The GDA was poorly executed and not allowing HS was a bad judgement call. Mirroring ECNL and allowing HS play would have given ECNL fits. The product on the field would have been a better one (it was a better one , while it lasted).
The 9 month season made sense, with the emphasis on the 4:1 training to game ratio. It was a proven and codified approach to development. The counterargument is that it didn't work for the men's side. But, the US women are the best in the world. Why not get behind US Soccer's effort to continue to raise up girls? On paper it provided consistency and balance. Less, more meaningful games and a better training environment. An approach that high level academies all over the world use. We have a sacred thing called HS sports and we have plenty of multisport athletes. The approach worked well enough for 8th graders but became less tenable at 9th grade and beyond. It's unfortunate. I personally preferred the GDA approach, with the addition of allowing HS and other sports. My DD is no longer a multi sport athlete (unfortunately) and has no interest in HS soccer. There are many like her and there are many not like her.
Just the way it goes I guess. US Soccer tried to professionalize and codify youth soccer, didn't work.
Other than the part about not allowing HS soccer being bad judgment, you are wrong as usual.
The forced 4:1 ratio was a bad idea. It’s great for a handful of kids, and awesome if available in a voluntary basis, but there just aren’t enough families who are ok with that kind of rigidity. Maybe that makes for more soccer drones, but it was financially a bad idea. Plus, making 13 year old kids train 4x a week and then limit what they actually want to do (play) only drives a lot of kids into sports that are more fun, and are also less expensive than what is required by a club that requires training four days a week.
Oh, and overhauling the system used by what is easily the best country in the world will only make it worse. The US is the best at women’s soccer because far more girls (and then women) play it more and more often for a longer span of years. That’s it. Once you start dictating a one size fits all approach for everyone, you drive people out of the sport, and you take away the one tremendous advantage that the US has over other countries.
The second anyone says that the US should do what all the other counties that are worse do (academies), you know they’re an idiot. Yeah, the US should definitely pattern its youth program after loser Spain, and loser Netherlands, and loser France, and loser Japan. That makes a lot of sense. Great idea.
The one other country that has a decent idea what it is doing is England, which is a little like the US. Like the US, England doesn’t seem to stress over 13 year old girls and lets local clubs do what is best for their customers. England, like the US, also understands that bruisers are far more important at the senior level than all these circus jugglers who are so prized at other European and Japanese youth academies. England won’t compete with the US over the long haul because England jist doesn’t have enough people, but it has developed a solid girls soccer culture and doesn’t do things to drive kids out of the sport early. And it was the only country that gave the US all it could handle at the last WC.
