It's time for Atlanta United to take a chance on (the right) U22s

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Atlanta United have made no secret about their feelings on U22 Initiative players. They’re simply not a priority for the club. Maybe if the right homegrown player came along and earned a second contract while meeting the age requirements, they would consider it. But that player hasn’t come along yet.

It’s understandable why there would be hesitancy. Atlanta United in particular has done a spectacular job of totally bricking it with this roster-building mechanic. I’ll never forget watching former U22 midfielder Franco Ibarra drive away from the training ground after being traded to Toronto. If you’ve forgotten, Atlanta had to recall current U22 Edwin Mosquera from a loan move. Atlanta suddenly had four U22s instead of the three that were allowed. Someone had to go. The only one they could move was the guy getting starting-level minutes. Meanwhile, Mosquera, Erik Lopez and Santiago Sosa stayed on as U22s.

This? This is a lot of cash for a pretty horrendous return.

Don’t let Mosquera’s G+ fool you, by the way. There’s a *lot* of substitute effects happening there. There’s a reason Atlanta shipped him out (again) when they finally found a suitor this summer.

They’ve been burned. I get it. But that doesn’t stop the U22 Initiative from being a potentially valuable mechanism. Especially if you look for your U22s in the right spots.

Real quick, get your roster rules helmet on and strapped. Let’s review how this works.

In short, Atlanta can sign a player in his age 22 year (if he turns 23 at any point that calendar year, he’s ineligible) and, if he’s designated a U22 player, his transfer fee will not count and his salary charge will be reduced to $200k. You can keep that player in a U22 spot through their age 25 year. The only requirement besides age is that a player’s base salary doesn’t exceed that year’s maximum budget charge (AKA a salary that would automatically make him a TAM player).

You can see, in theory, how that can be a fantastic way to find value in a salary cap league. Santiago Sosa could have easily been a Designated Player based on his salary and transfer fee. Instead, he cost a senior roster spot and $200k against the salary cap

Now, I can get behind the idea that they’re holding their U22 spots for homegrowns deserving of a raise. It sounds great. However, there aren’t any clear candidates for those spots right now except *maybe* Luke Brennan. And any of the other candidates that pop up keep getting sent to CF Montréal.

The risk of spending cash and a roster spot on young, unproven player definitely exists. But, you can argue there’s even more risk in not maximizing your roster in every way you can in MLS. So, what if we found a middle ground? How can we reduce the risk of an inherently risky decision?

Well, you go as old as you can and as wide as you can.

Michael Caley has been conducting research on soccer aging curves. You might remember we talked about this when we were slightly panicking about the Miguel Almirón signing. A key conclusion from his work is that wingers burn earlier and shorter. He dives deep into that here, but this chart does a decent job of summing things up.

Across the Big Five leagues in Europe, wingers get more minutes earlier than every other position group by a notable margin. They also fall off a cliff sooner, too.

Beyond minutes played,