Part 2 of our series on the USSF Developmental Academy Showcase – 1 year later. In this article we surveyed some leading coaches, asking them to tell us in their own words, what they see as the strengths and weaknesses of the programs.

To summarize, we heard positive remarks about the overall direction of the program, including developmental benefits of the training-to-match ratio, competition and administration of the program. Recurring points of criticism were the cost and amount of travel and the percentage of games having no effect on the results of the regional or national competition. In those cases the feeling was that it was not a terminal problem, but something that could be worked out, particularly with sponsorship and/or USSF providing some financial support to clubs.

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