i have to disagree somewhat (that's a shocker, huh?)
the people who played academy the first year of its existence took a pretty big leap of faith.
those joining now can talk to numerous people who have experienced academy first-hand.
since its first year, academy has added 15 teams to the original 64. for the upcoming season, 5 teams were chosen out of 250 applicants. sure, this is just year 3 (coming up) but the academy program does not appear to be losing any steam.
i agree that the move will lessen the competitive posture of cufc as a club within the usys structure, but not within the overall us soccer structure (which i believe both usys and academy fall under - please feel free to correct me if i get any of this wrong); and state and region odp teams across the country have been (and will continue to be) weakened by the academy.
but i have to believe that was expected from the beginning - after all, the academy was created by us soccer as a method to increase our level of play as a nation. one of the stipulations of playing for the academy is that you cannot also play odp. i'm not sure how else you can take that.
