General question. I see that all national players on the youth teams all come from academy teams, when I look in the super draft most kids have academy background. Question is can a kid make it without playing academy. Are all other leagues ignored including odp, npl, and div 1 club sicccer. Is there evidence of a kid making it without academy background in the past 5 years or so
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Yes. But so rare it's a rounding error. Besides, USSF wants the message to be clear that DA clubs are your only shot at being seen. Is it short sighted? Absolutely. But it won't change without new leadership and a major house cleaning.Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
You may have also seen that most come from MLS clubs. -
All top players play DA and GDA if you want to believe differently be my guestComment
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True. Even the greatest players at one point join an academy. Maradona joined Argentino Juniors at 8. Messi joined Barcelona academy at 12. Pele, Ronaldinho, Zidane and so on joined academy teams once discovered. That is the truth!Comment
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Great point. Another thing to point out. Once these great players joined the academy they did not pay-to-play. The opposite, the academy club paid them (small per-diem) and gave them access to their facilities and health insurance. This can be done because these real academies are subsidized by the professional teams. That is something not yet happening on a full scale here in the states yet. Also, scouts that look for these players, get a commission once the player actually signs a professional contract with the club. Once again, this does not happen here as there is no scouts but we have recruiters for college level only. That is why the so called academies here are a joke, as they want your money and don't care if your kid can't kick a ball. They gather the most talented and showcase them to the college recruiters, which makes their job easy instead of traveling all over the states to seek players. The rest just paid for the salary of their staff. That is why there is no real development of players and we "The USA" are and will continue to be behind in soccer.Comment
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i just think we are talking apples to oranges. DA develops mostly kids that are physical and athletic with some soccer skills and some soccer intelligence mostly to fill out D1 college rosters. professional international academies look for a small number of skillful and gifted players and polish those diamonds for resale at a profit. they don't care about the hundred or thousands that are big, athletic yet not gifted with the ball like the average DA player since this type of player has no value (zero) internationally.Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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funny all the small gifted players and teams are out of world cup not the big athletic teamsOriginally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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You can push that narrative all you want to your friends and other ignorant listeners but European academies are a volume business. You cast your line a ton and hope to get a bite here and there to pay the bills and make a profit. You take the kids who are performing. If they don't keep up you cut them loose and find some more.Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
You ignorance in pretending that these other Academies are looking for diamonds in the rough is just pure nonsense. If that diamond in the rough is already dominating other kids his own age then yeah, sure . . . of course it's hard to call a dominant player a "diamond in the rough". Those Academies have infinitely more failures than successes. They don't exist to benefit the kids. The kids are simply the commodity. And by the way, if you are a big, athletic kid who dominates in soccer in Europe you are probably going into an Academy until either they sell you up the food chain or they determine that your soccer skills can't be polished enough to make you marketable and you have no future value.Comment
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It's not short sighted. USSF DAs don't exist to fill college rosters. They exist to provide better training to as many of the top kids as they can get in their net. With the idea that some of these players will advance to an elite level and later be able to feed their national teams.Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
And if you look at all the young kids skipping college and going right into the professional ranks here and abroad . . . it seems their strategy might finally be paying off.Comment
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here we go again. where did i say "small" in my post?? Kante is a gifted player and so is Pogba even though they are different sizes. Hazard is gifted and so is Lukaku even though one is short and the other physically a beast. I don't think you understood my point. you think belgium, france, croatia and even england don't have insanely gifted players? that they are in semis because of size and athleticism? maybe you see the big guy scoring the header. but it was skill and speed that created the corner opportunity.Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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But 99% of DA players only care about college. The two sides have conflicting goals. Nor does the sheer volume of DA serve the more specific needs of the nation's top talent.Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
As for players going abroad? A tiny blip off a small base is not a significant trend. USSF loves to hold Pulisic up as an example but very little of his development had anything to do with DA. It was about genetics (two college player-parents), his coach dad knowing the sport and seeking out the best training opportunities, and their ability to get him to Europe at a young age because he qualified for an EU passport.Comment
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lukaku size and strenght wins the battle ! nothing to do with being giftedOriginally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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That's false. According to NCAA Surveys, almost half of college soccer players think they will end up playing professionally. And this is DESPITE the fact that, these days, most of the elite players already SKIP college to go straight to the pros. Go see how many players (mens) on our U20 USMNT are playing college. I doubt any of them are.Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
If you think that boys are telling themselves, "Well, I'll never make it in my sport of choice. Hopefully I can get myself a good college education and be an accountant someday." then you probably have about as much understanding of the pubescent male mind as you do of Modern String Theory.Comment
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How do these threads always digress into the college scholarship discussion trap? Sheesh there's a few of you out there that really don't get it.
DA and GDA aside, there are lots of different avenues for players. The GDA in particular is not proven at all, and the Boys DA? No US in the world cup should tell you somethingComment
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