I coached in US Development Academy as a volunteer assistant for a couple of seasons, and am very passionate about youth development. I run a website called DMV Soccer which is dedicated to covering soccer in the DC/MD/VA area. I wouldn't say that we put an emphasis on youth soccer, but we definitely try to tweet to followers when a local kid has committed to a big school like Maryland or Navy. One of the coaches I know was working the Navy soccer camp this past weekend. He asked me if I wanted to come by for a day, talk to the Navy coach. There were also two youth academy coaches in attendance, from Everton in England, and Genk in Belgium (a youth academy which has produced the likes of De Bruyne, Courtois, etc.) For anyone interested, here is a link to the piece: http://www.dmvsoccer.com/2017/06/19/starboard/ Would welcome your feedback. I know that youth development is a hot topic these days, and the Development Academy is obviously making strides. But the DA clubs need help from somewhere to start improving training facilities that players are able to train at on a daily basis.
hmmm. Interesting interviews though. Get the guy that wrote it tested for colour blindness, he seems to think De Bruyne is ginger.
Well, come on, it's easy for a place like Belgium to improve their youth development. The country's 5 miles wide with a population of 11,000,000 people The USA is over 3,000 miles long with a population of over 300,000,000 people, where soccer is at best the 5th or 6th most popular sport and where a small, but loud minority has tried to sabotage it at every turn.