Generation Adidas
Generation Adidas is a joint venture between the highest North American Soccer League, Major League Soccer, and the Football Association of the United States of America, the United States Soccer Federation. With this program, established in 1997, the talent of young American soccer players should be encouraged. The concept is the one that even the American players who do not have college degrees, are offered the opportunity to be included in an MLS club. In addition, to be able to guarantee the players to play at least three years in the MLS.
History
From 1997 through 2005, the program was sponsored by Nike, the program ran under the name Project 40. Since 2006, the project runs under the name sponsor adidas.
Carlos Parra was the first Project -40 player who was taken at a MLS side under contract. In 1997 he came to the New York / New Jersey MetroStars. Since then, the program has produced some good players, such as the national player Tim Howard, Josh Wolff, DaMarcus Beasley, Maurice Edu, Carlos Bocanegra, Bobby Convey, Eddie Gaven and Michael Bradley.
However, the Project 40 or the generation Adidas barg not only talented players. Some, such as Jamar Beasley, Nino Da Silva, Barry Swift, Maurizio Rocha, Martin Klinger or Kenny Arena ( son of the famous football coach Bruce Arena) did not make it to join in the success. Some of them came here only to a few professional applications and had to content themselves with inserts in a unterklassigen Football League. Others withdrew completely from the sport of football.
Players that are promoted in the program get, usually only a minimum salary and, accordingly, substantially less than MLS players who are in the senior squad of their respective team.
After entering the program for the current player is automatically classified as a professional, which implies that that the players are excluded from playing the college football. Players who do not make the leap into professional football, so get a scholarship to be able to study further if necessary.
From 1998 to 2000, a team consisting of Project -40 players and MLS players who got little playing time in Major League Soccer, all performances in the A-League (now USL First Division ) had.
Legend
- Name: Call first the pros and then the player's last name.
- Age: Denotes the age of the player when entering the program.
- P: Name the position of the player: T = Goalkeeper, V = defender (defender), M = Midfielder, A = Forward ( Forward )
- Hometown: Call the hometown of the player at the time of admission into the program.
- College / v. St.: Name the last of the player station. College = University football = name of the University; v. St. = previous station: for example: U.S. Youth selection
Note: The list is sortable: is by clicking on a column header sort the list by that column, double clicking reverses the sorting order.