jack0fspeed on Wed Feb 23, 2011 3:03 pm
http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/soccer-blog/comments/233
Principle over Politics, PLEASE!
Well I just flew in from Los Angeles and the cold and rainy weather here at Indianapolis reminds me of why people pay so much to live out there, but I'll take my mortgage here any day. The weather in Southern California also makes it an ideal place to have youth national team training camps, and I was able to get glimpses of four such teams in action during my week out there. My longest and best look was of the U14 Boys National Team, the 1996 birth year age group. I liked much of what I saw from the group, with some skilled players with good soccer brains. Time always tells, but there could be a few good ones from this group.
That said, coach Manny Schellscheidt feels the quantity of quality is not perhaps what it should be. He expressed this following the final matches of the camp and you can read his comments here: Manny, who has been involved in developing youth talent for a long time, is noticing a dropoff in participation in some parts of the country for the Olympic Development Program.
With the advent of the US Soccer Development Academy, apparently a growing number of players are finding ODP to be an unnecessary distraction, even at a younger (U13, U14) age group.
Now this gets to be a sticky wicket in American youth soccer circles. For a long time, ODP was the be-all-end-all when it came to national team identification. As Manny's comments indicate, it is still by far the main way players are identified for the U14 Boys National Team, which is the beginning of the national ID process. As players get older however and the U17 MNT Bradenton Residency program becomes the focal point, the extensive network devoted to covering the Development Academy league is increasingly the means by which players are identified.
ODP for the older age groups on the boys side is a shadow of what it used to be quality-wise. Now, Manny sees this trend drifting downward to the younger ages. While Academy clubs may not be telling their players to ignore ODP (although in truth some clubs have been doing this since before there was an Academy), knowledge that the Academy is coming in another year or two for the impacted players is causing many of them to reconsider getting involved in ODP in the first place.
The many problematic issues with ODP, particularly at the state level, make it an easy thing to boycott at least for some families. Now, I don't believe ODP is without a purpose. I believe it can still be a very useful part of the developmental process on the boys side and I'd like to see it. There are also many players, including with this '96 national group, who have been discovered by it and who have a bright future judging by their play last week. I do, however, see the elite youth soccer marketplace beginning to vote with its feet and what I do not want to see is US Soccer turning a blind eye to this activity for the sake of not ruffling feathers, political tradeoffs or whatever other reason other than what's best for the game.
The scouting network US Soccer has for the Academy is the most extensive in the country. It's time to use it to help identify top U13 and U14 Boys players from the clubs across the country who are in their endeavor. If these clubs are following the guidelines and practices US Soccer has been preaching to its member clubs (and some and some aren't), it stands to reason that players younger than the Academy program age groups will also be progressing and worth identifying and developing further via the youth national team program.
Saying all that, with the hiring of former Glasgow Rangers midfielder Claudio Reyna as technical director, US Soccer should be on the verge of a next or further phase involving its extensive youth development initiative, including expanding competition down to the U14 age group. I am hoping to talk with Claudio sometime soon and am hoping the media folks at US Soccer will allow me the opportunity to pick his brain to see how deeply and in what way youth development resonates with him.Stay tuned.
