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South Carolina United FC didn't create the elite boys soccer landscape that currently exists in America, US Soccer did. The Federation determined that we needed to change the way we train and compete in order to develop the best possible National Teams. The philosophy inherent in those changes is player-centric, not team-centric. Naturally, team play is important to individual development, but the emphasis is on developing and identifying excellent players, not teams.

There is a Federation requirement that teams train at least three days per week, with a strong preference for four. The competition is designed to be strong - every game weekend. They have certainly accomplished that. While the strength of various clubs tends to fluctuate a bit from year to year, the quality and competitive balance is remarkable. You just don't see blowout games in the Development Academy. (Of course there is the odd exception, but it proves the rule by being such an anomoly). The officiating seems to me to be much closer in quality to what you see in college games than RIIIPL.

Half of the regular season games are attended by scouts for the National Team, many of whom are college coaches. It has been the exception to play regular season games without at least a handfull of college coaches in attendance. The two Showcase events are attended by 200-300 college coaches, in addition to many National Team scouts. My experience with USYSA events is that attendance by college coaches is rapidly declining, most noticeably at Regionals. This impression is confirmed by many conversations with college coaches. They all tell me that they are almost exclusively focusing on Development Academy games and events because of the concentration of talent and limitations on travel budgets.

I don't dispute the assertion that quality players can be identified in programs other than the Development Academy. That it is less likely, and becoming more so every year, is not seriously arguable anymore. The U-15 and U-17 National Teams are very heavily weighted towards kids from the Development Academy and that trend will continue.

At the outset of the Development Academy I did not understand why US Soccer would create a program that directly competed with ODP. I still don't understand it fully. What quickly became clear was that US Soccer is fully committed to the Development Academy and that the college coaches are fully and completely on board. The horse has left the barn and it isn't going back.

Now, a few final points specific to issues that have been raised in this thread...

We are really only talking about the the best 50 or so players in the four player age years involved. There are fine players who can achieve their soccer goals without playing in the Development Academy. However, there is no comparison between the competition, training, exposure and environment offered by the Development Academy and any alternative to it.

It really doesn't matter whether CESA applied or not and I am not at liberty to answer that question. Ask them. What matters is that every coach and DOC who is primarily concerned about the development of his players should encourage the best of them to try out for a Development Academy team (be it in Columbia, Atlanta or Charlotte). That goes for CESA, CUFC, DISA, Discoveries, and so on, even if it means weakening other teams in the Club. Their obligation is to the best interests of the kids, not their personal won-loss record. One would hope that a coach would take sufficient pride in having developed a player to the point that he us ready to play at the highest level that he would be happy to send him off to the next level.

Finally, inter-club rivalries and juvenile parochial interests should take a backseat to the interests of the kids.



I think just like with ODP it is the best 50 players that decide to be involved in Academy. There are players in South Carolina that choose to NOT participate for whatever reason and agree that players can be identified outside of
Academy. Also, in most instances these kids are staying in state(look at both Academy and CESA college commitments)to attend college and these college coaches are easily accesible. These coaches are still very much involved in ODP. While I have heard from college coaches that they are spending more time at Academy events, I can't imagine they would cut off their nose to spite their faces and not attend other events(Disney Showcase, Regionals, etc).

I too am so discouraged by the rivalries. There are soo many players that need to be developed. What happens to the classic or challenge level player that just needs additional training and coaching? It sounds like everyone is only interested in the upper echelon of players.