Again, that statement is really dumb by US Soccer. The DA is not a program and nor is ECNL. They are leagues and the clubs themselves have the programs that they run based on their own philosophies. US Soccer may come in and have demands about some of the curriculum, but make no mistake...The clubs will do what the clubs want/need in order to keep things afloat and attractive to would be players.
ECNL vs. DA turf war has created a 'toxic environment'
- Thread starter VegasParent
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The DA is theoretically different because they can have more direct control of players on the YNT radar. For example, if US Soccer wants a kid to transition to CB from outside back they can dictate that to the club.
vegasguy
GOLD
They can dictate it but implementing it week in and week out may not be followed as their is not oversight at every training and every match.
Also, it is a league and many coaches are still more about the win than the development. Otherwise you would not see game reports where a player did not get a single minute of play in 4 games in the National Playoffs.
Also, it is a league and many coaches are still more about the win than the development. Otherwise you would not see game reports where a player did not get a single minute of play in 4 games in the National Playoffs.
vegasguy
GOLD
the boy's DA program was considered dead two years in and they didn't have even have an ECNL equivalent.
Now this is just a boys rumor but it has been noted that many of the MLS clubs are growing tired of playing and traveling to non-MLS teams and want to pull from DA and work with the USL in emerging league on a more regional basis. Especially at the u16/17 !,# u18/19 age groups. If that occurs boys DA is again just a league. Still rumor but it is there.
I have also heard coaches from major college cup contenders say that they look outside the DA many times because their system does not fit the DA philosophy for certain positions or tactical shapes and they are finding that some players are set in roles and styles (4 4 2) and aren't as flexible in other formation. DA does not guarantee D1 but it will get you observed by them.
If DA is only in place for YNT opportunities they should limit their team pool and fund it fully. That is investment. Not adding more and watering it down for money.
Now this is just a boys rumor but it has been noted that many of the MLS clubs are growing tired of playing and traveling to non-MLS teams and want to pull from DA and work with the USL in emerging league on a more regional basis. Especially at the u16/17 !,# u18/19 age groups. If that occurs boys DA is again just a league. Still rumor but it is there.
I have also heard coaches from major college cup contenders say that they look outside the DA many times because their system does not fit the DA philosophy for certain positions or tactical shapes and they are finding that some players are set in roles and styles (4 4 2) and aren't as flexible in other formation. DA does not guarantee D1 but it will get you observed by them.
If DA is only in place for YNT opportunities they should limit their team pool and fund it fully. That is investment. Not adding more and watering it down for money.
Most minor league baseball teams are controlled by MLB teams, so the big boys can dictate how a player will be positioned (playing time to convert an outfielder to first baseman, for example) and how often he will play (that applies to pitchers mostly). I hadn't heard that there is a similar rigid control from USSF to the individual DA teams, but it is certainly a rational way to run things.
This actually is a demonstration of the positive evolution of the game here. Pro clubs should have more control of their player development and MLS should be in the business of developing their own minor league system. One of the purposes of DA was to have as many of the players under one roof as it were for scouting and tracking purposes and that can still be accomplished with a MLS system as well as a DA.
For younger ages DA still makes sense for MLS clubs to participate in if only to limit the travel but as the kids hit U16/17 then more MLS control the better.
Agree. Your point is simply a missed opportunity by US Soccer. Week to week is what they should be striving for. In fact the regional NTC's should be run more like ODP is, once a week. A regions best players should be training together if not once a week at least once every two weeks.
Who is going to pay for all that travel?
I guess that depends on what you mean by "regional".
Currently there are at least 14 professional women's soccer leagues in Europe, six of which participate in UEFA.
The Spanish Women's Liga alone has 16 clubs. For the interest of time lets just say that the other leagues have 10 teams. That is at least 106 professional women's teams in Europe of which at least 66 teams are competing for UEFA bragging rights.
The US has over 300 D1 soccer programs alone. That is huge and we haven't even touched upon D2 and D3 programs. But of those 300 programs only 64 will qualify for the NCAA playoffs. Of those 64 that qualify for the playoffs there are really only ten schools that have a legitimate shot at winning. So roughly 25 D1 programs are not only both really really good, but really consistent over time as well. While we have huge collegiate system most of our USWNT players are coming out of only about 25 regular consistent programs.
D1 soccer is a fall sport while Spain's liga-femenina-iberdrola is a 10 month, 32 game season which can include Champions League and other UEFA tourneys. Assuming growth in the youth game in Europe, I just don't see how our top 25 college programs over the next 10-20 years will be able to keep up with Spain alone not to mention France, UK and other nations. In time one or two of the European leagues will also rise to prominence and concentrating the talent even more while smaller national leagues will become stepping stone leagues just like the men's side.
And do we honestly believe that in 10-20 years youth clubs like PDA will out produce La Masia not to mention the Spanish clubs that are trying to develop kids to get into La Masia?
I was referring to the more "local" NTC's. Not the larger regional ones.
What is the point of claiming to be an "Academy" if you don't actually have a pool of players regularly training together?
Many clubs are still using the term "academy" to refer to certain teams, camps, or training programs just like they were before the USSF DA program was created over 1o years ago.
Oh, absolutely agree that it is a nice buzzy and marketable term. But in this case if US Soccer wants to claim that it is in fact a program and not just a league they need to implement "Academy" as much as they really can. And one of the ways they can is to have more local NTC's on a regular basis where a metro regions best 25 kids or so for each age group train together regularly.
Currently the NTC's are mostly used just for basic deeper scouting purposes but they could be so much more.
vegasguy
GOLD
US Soccer would advise the clubs to be a true academy moving players up and down within their individual for development instead of straight out recruiting which is what a number clubs (not just DA but ...) do. With that said loyalty would need be given by the parent as well and we know that many parents are well intended but club hop like the Easter Bunny.
MakeAPlay
DA
I am not arguing with your numbers, they are in the wheelhouse. And I agree that most WNT players come from a small number of college programs. You also have to realize that those leagues also are top heavy and don't nearly have the quality of teams top to bottom that are near the top of D1. Maybe with more money they will get better but as has already been proven on the men's side of UEFA, the top teams have many players from Africa, South America and beyond and aren't simply composed of homegrown talent.
I love the debate and look forward to your reply.
The league growth is really just starting to take off in Europe. While we have had some false starts with our own women's league over the same time frame, unlike Europe we had the college game. Europe truly relies on a professional academy model. Without professional leagues there really is nothing comparable in Europe to our collegiate system, a system that is well over 30 years old and still growing. European women have had nowhere to play until just a decade ago if they didn't come to our colleges.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/socc...p-soccer-worldwide-growth-20190603-story.html
And if numbers are low at the youth level clubs like Barcelona are doing this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/sports/barcelona-girls-soccer-womens-world-cup.html
My kid plays up a couple of years and also plays with boys and I've had to fight hard with club coaches to utilize all the possible opportunities while they are available. That I HAVE to struggle to find coaches who are progressive enough is another problem we have.
That side bar aside, in regards to the leagues being top heavy in Europe many of the leagues have promotion relegation, which obviously means 2nd tier leagues. Those second tier leagues we can consider our D1 mid majors. But as the girls youth system continues to grow in numbers the European model should be able to easily match our collegiate system with more upside to surpass it in the coming years. And on top of it, our colleges sit here with open arms for many of the European women who simply don't make their own pro academies.
And culturally, I think the women's game is different here in the U.S. than the men's side. I expect our player pool to stay very, very large and very talented which will always keep us in the mix but to stay dominant the NWSL needs to be twice its current size and more women need to go directly and skip college. The problem is kids can't afford to go pro here for what NWSL amounts to be just a summer league. Many players go to Australia when NWSL ends just to keep the checks coming.
Telling parents where to put their kids is always a tough thing to do. There are lots of VALID reasons kids change clubs and to your point there are lots of hoppers too. But that doesn't need to be US Soccer's concern either. If they are tracking 40 kids in a metro area per age group they need to have more direct conversations with those parents about where might be best fit club wise and so forth.
If US Soccer is tracking the kids they should be actively working with the clubs and the kids and possibly have the authority to recommend a logistically feasible club change. This would be pie in the sky. But at the very least US Soccer should be striving to get those 25-40 kids together on one field on a regular basis. Essentially as I said, the ODP kind of runs things.
dk_b
GOLD
I think this is the real key regarding whether or not the European clubs will outpace the US (with its youth structure + college). Culturally, the women's game is not just different compared to the men's side, culturally the women's sporting landscape in the US is very different than in other countries. Our participation rates in all team sports - boys and girls - are way higher. When I studied abroad, I played on futsal team. The guys were athletic enough, had better footskills than I did (a non-soccer player but I played a lot of baseball and football and lacrosse so I could play in goal), but very few of them played organized sports growing up - one played team handball, one was a runner and one played tennis, many skied and played tennis recreationally. Compared to their female peers? They were total sportsmen. I expect that the landscape has changed some over the years but from talking to my friends in Europe and looking at the level of participation in team sports of their kids, there really is no comparison. So, the boom that Europe will experience may occur but whether they have the sheer volume of players to produce elite soccer players remains to be seen (this is akin to the points @MakeAPlay has made re the number of players in the 18-32 range).
There is a larger philosophical issue as well - and my perspective may differ than those on this board (it does with many on the NorCal equivalent when similar points were discussed years ago). If you measure "soccer success" at WC titles playing soccer "the right way", all of this matters. But if you measure success on participation rates - not just at the youth level but through college, in pick-up, in old men and old women leagues, etc.) - fitness, love of the sport, an ability for some kids to turn sport into education, exposure to different kids and different communities, opportunity to travel (domestically and internationally), etc., we continue and will continue to do things right. Thank you, Title IX, for that and for the effect of it becoming totally normalized for a girl to be juggling a soccer ball on her own or when my younger kids ask to be taken to the field to meet friends to kick the ball around. I believe that remains unique in other countries, even countries whose national teams have made significant gains.
Can La Masia produce elite players better than we do? Maybe. But what happens to the ones who don't make it all the way? Will there be other avenues for those who have given up everything for that academy model? Stated another way - how many of La Masia's players who were 15 when Messi was do we actually know about? How many have made a living in soccer? And how deep a fraction do we take w/r/t girls/women since it is a HUGE leap to think that community-based 3d and 4th division women's teams will have the following like the equivalent men's teams?
VegasParent
SILVER ELITE
So do coaches.