Quote: I guess I have not done a good job of making my point, but you have helped me make it on a couple of levels. First and foremost, I don't want to come accross as attacking the Academy format. I do hope this model works.
As I have reviewed my posts,I realize I don't want to come accross as a "know it all negative" and I feel that I have.
Look at Dempseys story again. He wasn't recruited by the Texans, he was there watching his brothers tryout when he was noticed playing with a ball on the sideline.
Look at the ages of the players in your own post. They are basically 13-15 when they are exposed to elite club or Academy. My entire point is that all of these players developed probably 7-8 years playing what we might call "street ball" DAILY and that for us is IMO tough to overcome.
13 of the first 15 years of my life were spent in Scotland and Germany and the constant pick-up games going on everywhere(I mean literally everywhere) is what we are fighting here and my fear here is that we may never catch up.
But when you look at the rest of the world and look at their 2nd and 3rd choices in the sports world, I think you have part of the answer. Rugby, cricket, a smattering of Formula 1. I will have to say basketball is starting to come on in certain parts of Europe.
We have so many good and popular sports here in the US, that I realize soccer will never be number one or even two and many of you are right--funding is inadequate.
In short, we do have to do something. I do hope Academy will help develop future US stars and was wrong to attack this attempt.
You give me too much credit as I don't think I have made your point at all. That is if we focus our discussion on whether Academy training is crucial for the development of skilled high school aged players.
All the star players we discussed above benefited from a highly structured training program comparable to the USSDA academy during their high school age. What we are saying is provide the same for our South Carolina Academy players without the interruption of non-standardized training that is representative of the high school soccer season.
I think we are all in agreement that we need to start the identification process much earlier than at academy or pre-academy age. However on the subject of adhoc play (unstructured training) as a prerequisite for development, I don't neccessarily agree with you because the evidence is not conclusive.
Unstructured training may have played a role in the development of some stars but that doesn't mean that structured development (had it been available at that age) would not have achieved the same results.
A good example of this is Ajax dutch academy system where young lads are identified as early as 7 to 8 years old and are brought in to engage in structured development.
