After a decade of touting its league as the home for American soccer players to develop to their full potential, Major League Soccer launched the Development Academy (DA) in 2007. The DA was built to be the country’s highest youth league, helping bridge aspiring young soccer players into a pre-professional route. In 2008, MLS introduced the Homegrown Player rule, which let teams sign players from their own academies, circumventing the MLS draft.
The Development Academy ran until 2020, when US Soccer shut it down at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The DA had developed talented players but the spectrum of success stories ranged. Some players broke into the first team while others struggled to catch on at even just the collegiate level. The DA was replaced by MLS NEXT, which again included academies from each MLS team, along with many independent youth teams from across the country.
The chart below lists every keeper who came through an MLS academy, season by season, and rates how far each one went.
AI was used in gathering information. If any information is wrong or incomplete, please use the contact page and an update will be made ASAP.