How does ODP work?

S

SDMama

SILVER ELITE
I’ve heard people talking about ODP, but I don’t understand how it all works. Players get recommended and then scouts come out to watch them at CRL/State Cup/National Cup?

How many players are typically recommended?

Since there are so many locations, do they have scouts at every location? How many scouts are watching? Do they only watch the highest ranked teams?

Any other information people who are “in the know” would be willing to share?
 
My youngest was invited several times to attend ODP. From my experience, perspective and conversations from the past, there were some coach recommendations or none at all. Scouts did attend National Cup games. More so/primarily during the group stages. Honestly do not recall them at CRL games. Can not comment on State Cup. The pool size could easily start with 60-70+ players. National Cup was typically at Silver Lakes during the group stage. Scouts could be found in the corners of fields watching games throughout the weekend. On average I saw at least 4 for my daughters age group. It appeared they were watching all teams competing, but they had lists they formulated (I asked one of the scouts). I do know they have added players not on those lists when just watching games. This happened to two of our players on my daughters team. One of the scouts did happen to be a coach for one of the older age groups.
 
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At the younger ages, the ODP scouts attend National Cup games looking at players that have been recommended and for players that are standouts (but not recommended). Each ODP scout has a list of players and teams/games they are assigned. The goal is to get these players in the database and watch them rise (or fall out). They want them in the system before 14 so they can monitor those that leave US Youth Soccer for US Club (ENCL, NPL, etc.)

At the older ages, the ODP teams are relatively set and not a whole lot of movement. A kid can break into the ODP but they need to be a superstar. There are some positions that scouts can find. For example, you may find movement at the GK age group with the U16 boys because the previous GK's (5'9") simply didn't have the genetics and all of a sudden there are now a few GK's standing 6'3" and playing like men.

On the girls side you will see some turn over due to genetics, injuries and puberty.

Bottom line, the ODP in Cal South's region has so much good talent to choose from (even with dilution caused by the DA) that there will be many kids left off the teams because the kids that are already in the database/system known quantities and equally as good. Its safer to go with what you know.
 
My goat got the invite she was dreaming for. However, we switched teams and were told ODP is DOA and the place to be now is TC and DA. My dd dreamed of trying out with all the other greats in Socal so we went against our new families advice. She did break her wrist on the 2nd day and was done. Only got 1 1/2 days of looks but still got invited back for the winter contest. I saw probably 8-10 that were a shoe in. The rest were good but didn;t have the complete package of true goatness. They invited many of us back in Dec. I was a bit surprised to see some Docs there chatting it up with future YNT members parents. Lots of YNT players were there. After that, my dd went to DA and was never invited back.
 
They goto the group play of the National Cup. You usually see them at the corner flags. The better the team, the more get invited. My dd’s old team, SoCal Academy G05 had 9 invites in the last 2 seasons, but only 1 made the team 2 years ago and 2 made it last year. The one thing they want to see at the ODP tryouts is communication...lots and lots of communication between the players.
 
For the Spring/Summer pool, they send scouts to the highest level Cal South competition, which is President's Cup at the youngest ages and Nat'l Cup at the older age groups. They watch one half of two of your pool play games. If you're a superstar, but your team is playing at Governor's Cup, you generally won't get scouted. You might get selected to Winter pool with a strong coach recommendation since that is basically just the players who made the second weekend of Spring/Summer pool, plus some coach recommendation players who were overlooked, but it's a huge uphill battle to get selected for the team at that point.

They may name as many as 100 kids to the pool depending upon the age group, but there might only be 70-80% who will show up, either because of a conflict (e.g., with Spring Break) or because they are moving to DA, which prohibits participation in outside competitions like ODP.
 
Coach recommends some players
Scouts take a look at them
Invites are sent out to a big group of players based on the above.
Camp is held out if town at some random fields they get a deal on.
After 2 days of scrimmages the field in narrowed down.
Another weekend of light training & scrimmages and a team is eventually picked.

Play a winter tournament and maybe a spring one.

Fun as a experience but after that I dunno players not all the fired up for another go around the following year at least mine we'rent
 
ODP was the way The Lists were picked back then. 4 Regions. Our Region IV was the western US. Cal South, Cal North and 11 other states like Montana. Cal South had their team and they and the other 11 teams would play each other in AZ or somewhere like that and play. The Region IV had their own coach and scouts to pick the best 25 from all 12 teams in the region and all the other three regions did the same. Then they took 100 of the best and had them play somewhere and the US national Coaches and scouts picked the YNT from there and all the top D1 coaches come and watch too :) Each state had a chance to showcase their talent. I wish we did it like the ODP way and then the rest of us who didn't make the top 100 can still play soccer and go to high school everyday and not travel all over the country chasing something that is not there.
 
baller6988 said:
Odp in not what it use to be. College coaches do not even recruit anymore at ODP games. Money Grab.
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ODP is virtually free with no cost to travel and high level coaching at no cost if you are on the team or invited to camps. College coaches go to regional play and call coaches directly - some coaches even coach college. ODP today isn’t the program it was when it was created - due to DA/USSF trying to kill it. Still around, but So Cal and and other states are Run completely different.
 
Soccerhelper said:
ODP was the way The Lists were picked back then. 4 Regions. Our Region IV was the western US. Cal South, Cal North and 11 other states like Montana. Cal South had their team and they and the other 11 teams would play each other in AZ or somewhere like that and play. The Region IV had their own coach and scouts to pick the best 25 from all 12 teams in the region and all the other three regions did the same. Then they took 100 of the best and had them play somewhere and the US national Coaches and scouts picked the YNT from there and all the top D1 coaches come and watch too :) Each state had a chance to showcase their talent. I wish we did it like the ODP way and then the rest of us who didn't make the top 100 can still play soccer and go to high school everyday and not travel all over the country chasing something that is not there.
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Yep. Problem is not all ODP programs aren’t run the same way. Some were running it as profit machine. Then DA/MLS/USSF took bigger/complete control of national team selection. On girls side, even about 4-5 years ago ALL girls went through ODP to get on the WNT. Too bad now if you aren’t in DA you won’t make the any YNT.
 
This U16 YNT and U17 YNTs are the first group of players under the new DA Way. The Federation has the power to flip things and boy did they four years ago. Changed Birth year just like that. Then they destroyed ODP and it's weight in Gold. One year it's all about the 50 states and each states best 22 that go duke it out on the field of play. From there each Region picks the best 25 players from each Regions 250 players or so and then they form a team and duke it out with the other 3 regions 25 players to come up with the Nations top 100 for that age group. That is one way to get the cream to rise to the top. National Scouts and the Coaches are on hand to scout all the 100 Unicorns and Goats in soccer as are the top D1 coaches. Some misses of course but those other 100 or so who got snubbed and felt they deserved to be picked over Sally will be looking to knock Sally off like Sophia just did. By the time everyone is 18 or 20, the List will change again. This new DA Way finally gives SoCal & NoCal Supreme Dominance it deserves with the true representation of how dominate we truly are. California had 11 of it best players on the Girls U16 National Team in England. It's about time they get things right. In Fact, 39 other sates have some work to do because they had zero players good enough this time around. No one from Las Vegas or even Henderson. I'll be out there for March Madness and the Vegas Showcase. This is a dads dream come true vacation. Soccer during the day, poker and NCAA hoops at night :) Remember everyone, it's Not That Serious in the grand scheme of things.
 
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Daughter is an 06 and got invited out after U11 National Cup, so I think it was around 2017. Back then the initial Spring pool was approx. 120 girls and most showed up.

D.A. has obviously changed the player pool, since those girls are ineligible to participate.

The number of players in the Spring pool has decreased over the years, from the high of 120 to probably about half of that.

As far as scouting, I've seen scouts/coaches I recognized at a random summer tournament, and a random regular season ECNL game last season (LAFC Slammers vs Blues).

This past year I noticed a lot more players from Ventura County and also from CSL leagues.
 
LASTMAN14 said:
Scouts did attend National Cup games. More so/primarily during the group stages. Honestly do not recall them at CRL games. Can not comment on State Cup. The pool size could easily start with 60-70+ players. National Cup was typically at Silver Lakes during the group stage. Scouts could be found in the corners of fields watching games throughout the weekend. On average I saw at least 4 for my daughters age group. It appeared they were watching all teams competing, but they had lists they formulated (I asked one of the scouts). I do know they have added players not on those lists when just watching games. This happened to two of our players on my daughters team. One of the scouts did happen to be a coach for one of the older age groups.
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How do you recognize the scouts? And how can you tell which players are recommended and which ones aren’t?

I’m surprised they are found more often at group stage games than elimination games....
 
SDMama said:
How do you recognize the scouts? And how can you tell which players are recommended and which ones aren’t?

I’m surprised they are found more often at group stage games than elimination games....
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The scouts are usually wearing their [Cal South Pro+] shirts or jackets, have a clipboard and occasional flock together with the other scouts. After a while they then flock back to the Papa Scout (if present) (Hoffy).
 
Soccerhelper said:
I'll be out there for March Madness and the Vegas Showcase. This is a dads dream come true vacation. Soccer during the day, poker and NCAA hoops at night :) Remember everyone, it's Not That Serious in the grand scheme of things.
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One of my favorite weekends of the year - although I liked it better last year when they were consecutive weekends. I can be OK with it being the same weekend this time around.

And watch out for them parents from Hawaii - they can be a rowdy bunch!
 
LMULions said:
One of my favorite weekends of the year - although I liked it better last year when they were consecutive weekends. I can be OK with it being the same weekend this time around.

And watch out for them parents from Hawaii - they can be a rowdy bunch!
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Thanks for the tip. My buddy plays poker for a living and March madness is how he makes a lot of his money for the year. Drunk rich guys come and play right around 10pm every night. We both clean up but he does better than me :)
 
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SDMama said:
How do you recognize the scouts? And how can you tell which players are recommended and which ones aren’t?

I’m surprised they are found more often at group stage games than elimination games....
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As MWN said they are in their gear. Typically the apparel is all blue. I knew about selections because I asked our coaching staff if ODP officials had inquired about players. This was after the fact when players were listed to attend camp. By going to group stages they are more than likely to see all the players on their list.
 
Our experience was similar... PDP, too. One guy with a clipboard, writing or talking to other guys with clipboards, never actually watching the small sided games they're assigned to. So if your kid had a bad day, or didn't have a Ronaldo moment for the 10 seconds he/she was actually being watched, you don't get invited back. Then your club DOC makes a phone call and, if the balls are big enough, you get invited back. It's political like all the other acronyms.
 
LASTMAN14 said:
As MWN said they are in their gear. Typically the apparel is all blue. I knew about selections because I asked our coaching staff if ODP officials had inquired about players. This was after the fact when players were listed to attend camp. By going to group stages they are more than likely to see all the players on their list.
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Blue shirt one day, YNT Scout shirts and jackets the next day. Did they hire a new scouting crew for 2017 and beyond?
 
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