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[quote=Anonymous]Seems to me that one early season game between two middling 05 DA teams is as representative of DA quality as Crystal Palace v. Newcastle in August would be of the Premier League. On how U14 DAs have done recently against top level European academies, here is the copy/paste of a post I had on another forum about the ICC Futures tournament this summer. These were the 04 DA teams, who would be U15s this season.
https://www.internationalchampionscup.com/en/youth...tures/2018-futures-tournament.

This tournament in Orlando (not the Disney cup, but around the same time) featured some of the top U14 academy teams of the world. The structure of the tournament meant that all combinations of teams, American and European, played each other in prelim group play before they were separated into 3 flights for the knockouts, based on where they finished in their groups. Bayern beat Chelsea in the finals of the top flight and I wouldn't be surprised to see many of these players wearing their senior club and national jerseys a few years from now. Bayern had 4 players from the German U15 national pool. Chelsea, Dortmund, Celtics, Liverpool, Tottenham and Atletico Madrid had some of the top prospects that scouts have already started tracking in Europe, according to some of their parents and coaches.

How did the American kids do? The scores tell the story - that barring one game (a surprisingly poor NYCFC academy against Atleti), the MLS academy teams and state "all-star" teams (which included many DA players from non-MLS academies, just brought together for this tournament) ran close to the European academies and in some cases, won. "Our" team lost by one late goal to one of the best European teams; Red Bulls and Sounders academies did really well and lost narrowly in the knockouts to the Bayern and Chelsea kids, respectively; and a few of the state teams also had good results, particularly against the English academies. With a little bit of luck, Red Bulls or Sounders could have made it to the finals. As an aside, the level of play was often astonishingly good, and the finals were so much fun to watch on ESPN (we were back here by then). Pity that the MLS and the patchwork "state allstar" teams were the only ones invited to the tournament, even though some of the better DA teams in the country are non-MLS (think PDA, Chicago Sockers, Bethesda for some age groups).

What I saw in the games that our team played, and a few others featuring some of the better American teams, was that the best of the US kids were right up there with anyone else in skills, technique, vision and pace of play. Where they seemed to fall short a bit as a team, which led to a disproportionate number of narrow losses, is on the tactical front - that intangible "football brain", which I suspect is as much a product of living, breathing, watching, talking and following soccer as it is of coaching. The best of the European teams just knew when to slow down a game, when to press and where and probe for weaknesses, when to storm forward and when to hold, and when to do the little things to disrupt the rhythm of an opponent who is playing well. They were also ever so slightly better - but that is enough to make the difference at the margin - at decision-making and movement off the ball. I don't know if anyone kept stats, but in every game I saw, the American kids attempted more dribbles and impatient forward passes than their European opponents. Most US teams were trying to play possession-based soccer with high pressing when out of possession, at times rather bravely against the likes of Bayern and Dortmund. But the tactical naivete sometimes meant that they would not be able to adjust when they needed to. As an aside, it's quite amazing how tactically savvy the 14 yo Europeans are, and it's also obvious that no academy is wedded to a rigid style or philosophy. The main difference was thus in the tactical intangibles, or as Paolo Maldini (one of the greatest Italian players ever), who was at the tournament called it, in "knowledge". He asked for coaches in the US to focus on "giving the kids knowledge". I felt that should not just be up to the coaches; should be as much the parents' job to create that environment for kids to imbibe soccer knowledge. 
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