DA importance

[Unregistered]

Love it or hate it, at least we have a DA in PDX...

"Smaller countries like Holland can excel as they can easily maintain complete control over their system," Lepore said. "We do not have the resources to cover the whole country, so we are developing hot spots to focus on based on the last 10 years of development, which point towards New York, California, Dallas, Chicago and Philadelphia. We won't be starting an academy in Boise anytime soon."

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/blog/_/...d/1055?cc=5901

[Unregistered]

I read that article last week and is soo true on soo many accounts. The Pay to Play part and the defensive style to win games in order to be recognized. It kinda tosses our whole system "under the bus".

[Unregistered]

The DA system as we have it now is not much different than "pay to play." The majority of the kids who are in it were "developed" and then "discovered" through the pay to play club system -- most ODP. The primary difference is that they don't have to pay to play on the Timbers DA. It's still the same kids as it was before and doesn't look like it will change anytime soon.