Johnny Exantus Expects to be Signed

Red Bull Youth Update

Johnny Exantus, or Johnny X as he is referred to by his peers and those scouring various soccer message boards, has quite the bio for a 17 year old soccer player.

Exantus scored a brace in the Fifa U-17 World Championships against Jamaica at the tender age of fourteen. The legend only grew from there.

His profile only grew in the 2006 Metrostars preseason when Johnny, a member of the Metro's youth academy under Gio Saverse, was invited to train with the first team. Johnny quickly turned the heads of the coaches and players. The word was out that New York had a one of a kind prospect in their camp, but league rules kept NY from signing him. If Johnny signed with MLS he would have been subject to the SuperDraft, putting him up for grabs in a pool of MLS talent sharks.

Everyone questioned why New York could not sign the young phenom, but the rules prohibited it. Don Garber realized this, and invented a rule for cases like Exantus, to be signed straight from the academy to the first team. Problem is the rule would not be in effect for New York until after the 2007 season, about two years since Johnny X first burst onto the MLS radar.

Since then, the team name changed, but Exantus stayed in the youth academy, continuing to impress, even with his now famous profile. In fact, many other players from the youth team have grown up with Exantus, who are now impressing in their own right. Walter Hines and Matt Kassel are others on Red Bull's radar.

The Exantus name jumps off the page the most though, due in part to that now famous preseason where he changed MLS for the better.

When this offseason comes, Red Bull will have their first opportunity to sign players from their top-notch youth system.

From a source close to the player, it has been learned that Johnny "expects to be signed by Red Bull, in November". Now that could just mean that the kid is confident, or that there are some signs. This could be the first of many signings that Red Bull makes from their youth system in the future. The youth academy is the most successful part of the club, and the ability to sign these young, talented, local players who are winning all of these youth tournaments will give Red Bull the advantage it truly deserves from their years of hard work. MLS is growing up.

A Few Random Notes and Updates

As the club enters the home stretch towards the MLS Cup Playoffs, the "project" end is put on the backburner a bit. All the focus is on the sucess of the team.

But the ironic thing is that the sucess of the team is one of the most important parts of the project.

Here's a few updates since I last left...

- Red Bull Park's Website is innactive. This is probably due to Red Bull's buyout of AEG, as the site looked to be primarily run by AEG itself. The webcam no longer updates, and I emailed the contact on the website for questions awhile ago and never got a response. In the future at a high publicity time like the playoffs or MLS Cup for Marc De Grandpre and the rest to release a new timeline of sorts and maybe throw up a new, Red Bull only, website.

- Before the site went practically dead, the stadium finally started to be making some good solid progress everyday with a noticable increase in workrate.

- Although the club has yet to win any silverwear in it's history, one way to continue to add to the prestige as they get closer and closer to bringing home the MLS Cup is to take home some individual awards for the Red Bull trophy cabinate. As they head down the stretch, Juan Pablo Angel is considered one of the favorites for the MVP, Golden Boot, and Newcomer of the Year award. Not to mention he already took home All-Star Game MVP. Dane Richards is also in the race for Rookie of the Year.

- The news of the week was that Amado Guevara wants back in to the club that he once called home, but not until the 2008 season. With the increased cap space and Red Bull's desire to make some big moves with the space, look for Guevara to be a "Plan D". With a whole offseasn and boatload of cash, Red Bull should be able to come up with some better punch than an aging Amado Guevara.