I can think of a few reasons: first, Stanford’s conservative, direct system is very much at odds with his strongest attributes, so he looks like a square peg in a round hole. Second, he’s undersized and not an out-of-this-world athlete, which means he rarely imposes himself physically, potentially masking the ceiling of his talents. Third, and most troubling, I’ve heard from more than one coach familiar with him that his work ethic and hunger aren’t at the level you’d want from a future pro. It’s entirely possible, of course, that he grows into it when he’s put into a professional environment with extremely hard-working leaders. After all, he’s still a very young man, and at the NCAA level, soccer is (by rule) only supposed to be 20 hours of your life in a given week, taking quite a lot away from a young player’s developmental focus. Regardless, we’ll get a chance to see during his last college season what he’s capable of at this point in his development, also benefiting from those aforementioned departures of Langsdorf and Baird.
In terms of pure ability, he’s a no-brainer for a homegrown deal. His development might be better served in Reno, given his awkward fit at Stanford, and I could see him thriving at the top of Ian Russell’s diamond. I hope the offer is forthcoming for him, I believe it is more likely than not, and I further believe that we won’t really know what sort of prospect we have in him until we see him at the professional level.
Another To Watch: RB John Austin Ricks (Syracuse ’20)
