Revolution Sign Fagundez

The Revolution have signed their first ever home grown player, Diego Fagundez. This is something that I'm very excited about. I'm not a big believer in college soccer. I don't think it prepares players enough for the pro game. Don't get me wrong, I think college soccer is the right choice for many players, but if the league and the national team want to get better then having a good junior system in place is very important. Hopefully the Revs make another signing or two (not sure how many U-18 players they're allowed to have on the roster) like this. This is something I need to look more into, but I'm wondering what Fagundez is allowed to do and what he's not allowed to do. Can he play in regular season games? Can he play in the PDL this summer if the Revs don't think he'll be playing much? I'm not sure about all of this. MLS today announced that they're bringing back the reserve league which I'm sure Fagundez will see some action in.

As for Fagundez, I've never seen him play but lets take a look at what we know about him. He was born in Uruguay and lives in Leominster (pretty common as there is a good size Uruguayan community in that area). Leominster has a strong soccer program at its high school and has seen many good Uruguayan players come through there. Most notably in recent years was Gary Rocca. Not sure what happened to him, had a very good high school career but I have no idea what happened after that. I've seen a lot of these kids play, I've played with a lot of them, and I've played against them. There's certainly a lot of talent in that region. It's very safe to say that if Fagundez was chosen out of that group of kids to play on the Revs and then sign with the Revs, then he's a very good prospect to have. Like I said, I think this is a great signing and it shows the players in Massachusetts that the Revs are serious about looking at players in this region and signing those players to contracts. Hopefully we'll get to see Fagundez at some point in 2011 and see what he can do. I'm looking forward to it.

-Andrew