Tucked away in a story about Red Bull New York possibly trading Thiago Martins to the Colorado Rapids for Jean Philippe Peguero (yeah, Fernando, I know your ways are enigmatic, but that’s an utterly idiotic trade) is news that David Arvizu might be heading to Chivas USA after all. Apparently the Martins for Peguero trade is contingent upon another trade “That deal would send U.S. Under-17 forward David Arvizu and defender Danilo da Silva to either C.D. Chivas or the Los Angeles Galaxy for draft picks … Chivas coach Bob Bradley, who directed the MetroStars last year, is said to covet Arvizu and da Silva.” Not only does Bradley covet Arvizu, but Arvizu has long been known to covet Chivas USA. As this old story notes, “The Mexican-American expressed a wish to play for Chivas USA, which would keep him near his hometown of Santa Ana.”

I hope this Arvizu trade goes through. Why? Because the Red Bulls never should have had the kid in the first place. As far as I’m concerned minors who enter the professional ranks in Major League Soccer should play for their “local” team. Period. It’s one thing to send a kid thousands of miles from home to when you’re sending him to a youth oriented environment like Bradenton, but it’s another thing to pick a kid up from LA, remove him from his family, and plop him down in New York City. It was obvious from the moment the then MetroStars won the lottery that Arvizu was unhappy. Mo Johnston wasn’t even sure if Arvizu would show up to camp.

“I actually spoke to him last night,” Johnston said. “I gave him three, four days to think about it. He’s excited about coming here. Obviously, it’s a tough decision for the kid, coming all the way from L.A. to the East Coast. Listen, if the kid comes in, we welcome him with open arms. If he feels a need to stay there, then we have to work out something with someone in the league. if that doesn’t happen, then we’ll bring him here. Look, we ain’t going to keep anyone if they don’t want to be here. If someone wants to be somewhere, we’re going to try. We have to get the right pickings for us.

These situations could be avoided completely if MLS would get those youth academies up and running and give teams the rights to the guys they trained as youth players. But for now we still have this perverse system that randomly distributes young players around the country. I know some say an academy system would give an advantage to teams located in soccer hotbeds like New York and Los Angeles and leave teams in - say - Colorado at a disadvantage, but I think that’s a spurious argument in the end. We’re talking matters of degree here because these days I don’t think there’s many places left that aren’t youth soccer hotbeds. It may take a little more work in some areas, but it’s not the absolute disadvantage some people say it is. And even if it were, if I had to choose between being fair to MLS teams in fly-over country and doing the right thing for a 16 or 17 year old kid I’m going to do the right thing for the kid every single time.