Disclaimer: The rankings published before 11:45 EST on 11/25 were the summer rankings, not those for the fall. The fall rankings are now live on the site. We apologize for any confusion.

The 2017 Boys IMG Academy Top 150 fall update is out today, and FC Richmond midfielder Nicholas Taitague remains No. 1. Taitague recently spent a week with Manchester United training in their youth academy, and has been a consistent part of the U15 and U17 U.S. youth national teams over the past year.

Nicholas Taitague

There are two players entering our rankings with this update from international clubs. Midfielder Ernesto Espinoza and defender Angel Uribe are both from the San Diego area, but play for Club Tijuana in Mexico, and both excelled at the U.S. U15 Boys National Team camp which took place at the end of October. Subsequently, our scouts have rated both of them as worthy of the top 50, landing at No. 36 and No. 47, respectively.

Other players debuting in the IMG Academy 150 with this update include Jacksonville FC center back Almir Kurtanovic, Charlotte Soccer Academy left back George Espina, and San Jose Earthquakes forward Kaya Fabbretti. Kurtanovic was highlighted as one of the top players at the U15 BNT camp and debuts at No. 55. Espina has played well enough for Charlotte’s U16 Development Academy squad as a 1999 to receive an invitation to a select game at the Development Academy showcase in December, and debuts at No. 70. Lastly, Fabbretti is the leading scorer for the Earthquakes U14s with 16 goals on the season and debuts at No. 75.

In addition to the IMG Academy 150 update, we have made key changes to the regional rankings which will be unveiled throughout the week. Some of the additions include Georgia United center back Alec Yeaney, Bethesda Olney center mid Elijah Amo, Baltimore Bays goalkeeper Blake Bissen, MatchFit Chelsea defender Kyle Kelly, Andromeda SC midfielder Chase Carraher, and many, many more. Keep checking back to see who else made the lists.

As far as how we arrive at the rankings, it’s no simple task.

We keep a national database of players as the starting point for our rankings (if you’re not in it, enter a profile here).

We track an extensive list of selections to national team camps and other honors including USSF Development Academy (Boys), ECNL (Girls), and U.S. Youth Soccer National League event and season awards, plus U.S. Soccer Training Centers, ODP, id2 and other player identification programs.

From there we look at additional signs of top player performance in a club environment, with the help of an extensive network of observers around the country. The priority here is for club, college, national team and other select team coaches on the ground, but especially when we can gain corroborating opinions. The more layers of opinions we can gain accumulate the better, as our role is primarily to aggregate those viewpoints, rather than making our own determination as to a player’s quality.

As a matter of policy, we never share which coaches said what about whom so that coaches will be freer to share their assessments. Another policy is that parents’ opinions about their own children are not considered, but you are welcome to provide feedback about honors and other details that may be of help to us in keeping their profiles up to date as well as our challenge of sifting through thousands of players nationwide. That kind of data can be helpful, but the: “How can you not have rated my kid? He is awesome” communique, while compelling, will be consigned to the virtual trash.

In the end, there’s always some level of subjectivity about players, because after all, how good someone is relative to someone else is largely a matter of opinion, but we do our best to make our rankings as educated an opinion as can be.

The rankings will be updated every quarter. Keeping current rankings for 8 classes of 150 players each is no small task, and it is counterintuitive to think the rankings would change daily or weekly. We will announce each update.

So that’s it. You can see the newest version of the rankings here.

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