Good point purpleandyellow!

As for Man U Fan's response, I'd like to add that in 1999 I had the opportunity to take our B-C team to England/Wales for four competition games, two pro games, and tons of sightseeing.

Of the four matches, one was against the Tranmere Rovers (then 1st Division, right under EPL) U16 team. The Tranmere Rovers boys were all 5-10/6-2 and totally groomed for the professional game. Our team that was comprised of rising juniors/seniors and three recently graduated All-State players. We battled their U16 team to a 0-1 loss in the 84th minute (I might add [Wink] ), but the point is that they had the best of a picked crop training daily year-round for development in their school-boy system. Yes, the boys went to school from 8-12, but after that it was all soccer 9 months out of the year.

Is this a direction for U.S. Soccer to emulate?