MLS' young players are regularly on the radars of overseas clubs, with a number of them having moved to European teams in the last several years. Few so far have moved to the league's neighbor, Liga MX, though two players continue to be linked to teams in Mexico — the LA Galaxy's Efrain Alvarez and Julian Araujo.
It begs the question: Would the Galaxy do business with a Liga MX club? Matthew Doyle posed that question to SB Nation's Alicia Rodriguez on the latest edition of the weekly Power Rankings Twitter Spaces show, a question that would teases a new direction for the club.
"We haven't seen, in this current era of the club, where they're setting their valuations at selling on academy players," Rodriguez said. "My inclination is if a Liga MX is giving the right price, they're willing to talk to anyone, but if a team like that is going to lowball the Galaxy, they might just say, 'We're content to keep him. We're not desperate to sell him right now.'"
Rodriguez noted that there has not been a test case yet for the Galaxy, another reason why how they value their players remains a question.
"This also a key moment for the Galaxy in that they finally have been able to start hanging on to some of their academy players and signing them to pro deals," Rodriguez said. "Now the next step is selling some of those guys on, making sure that they join the global market for homegrown players that some of the other teams around MLS have been doing and they haven't done, so I'm not really sure how they're going to approach it."
Rodriguez, though, feels Alvarez and Araujo are the types of players that could reveal the Galaxy's strategy when it comes to selling and keeping young players.
"I think in a lot of ways, either Alvarez or Araujo or both of them could be that test case that tests the expectations moving forward of the team and everyone else regarding the Galaxy's approach," she said.
