I am pleased to see the strong showing from the ACC. Nine players selected to the U23s heading to Portugal. Six of the eight college players to sign P-40 contracts are also coming out of the ACC.
sure.. It's not surprising, we are talking about the best conference in the country from top to almost bottom (NC St doesn't count remember).
How many teams develop their players to be ready when the professional ranks come calling? Stanford probably wouldn't be too high on that list.
Until recently, Stanford didn't have much raw talent to work with. Still, nobody's complaining about Simon Elliott and Ryan Nelsen.
College stunts a player's growth more often than not. The NCAA is so watered down that it is like taking a step backwards after leaving their youth club teams.
That is simply not true. Whatever you want to say about college soccer, it is without question a step ahead of the soccer played by the top club youth teams. (I assume we're talking about D1 and even D2).
I agree, and before all the bigsoccer crashes, I was very well known for my dislike of college soccer. Still, there are a few schools who seem to be better at others at putting out decent players with the whole stagnating context. Or perhaps they're better at spotting talent. Some of the players are playing PDL over the summer, so that helps to some extent. It's obvious that most of the talent is skipping college altogether or not staying the full four years. Professional soccer has been trending that way for awhile, and the last Olympic team had one amateur. This one won't have any at all, and the U20 team is more professional than ever.