USSF Development Academy In-Depth

He's verballed to Duke but the school hasn't announced it's official yet.

 

We'll see.

They're playing 4 Texas Division clubs in a row, which is a good barometer of where they stand overall. So far they're 1-1.

They lost to Solar 7-0 a couple of weeks ago. (and none of those goals were by Alfred Koroma, who did play in that game).

But they recovered to beat Andromeda 1-0.

Isn't Nanochoff running that club? If they do go, I hope they're replaced with another Ohio club. Quite a bit of talent coming out of that state. Need to have more than one DA team if possible.

 

Yes, he is which from what I am told (water cooler talk) does not take kindly to being told they need better training methods, they need to improve their coaching, etc. Again, from what I have heard all of those things are issues there now. Ohio really should have DA in Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati.

 

Has there been any rumors about who will be added to the DA for 2013? I got the impression from listening to and reading articles by Klinsmann that he wants to open it up to more clubs.

Any word?

 

In case people didn't see it, here's the most recent Across the Academy.

http://www.ussoccer.com/News/Development-Academy/2012/03/Across-the-Academy-March-15.aspx

Some interesting tidbits:

1) U.S. Under-23 Men’s National Team head coach Caleb Porter named his 20-player roster (Tony Taylor was added the following day) for CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying, with Group A play beginning March 22 against Cuba at LP Field in Nashville, Tenn. Five players on the roster have Development Academy ties: forward Juan Agudelo, midfielder Joe Corona, goalkeeper Bill Hamid, forward Joshua Gatt and defender Zarek Valentin.

[They don't mean the players actually played in the DA. Simply that they have "ties" to DA clubs. They're trying to advertise their teams after all. And they didn't mention it, but there will be academy products on other rosters of course. Najar with Honduras for instance.]

2) Development Academy alumni had a significant presence during the first week of Major League Soccer play. D.C. United goalkeeper Bill Hamid had a career-high seven saves and three Academy alumni made their MLS regular-season debuts last weekend . [Wenger, Rowe, and Tommy Meyer]

Then on Monday, a record four Academy alumni took the same pitch during the Portland Timbers’ 3-1 victory against the Philadelphia Union. [Andrew Jean-Baptiste, Darlington Nagbe-speaking of the Cleveland Internationals, Zac MacMath, Jack McInerney.]

[Clint Eastwood finds it hard to believe that is a record. Didn't DCU start 3 academy products last season? Surely they played some teams with a bunch of DA products.]

3) Week 25 Player of the Week: Colin Martin, Midfielder, D.C. United
Colin Martin made two starts over the weekend as he helped D.C. United’s U-17/18 team earn a 4-2 win against the New England Revolution on Saturday and a 3-3 draw against FC Greater Boston on Sunday. Martin scored a 69th-minute goal during D.C.’s win against the Revolution, logging 76 minutes. Martin started and played the full 90 minutes during Sunday’s draw. He has started in five games and appeared in six for D.C. United (3-2-2). Martin was a member of a recent U.S. U-20 Men’s National Team camp.

 

I'm not sure we've posted this:

Four things to know about RSL's Mikey Orellana from Soccer America:

http://www.socceramerica.com/article/45991/orellana-utah-star-on-el-salvadors-radar.html

 

I am not sure why you find this to be a surprise. This is a big country. It was no different in soccer. USYS programs and ODP all varied by state. Even the DAs differed in each region as SoCal and Texas varied. What I don't understand is why they screwed around with SoCal which in general has fairly strong programs and left other places which don't alone. I guess they wanted to claim "success" by pointing to the quality of the players even though having a schedule where kids might have one real game a month is truly a developmental failure.

 

I said this before and you kinda ignored it. But while I agree there is probably like a 20 square mile radius in South LA/OC that this is the case. But even in SoCal there are many areas where this isn't the case. So then you would have to fracture the the SoCal division just to make this idea work.

Also I have a feeling the reason why Socal/Texas were the "test subjects" is because both are in warm climates and all the teams are contained "closely contained" within the warm climates.

 

I have him on ignore because he ignores or dismisses or puts down or puts down the messenger of any good point that doesn't support his previously decided position (depending on what he thinks is the most effective strategy at the time). I don't wish him any ill will, but he is stuck and I am not going to waste anymore time on someone that feels more comfortable being stuck than listening for the purpose of understanding.

FYI, this post is for you. Not for him. Effective communication is wasted on anyone that has chosen to remain stuck in a position. You are simply exploring the issue. He, as I can see from your post, is still stuck in argument mode. Disagreeing is fine, but some people just aren't able or don't want to distinguish the difference between listening for the purpose of arguing and listening for understanding. It's best not to get too caught up with people who can't or won't make that distinction.

 

http://www.ussoccer.com/news/develo...ions-latest-to-commit-to-10-month-season.aspx

Didn't the Northwest and Southeast switch as well, so something close to half the DA? At any rate, when they're screwing with so much of our top talent, I see it as more than just a test case. US Soccer announced, "Players can train together three to four times per week and play one game on the weekend nearly year-round."

Sounds great, but the reality is different. Outside of a few weeks in October and February, the Galaxy haven't had a single week that followed this structure. Not one.

 

In old structure, clubs had about 9 double fixture weekends. Looking at Chivas, Galaxy schedules, now down to four of these. Definitely heading in right directions.

 

RSL U-18s 3-0 final over Strikers. Played in heavy rain & wind.
Jordan Allen 2 goals, Ive Burnett (LB) goal.
Report I got is another dominant performance by the 18's.
Soccerdad- we need an update after the U-16 game, heard you are at the games.

 

By my count, the Galaxy have 6 of these, including one triple fixture. And of course, the bigger problem is 17 weekends with no game at all.

Dealing with the lack of continuity has got to be a nightmare for the coaches.

 

FCD U18s 5-0 Crew U18s

Next..............

 

How many did Garcia score?

 

Wow...

Crew hadn't lost a match before that. Still not entirely fair considering this must have been Columbus' first competitive match since the Fall.

 

Perhaps FC Dallas should have spotted them a few goals just to make it fair? Come on now, this isn't golf. According to the schedule, this was actually the Crew's forth match in March and seventh altogether.

A TopDrawer Soccer pre-game article mentioned that Andrew Souders, a Crew center back, would have his hands full with Garcia. In fact, Garcia didn't even score in this game. Jose De la Tejera scored a brace (that's seven goals in the last four games), along with goals from Gallegos, Ortiz, and Rochowski.

FC Dallas defense was very busy, with Crew pressing them high. Nevertheless, Dallas pulled out another shutout to add to their GF/GA ratio of 64/11 (22 games) compared with Crew's 20/10 (7 games). It appears that both the FC Dallas offense AND defense is key in these wins. The stats don't lie.

 

A two part interview with Lorne Donaldson, executive Director of Real Colorado:

http://www.socceramerica.com/article/45983/kids-face-tough-choice-qa-lorne-donaldson-rea.html

http://www.socceramerica.com/article/46013/pros-should-compensate-youth-clubs-qa-lorne-dona.html

When listening to people from DAs talk, I find it helpful to learn a little bit about the DA they are involved in so that I can better understand their perspective. Real Colorado is a 2.5 star DA that was rated 2 stars for their style of play and 2 stars for their training environment, but 4 stars for funding and 3.5 stars for respect.

So the perspective here is that this is a guy that is doing really strong things administratively to help fund the DA for the players and also in terms of creating a positive overall environment, but also somebody who has set up a teaching environment equivalent to a C-.

When he talks about the 10 month season, I would expect his DA, with their low ratings in style of play and training environment, to be one of the ones that are vulnerable to lose players, and that is why he has the particular perspective that he has. Fortunately for his club, he seems to be doing a really good job with funding. I think that you see a very different perspective from people who are with 3 - 3.5 star DAs.

 

And of course FCD academy watchers got to see the first start for Bryan Leyva in MLS yesterday. He had his ups and downs in the contest, but it was good to see him out there.

 

Bryan leyva is extremely talented and has a bright future. he needs to play and gain confidence and experience. the club is struggling for wins vs developing for the future. I mean fagundez is getting more playing time than leyva and Luna. go figure. let's face fact which has been reiterated ad nauseum, the mls has a huge black hole for kids like leyva. it's only going to get fixed with a meaningful u21/reserve league. they got to start investing I the youth. the mls league is thriving on all fronts, look at attendance these first few games. it could feed on itself if they make it a formal show and play at stadiums charge nominal fee and use it as marketing tool to generate fan interest. in England the youth games play in front of thousands spectators. it can be done here just need some vision and leadership.

 

I have a problem with this kind of reasoning.
The problem being that these "stars" in fact do not reflect the quality of coaching/improvement of players at all. And I think it's unfair and problematic if DA's are ultimately judged on their star rating, instead of on the actual quality of the soccer education they provide. Hopefully USSF can come up with a better system.

 

I watch a lot of DA games. While I am watching the games, I check the ratings that US Soccer have given the various DAs. I was very skeptical at first because of the inconsistent history that the USSF has had, but I have to admit that, for the most part, these ratings are pretty accurate and they give you a good starting point for looking at a club. These were not create half ass. A lot of thought went into them. They aren't an end all and be all, but they are an excellent starting point.

 

How do you find DA games to reflect those ratings?

I agree it can be a starting point; if they are merely used as a starting point I would be okay with them.

N.B. They seem to be copied from other soccer federations.

 

I watch games all the time and when you compare the level of play to their style of play rating, it is usually pretty accurate. Again, as we both said, as a starting point. There is no replacement for watching in person. I watched a couple of games yesterday in Baltimore and I walked away again impressed that the style of play ratings for both clubs were pretty accurate. I am sure that things change from year to year, but overall I find that the ratings are a better indicator of the quality of the club than their results on the field which are sometimes deceptive.

Regardless, when you read this particular interview, the clubs ratings certainly help one to understand the perspective where Donaldson is coming from.

 

some growing pains for the new Chivas academy management. just noticed a big gun from last year jumping ship to U16 Pateadores