North Texas SC’s ironman CB/RB Justin Che earned a homegrown contract with FC Dallas last week. It was the culmination of (almost literally) a lifetime of work on the part of the 16-year-old, and continues a long and lauded tradition at the club of shepherding the best youth prospects in North Texas into the professional game.
With Che off the table, though, the natural question becomes “Who’s next?”.
Homegrowns are usually signed either in the offseason (especially in pre-season) or during the summer months. In fact, only four of the thirty homegrown signings FC Dallas has made fall outside those two windows: Jesse Gonzalez, Alex Zendejas (signed on a pre-contract that kicked in the next pre-season), Chris Richards (signed in a rush to prevent him going to Bayern for free), and Justin Che (who would have been a summer signing in a normal year, I think).