The goal of every kid that plays for the FC Dallas Academy should be to make the professional squad, but for the vast majority of players the next step is getting a college scholarship and five guys from the 2012 class signed D1 contracts yesterday.

Michael Ambrose - University of Maryland

Ambrose is a left sided defender/midfielder, USA youth international and the captain of the U18 squad. He was a guy that's played for the FC Dallas reserve team in unofficial matches before and is a guy that under the tutelage of Sacho Cirovski could absolutely turn into a professional prospect. Ambrose will join senior FC Dallas Academy alum London Woodberry at the Terps.

Mark Ashby - Harvard University

Mark Ashby is a big central defender who has been with FCD at the U16 and U18 level. I'm not going to lie, I thought Ashby graduated next year. I haven't seen him play in the last year so I haven't been able to follow his development as much, but any time you can put a kid at Harvard it's a coup for the organization and for Ashby.

Keep reading for the other three graduates

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College Review

Bradlee Baladez(Forward) - University of South Carolina Sophomore (GOALS) Baladez has absolutely hit his stride with USC and scored again last night in a thrilling 3-2 overtime loss to SMU last night. The gamecocks game with UCF last weekend was postponed. Baladez has 5 goals in 11 games. 

There are highlights of last night's game available here that feature a few good looks by Baladez as well as some acrobatics from Jaime Ibarra. Definitely worth checking out here

Damian Rosales(Midfielder) - SMU Sophomore - Rosales played 60 minutes in SMU's 3-2 overtime win over South Carolina last night. Rosales also played 106 minutes in their 1-1 draw at Marshall on Saturday evening. 

Jamie Ibarra(Goalkeeper) - SMU Sophomore Ibarra gave up two goals to South Carolina, but produced 8 saves keeping his team in the game. 

"He's been stellar all year," McClements said of Ibarra. "South Carolina had a lot of shots and Jaime had to handle a lot of difficult balls in the box. He's been solid this whole trip and has been huge in picking up these points."

Keep reading for more college player review and how the academy did in the north Dallas derby against Dallas Texans

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As a little bonus to our college and academy recap this week, I got a chance to chat with FCD assistant coach Marco Ferruzzi about how Dallas tracks their academy players in the college game. It's a good, informative read. 

I'm curious to know how the Academy graduates like OC(Okwuono), Jack Coleman, Bradlee Baladez, candidates for homegrown contracts with the first team in the future, are tracked by your staff. Is it using Schellas' and Barry's relationships with long-time college coaches, getting videos of their games or how do you track these guys during the year?

It's a little bit of both. It's obviously conversations with the coaches, were fortunate enough to send our academy players to some very strong universities. We're scouting all of those universities and getting prepared for the draft which gives us an opportunity to see them in action, follow up with some of the boys who have moved on a little earlier like Bradlee Baladez at South Carolina, London Woodberry at Maryland, so the ACC obviously we cover very strongly, as well as the Big 10 where Jack(Coleman) is playing at Indiana.

These are all schools that we keep tabs on all the time, we've got good relationships with the coaches so we get to see and hear what's goin on with them. Again, like I said fortunately they're at some big schools where they're on TV, we're going to their conference tournaments, they're getting exposure and even as simple as checking to see if they were in the lineup the last couple of weeks.

We do it remotely but at this point in the year we're starting to go out on our scouting trips so we'll be at the tournaments looking at them first hand.

So after the season is over it's you and Drew(Keeshan) and others going out to these tournaments?

Exactly, we've all shared the work and like I said we're looking at seniors, and underclassmen that may be moving out of college early. We have an opportunity to check on our own players as well a kid like Bradlee comes back during the summer to train with us and they're able to show some stuff in a couple of weeks working with us that we're not necessarily able to see in their college environment. So when they come in here and adapt into our training environment, we get to pick up a little more about their progress as well.

With guys like OC and Jack, we've seen them in reserve games and they're not out of place but obviously it's better to send them to college and have them play games and develop rather than sitting on the bench here...

Absolutely, I think the college game is very beneficial for a number of reasons. Primarily they're going to get physically stronger there, they're going to get games, the process of learning that goes on there in the soccer environment and off the field as well is extremely important for the professional athlete. They just kind of come out with more tools.

The professional game is a very competitive field and the more tools these guys get coming out of college the better they are equipped to deal with some of these things. The college game is different from the pro game, absolutely correct no brainer, but some people feel that cutting around college gets you there quicker and that's not always the case. So they're getting games, a soccer education as well and they're getting an education that will help them dealing with the life of being a professional. 

Jump for the full college/academy week in review

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Academy

The U18 and U16 academy faced off against local rivals Andromeda last weekend. The U18's moved to 2-0 on the season with a 3-2 victory. They were a goal down at halftime, but saw second half strikes from Daniel Garcia, Nick Rochowski and Mark Ashby winning the game 3-2. Richard Sanchez went 90 in goal while Jonathan Top did not play. 

The U16's also remained unbeaten but couldn't get past Andromeda tying 2-2. Both teams led in this game with Abdul Yassine and Jordan Cano tallied for FC Dallas. 

The Academy plays their first home game of the season on Sunday as they face off against Lonestar SC of Austin at Pizza Hut Park. If you can get a chance, I highly recommend getting out there for the U18 game to get a look at Lonestar forward Kekuta Manneh, the USSDA top scorer from last season. 

College Review

Jamie Ibarra(Goalkeeper) - SMU Sophomore Ibarra is the current Conference USA defensive player of the week, recording a 3-save shutout against Cal State Northridge. On Sunday, Ibarra led the Mustangs to a 2-1 upset win at UCLA. Ibarra has started 7 games this season with a 5-2-0 record and .57 GAA...really great season so far from the young goalkeeper. SMU has an enormous home game tomorrow night against USF for those who can make it. 

Damian Rosales(Midfielder) - SMU Sophomore - Rosales went 62 minutes and assisted on the lone goal in the 1-0 win over CSUN. He also started and played 74 minutes in the 2-1 victory at UCLA. Rosales has become a first XI starter for SMU in a midfield that is ultra-talented. To be honest, I'm a little bit surprised as I never rated him that highly while on FC Dallas. Excited for his development though...

London Woodberry(Defense) - University of Maryland Junior The #3 Terps are off to their best start since 1968 at 9-0-1. Woodberry started both matches, a 2-0 win over Virginia Tech and a 3-1 win over #13 Charlotte. The Terps have shutout 5 of their 10 opponents this season. Woodberry is definitely one to keep an eye on, especially next year. He's a guy that will be an MLS prospect coming out of college next season and someone Dallas would certainly have a shot at signing. 

Jump for the rest including which player scored this past weekend

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US Soccer has released their evaluations of the US Soccer Development Academy clubs for the 2010-2011 season and FC Dallas was rated as the top club in the country out of the 78 clubs that participated in the 2010-2011 season. 

If you go to the Development Academy overview page, you can read up on how the teams are evaluated. 

Clubs are graded on a five-star system in comparison to the top international developmental environments. The evaluation criteria consists of eight key components necessary for a club to provide elite everyday environments for player development with technical components based on the U.S. Soccer Curriculum.

Previously it was unknown how the teams did on their ratings, but US Soccer has released the full evaluations for the 2010-2011 season and they're fascinating. Here is a link to them(It downloads a PDF portfolio).

Keep reading to see how FC Dallas did and how they have been rated tops in the country. 

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FC Dallas announced their third club affiliation today with the news that Texas Fire Soccer Club of El Paso is now FC Dallas El Paso. FCDEP joins FC Dallas Emerald Coast in Florida and FC Dallas West in Midland, however this partnership is more significant than those with the news that El Paso becomes the first Tier 1 affiliation. 

This meansthat kids from this team qualify as Home Grown players for FC Dallas, with the best players likely being sent to the FCD Development Academy teams here in Frisco. FC Dallas El Paso is 10 years old and has produced Omar Salgado, the 2011 MLS first overall draft pick as well as Michael Ambrose, arguably the best talent on the current FC Dallas U18 Academy team. 

5 kids from the El Paso program have moved to Frisco for the academy season that is 2 weeks old, Alonso Gallegos(U18), Aaron Guillen(U18), Cesar Murillo(U15), James Olmos(U15) and Jose Livano Salas(U15).

In a depressing couple of weeks for FC Dallas fans, this is some fantastic news as El Paso has long been an untapped market from an American perspective with the best players going to Mexico. 

Jump for the full press release with quotes

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Man, another tough break for the FC Dallas soccer community. This morning academy player Jose Perez died after an early morning car accident. Reports say Perez was riding in the back of the vehicle when a car ran a red light. Perez was also not wearing a seat belt. 

Perez had just started his freshman year at San Jacinto College and was on his way to practice at the campus when the accident occurred.

(Read on for more)

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This is a brand new feature here on the blog with the college soccer season starting up last weekend, its appropriate to take a look at how the FCD Academy products are doing at their respective schools. I've got a fairly comprehensive list, but if I'm missing anyone that you know of, please let me know and I'll add them to the list. 

London Woodberry - University of Maryland In his third year at Maryland, the outside back had a good weekend, starting both matches for the Terps. On Friday night, Woodberry and Maryland defeated St. John's 3-0 and on Monday they downed West Virginia(Sorry, Drew) 3-1. It's tough to know exactly how many minutes he played as the box scores do not reflect it, but it's good to see that Woodberry is a first choice starter for UM. He's a guy to keep your eye on after his senior year next season. UM faces Stanford and Radford this weekend. 

Bradlee Baladez - University of South Carolina Bradlee Baladez and South Carolina posted a disappointing 3-2 loss to College of Charleston in a game that was rescheduled to to Hurricane Irene. It was a good day for Baladez, however, scoring his first goal of the season in the 11th minute and registering three shots on goal during the game. USC travels to Clemson for a game tomorrow night. 

Chris Figueroa - SMU This is one that caught me by surprise, Chris Figueroa, the starting 2-way midfielder on the FCD '09 class has transferred to SMU from NC State. He's a decent midfield who played 8 games for the Wolfpack last year and will be ineligible for SMU this season.

Keep reading

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