SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP SCUFC remains only Development Academy option in South Carolina

One thing that needs to be understood, USDA is not in Columbia, but is based in Charleston. The name changed to SC United but it is still mostly Bridge, especially the younger team. Most of the practices last year were in Charleston with a some at BB&T and then Orangeburg at SC State. The practices in Charleston had to be moved from Charleston Southern on the North end of town to James Island. Not sure what they will do in the future. I guess it will depend on where most of the players come from. Most of the players from the previous year that returned were from the coast and hence practiced in Chas. The very successful U-17 team from Cola United that moved to Academy practiced in Cola most of the time.

I have to agree that SC may have a hard time getting another Academy team in the state based on population. But if you look at 1.infrastructure: facilities, full time coaches, # of kids playing in feeder programs(rec,select, etc) 2.success in state level play and premier league and 3. success in placing players at colleges and universities to play soccer, I find it hard to deny that they do not deserve to be considered (if they want to be). Maybe more so than the other Academy program in SC.

again..I will ask..do we know for a fact that CESA applied for the academy?

This is my question also, CHT. Belligerent and utd4life....
do you know for sure?

Also, Hurst's CESA player is a daughter.

None of my kids play at CESA, altho my son played there 1 year and we have several very good friends with kids there. We also go way back with Nick Finotti. My arguments on this are not emotional, but logical. They are so clearly the top club in SC and one of the top 6-8 clubs in the SE.

My son is in the Academy program and I see what I see. For anyone who knows anything on both sides of the ball to not understand that (where CESA fits) is ludicrous.

CESA either chose not to apply or USSF has decided that they are fully saturated in the SE and CESA will need to wait until a current Academy club loses its franchise (for lack of a better word).

Belligerent....give me a hint on the "reading" i'm supposed to do. 'Cause I have no clue what you are talking about.

Interesting question. From the academy page at US Soccer:

"To maintain a focus on training, Academy teams do not play in any other leagues, tournaments, State Cup competitions, ODP or All-Star events without written permission from Academy staff. Full-time Academy players can only participate on their designated Academy team, with only 2 exceptions: high school soccer and national team duty"

If CESA were to become Academy would they not lose their stranglehold on SC cup play? Well on the boys side at least. Seems like they would have to shift the top players(teams) to Academy and then likely drop the sweeping of state cup. Not saying they could not field some good cup teams, just that inorder to win like they have been they have needed their top teams playing in Cup. Seems like the status quo has worked well for them to build their club/system.
Right now in SC CESA draws players from all over the state becasue they are precieved as the best place to play at the highest level if other clubs started winning the "in state" competitions could they not make a better arguement to keep more players local thus hampering CESA's efforts to expand.

As a disclaimer I am not anti CESA or pro SCUFC just asking a question as to what benefit/harm Academy could provide CESA.

(by the way Charlotte has two different Academy club options for players; with a metro population of 1.7 mil vs Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson Combined Statistical Area (CSA) which in 2006 had an estimated population of 1,203,795 with none.)

Big, to quote myself... "Big, I’m not sure if they actually applied or not…" If they did not apply, why would they have told so many parents who were contemplating leaving cesa for an Academy team, to just be patient and wait until the list of new Academy teams came out?

CHT, you can ask on here til the cows come home (don't hold your breath). But to quote utd4life, "There was a wise man called Raekwon\many other names that once told me if I would like more info to call CESA DOC's. I'm sure they will be more than happy to give you their "strategic" reason for not having it." So, pick up the phone, and give them a call.

dropkick, when you say that SC United "is still mostly Bridge, especially the younger team," the last part of that statement is technically correct, but barely . The statement, as it is written, is not even close. This took all of 5 minutes:

51.7% of current U16s are former Bridge
48.3% of current U16s are not former Bridge

28.6% of current U18s are former Bridge
71.4% of current U18s are not former Bridge

The overall club numbers (rounded):
40% of current SC United players are former Bridge
60% of current SC United players are not former Bridge

so what is the plan for SC United since CUFC has taken over? they don't have any fields in charleston so will they move to columbia?

i don't think cesa applied or else they would be in.

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.

Nice posts daddy..It does not matter to me wether they applied or not..and I think I get the answer

IMHO there is no question that Discoveries U18 was weaker this for losing potential players to Academy. Not sure how involved the club was with sending them or trying to keep them, but I think the chance to play Academy was better for them than just playing Challenge level in SC. (probably made it eaiser for CESA to win the CUP at U18 too).


BTW, excellent post!