2014 Boys IMG Academy 150 Update

2014 Boys IMG Academy 150 Update
by Caroline Yort
January 28, 2013

The 2014 Boys IMG Academy 150 Rankings update is out today. While Rubio Rubin remains at #1, there have been others who have made significant jumps in the rankings since our last update. Of those, probably the most significant is Crew Soccer Academy’s Nathan Kohl, who climbs from 60th to 35th after impressing national team staff at the Development Academy Showcase in December, resulting in an invitation to U17 Men’s National Team Residency for the spring semester.

Rubio Rubin club soccerRubio Rubin

Also having good Academy seasons are Chicago Fire forward Jeffrey Farina, NJSA 04 defender Matias Fracchia, and Minnesota Thunder goalkeeper Treston Kederer. Farina and Fracchia break the top 100, at #81 and #91, respectively, after earning spots on the Development Academy Select Team. Farina is a prolific goal scorer with 13 so far this season for the Fire. Kederer, #148, received multiple recommendations to be added to our rankings, and is garnering interest from top Division I programs as well as a few professional clubs overseas.

In addition to the IMG Academy Top 150 update, we have made key changes to the regional rankings which will be unveiled throughout the week. Some of the additions include St. Louis Scott Gallagher’s Connor Mullen, Richmond Strikers’ James Ellis, PA Classics’ Austin Kuhn, and South Carolina United Battery defender Brice Rizzetta. Keep checking back to see who else made the lists.

As far as how we arrive at the rankings, it’s no simple task.

We keep a national database of players as the starting point for our rankings (if you’re not in it, enter a profile here).

We track an extensive list of selections to national team camps and other honors including USSF Development Academy (Boys), ECNL (Girls), and U.S. Youth Soccer National League event and season awards, plus U.S. Soccer Training Centers, ODP, id2 and other player identification programs.

From there we look at additional signs of top player performance in a club environment, with the help of an extensive network of observers around the country. The priority here is for club, college, national team and other select team coaches on the ground, but especially when we can gain corroborating opinions. The more layers of opinions we can gain accumulate the better, as our role is primarily to aggregate those viewpoints, rather than making our own determination as to a player’s quality.

As a matter of policy, we never share which coaches said what about whom so that coaches will be freer to share their assessments. Another policy is that parents’ opinions about their own children are not considered, but you are welcome to provide feedback about honors and other details that may be of help to us in keeping their profiles up to date as well as our challenge of sifting through thousands of players nationwide. That kind of data can be helpful, but the: “How can you not have rated my kid? He is awesome” communique, while compelling, will be consigned to the virtual trash.

In the end, there’s always some level of subjectivity about players, because after all, how good someone is relative to someone else is largely a matter of opinion, but we do our best to make our rankings as educated an opinion as can be.

The rankings will be updated every quarter. Keeping current rankings for 8 classes of 150 players each is no small task, and it is counterintuitive to think the rankings would change daily or weekly. We will announce each update.

So that’s it. You can see the newest version of the rankings here.

Trending Videos
 
IMG Academy Top 150 Rankings
see full ranking:
Boys Girls