I think it is too early to tell. Both of my children are a product of the new developmental style at CESA. My oldest is a U-12 Premier and the youngest is on the U-10.
For the oldest her first year the most talented girls were placed on a team (Which has now become the 93 Premier) and the remaining children were placed in a pool of about 24 players. There was a wide diversity of talent. Today two of the 24 are on Hyslop's team (93 Premier) and some are on U-11 Pool 2. We focused primarily on foot skills and played 8 v 8. There was very little emphasis on where to be on the field. We split up into 2 teams on the weekend and generally got clobbered. The 2 teams were randomly picked, especially in the fall. Come Spring they would try not to put all the forwards on one team. Due to our talent diversity there was a good bit of parent conflict.
The next year she was placed on U-11 Pool 1 (the top U-11 team)They were a 12 girl team rather than a pool. We still spent a lot of time on foot skills, but added in positioning. We liked being on a team rather than in a pool. Both years winning and losing was not emphasized. This year she is on the 94 Premier (11 v 11) we are playing in the U-13 Classic League this fall. The biggest thing you could hear the girls saying when they moved onto the large field is that they had so much more room to manuever and they were really able to utilize their speed and foot skills. You can see our results over on the PMSL website.
On a personal note, my daughter has improved tremendously. She was one of the weakest player in the original 24 pool. If they had cut the 4 weakest children, we would not have been in the big pool. To play soccer at an elite level is her dream and she works very hard at attaining it. She cross trains with other teams, does speed and strength training, trains indoors with "Speedy", and attends a couple of camps in the Summer.
My youngest is 8 and is playing on the U-10 team at CESA. We are playing up into the U-11 division. There are twelve 8 and 9 year olds. We have some serious speed on the team, however 80% of the players played forward in rec. and have never passed a ball in their life. My daughter is one of those girls. They dribble until they lose it. "Why on earth would you pass a ball" and "Why not go right down the middle" Their coach, Mina, is working very hard with them on both foot skills and positioning. Coach is doing very good and there is steady improvement. We've now played teams that we lost to early in the season that the second time we have beaten. We played MPSC at the U-10 level in friendlies and in the RBC tournament. The first time they dominatexd the second it was pretty close.
The boys side is a whole different matter. It is much more competitive and the boys frankly just have more foot skills. I would love to hear what one of their parents perspective is.
Not having children play when we went straight to 11 v 11 it is hard for me to compare. I think in the next year or so we will be able to judge more accurately whether the academy system of development is going to work.
