Benefits of DA?

You don't need to play DA in order to play college soccer.


Team Chicago a Non DA until the Eclipse Announcement had 19 players sign a Letter of Intent in February.

 

Talk to a college recruiter and you'll understand the value of the DA and other top level leagues. That is the biggest advantage.

You can get in front of some recruiters if your club places good teams in the right tournaments/college showcases however.

Frankly I don't know he effective the BDA actually is. We may see over the next 2-3 seasons where we can compare the success of the GDA vs ECNL. My guess is that the ECNL will continue to maintain top teams and more recruiters for years to come. They are an expensive league but the numbers in terms of scholorships and pro players coming out of the ECNL are unmatchable against any other sport basically.

 

The effectiveness depends on what you're looking for. It's clear that it's the most effective vehicle if you want to play college soccer and that may be what most parents are interested in. For its stated mission of developing world class players, the jury's still out. It's an interesting disconnect

 

What are the numbers on the boys side in terms of graduating seniors who move into college with some sort of scholarship?

The only issue which I would assume is that given the number of boys playing soccer vs girls, that it's more of a gamble.

 

I think you'd also want to include the kids who go on to play college, but not with scholarship money, given that D1 mens' teams only have like 10 scholarships for the entire roster. But either way, that number is somewhat immaterial to the DA's stated mission. Their goal is to produce world class players, not stock NCAA rosters. It's very material to parents, though. As cited throughout this forum, it's the most effective way to get on a college coach's radar. That's the main benefit for a kid who wants to play beyond high school. I'm not sure it's worth the cost (assuming it's not a MLS funded team) and commitment otherwise. But I think it's reasonable to point out that the DA can place loads of kids on college rosters and still not be effective at what it's trying to do.

 

Don’t know these numbers, but there are far more teams, scholarships, and money on available on the women’s side then the men’s when it comes to college soccer….in large part due to Title IX….no complaint, just factual observation…

Agreed, much hard, more of a gamble, to get a scholarship on the boys side then the girls…

 

Like Volk’s says, it’s the access to college recruitment that is, without doubt, the biggest advantage…whether you think all the best talent resides there, college recruiters are just flippin’ lazy (or at least content), or a little of both, the best pathway to Men’s college soccer is through the DA….love it or hate it, but you can't deny it...

I have bashed (or at least people think I have) the DA…and while certainly no fan (mostly due to high level polices, not day to day operations), I’ll say this, it’s a good gig if you can get it… Some of your complains you resistor (training days, coaches, league play, refs) seem a little nitpicky to me, even meaningless without context …overall and consistently, I have no doubt, DA kids get better than average training, coaching, game experience, and refs…

 

Absolutely the exposure to college coaches and national team scouts. College coaches are regularly at trainings of older age groups to scout.
Side benefits include (and your mileage may vary) free uniforms/training kits/travel wear, travel as a team to out of state games (no cost to families), fitness training integrated with the regular training schedule, two coaches at all trainings--so better coach to player ratio, more goalkeeper training sessions than classic GKs. My son's club is not MLS but is subsidized by NASL team--so for parents there is way more bang for the buck.

 

Yeah I never got the world class players. Do parents actually plan this path for that reason?

 

Trust me, I sympathize…

However, food may not be a good example…acting may be better….you can act in your community theater all you like, you can even be relatively talented, but you will likely never get discovered…for that you need to go to Broadway or Hollywood, or least a bigger city theater district (Chicago, Atlanta, DC, etc)…

It may suck, it may be unfair, but unfortunately, that’s the reality…and likewise, DA, being the best path to college, is the reality as it currently stands…

The DA provides more than enough talent for College given the interest and slots available…no reason to beat the bushes for missed talent like many other sports do…also an unfortunate reality…

 

I think it's simply a case of all the parties involved having different goals/expectations. The DA's mission, at least publicly stated, is to develop world class talent. Whether it can or will do that is still an open question. Painting with a broad brush here, but my guess is that most parents choose this path for the exposure to college recruiting first and foremost and anything beyond that is gravy. Particularly for kids playing on non-MLS DA teams.

 

I sympathize with the point as to DA locations, even in NY, there are surprisingly few options. Kids in long island often have to travel 1 or 1.5 hours each way to get to Red Bulls for example, or even a couple of non mls teams in queens.

Hard to see how the DA is accomplishing its mission by simply ignoring large swaths of the country (especially the midwest).

 

If I had to guess, and I have been vocal about the lack of representation in large parts of the country, that in following the stated mission of developing world class talent, locating the DAs in large population centers makes sense. In the case of almost any sport, if you are an aspiring world class talent, you leave home at an early age to go to where the best opportunities are located. In gymnastics it used to be Oklahoma, now I think it is wherever Bella and Marta Karoli are (Texas?). Diving used to be LA then Oklahoma now it seems to be Indianapolis. Tennis it is Texas or Florida. Basketball it is various prep schools (to a certain degree). Wrestling it is Iowa or Pennsylvania. You get the point. The difference is those that are truly world class are few and far between in any sport and you don't hear about the move until they "make it" and in most cases these are individual sports so having 5-10 people at a location is enough. Soccer on the other hand you need 20+ at each location, in each age group, and you need teams for them to play, so as a result even if there are just 30 aspiring world class players in the country and you consolidate them together, who are they going to compete against? The result is watering down the program to include non-world class talent which gives you what we have today, a path to college.

These college players would be playing college without the DA, it just makes it easier on the college coaches to see them all in one spot. When my son was playing (non-DA) and we went to showcase tournaments it was a waste. There were so many schools I've never heard of before, every multi directional religious affiliated school around, and no place my son would have gone scholarship or no. The reason being, any program you have heard of are at the DA events.

I think Bradenton was the best attempt to skim off the true top talent to develop world class players. It was a small group brought together for development, the problem was then what? Where/who would they compete with which brought us to the DAs.

 

This for sure!

 

Huh, I haven't gotten that impression from these threads at all, I've seen many points of view represented here. But I'll speak to my experience as a parent of a 2002 boy who's played on a DA squad this year (and whose team will no longer be in it next year).

Four days a week of training and almost always one game on the weekend, so generally two days off a week (and sometimes three as there isn't a game every weekend).

So you don't think 1+ days is enough time off per week but you want them to be able to play outside competition as well? The reason they don't is primarily due to time, there just isn't enough of it to play in other competitions as well.

No, and the higher license doesn't always translate to a better coach. But the general level is higher, in my experience. And I've seen some REALLY good coaches in the last year (which unfortunately doesn't include our own, who's kind of a meathead, but he was that way even before our club joined the DA).

Those are outliers, but yeah, some clubs aren't as big or don't have the resources to compete with the biggest academies, particularly the MLS ones. But you might note that the specific teams that are bottom feeders varies between age groups, and standings are only kept for the older age groups so that doesn't tell you anything about what's going on in the younger ages. I can tell you that in our region there are three teams that are pretty head and shoulders above the rest (one in particular), and one bottom feeder that loses nearly every game, but outside of that most games have been quite competitive, and there have been some very unexpected results depending on the day. In general the level of competition has been consistently higher than in the NPL, which we were playing in last year, and the best teams are MUCH better (the "one in particular" team I mentioned above has basically absorbed most of the best players from the best clubs in the Sacramento area).

I'd say quality of refereeing has been generally higher, but not always of course. The refs in the DA are ones who are trying to move up in the ranks, maybe make this a stepping stone toward the college or professional game, but that doesn't mean they're all actually good (like the coaches). And referees are evaluated by each coach after the game, so they're doing their best to keep the quality as high as possible. But if you actually watch soccer you'll know that even the highest levels have some shit referees, and even the best make mistakes.

That's an issue for sure, and they're definitely expanding the program, but it can't be everywhere, there's gotta be a critical mass of teams around that can meet the qualifications, so you'll see most of them clustered around heavily populated areas (ours covers the greater SF Bay Area and the Sacramento area, plus one team further south in the valley). That discussion has gone on here in some threads, whether or not it's worth it to move, and I'd say that totally depends on your kid's age, talent, and aspirations.

We just sort of fell into it, my kid wanted to play at the highest level possible for our area and then the club he was already a part of joined the DA. No way would we ever have moved for it, as he doesn't plan to be a professional, and isn't even sure he wants to play in college. I mean there aren't enough DA clubs to cover all the colleges who need players out there, so it's obviously not the only route, even if it is the best available in this country.

Hope that all helps.

 

At the u12 level I think the newly added clubs are getting a sense of just how far apart they are from the established DA clubs. I'll use Campton United - decent club and always considered as one of the "Best of the rest" added a u12 division to the DA this year and they are getting smashed by established clubs like Sockers.

Is that because Sockers has been in the DA much longer, resources in terms of coaching staff? A bit of both?

I think the point - again (IMO) of adding these new u12 clubs is to essentially get the parents of those top players to realize that maybe they were not as good as they thought - prey off the anxiety of not being the best and then funnel those players into Sockers/Fire Jr/Magic.

I just do not see these programs get a full blown DA because I don't think USSF wants to manage so many organizations at the top.

That said - therein lies the benefit of the DA which is the overall player pool. At full DA's your player will be exposed to fairly decent players - likely more so then anywhere else. By that they will have to raise their game instead of just being the best on their team. They will no doubt be challenged more so and thusly become a better player.

 

I am a former select soccer player in the american system. and this was before academy leagues and mls clubs were in the scene.

I just have one question. what exactly does 'DA' stand for?? Developmental Academy???

 

Development Academy, so close enough.

 

I think part of the disconnect is the percentage of players who are truly DA caliber. If there are 30 players on the roster and the players are only guaranteed a handful of starts you will have players who could be in the "happy to be here" category. The top club teams in our area likely would beat the 'last 11' on the DA team a high percentage of the time.

This probably varies by geography, in highly populated areas there are enough good club players to make for a competitive training and playing environment with very good coaches. In other areas it may be better to be on the DA team, regardless of playing time. If the player is good enough, they will play in college regardless but DA players clearly get first preference and more scholarships.

I would say the two of the biggest differences are the fitness aspect and the time aspect. Club teams cannot match the weight rooms and trainers, making players 'look' like they are ready for college soccer*. Club is 2-3 nights a week and takes time off during 'dead periods' such as January.

*my opinion is we are too focused on players ready to play the physical game in college; size and muscle are over-valued.