Anonymous wrote:You know it's bad when you ask the boys about DCUA and they reply that it's a less than stellar academy. Ask your DS because they are in the know. And I agree with a PP, the DCUA players are the ones keeping them afloat.

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Anonymous wrote:Charlotte FC consider nearest mls academy down south? Seen Richmond and VA beach area kids being recruited.

Too bad DCU doesn't have a residency/homestay program. How many talented kids have they lost to other academies.

I know personally of at least two handfuls of kids that they have lost in the last few years due to the lack of quality there and better quality elsewhere. Residency requires too much investment. Something DCU doesn't do for the academy because they don't really care about producing pros from the academy. The academy is a nice to have not a need to have for DCU leadership and it isn't a big part of their business strategy/model and how they want to make money. If a pro surfaces from the academy they are happy and it offsets some costs. If one doesn't, the academy is rationalized as just necessary money on their balance sheet that they have to spend to be in the MLS as a club. And they try to keep those numbers as low as possible to stay credible in the league. And they are barely succeeding at that. Not even on par with some of the worst academies and light years away from the best. The only thing that keeps them from not being the complete laughingstock of the league is the fact that we have good talent in the DMV. If DCU academy as it stands today was in say. .Nebraska, it would be hands down the worst in the MLS

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Anonymous wrote:Charlotte FC consider nearest mls academy down south? Seen Richmond and VA beach area kids being recruited.

Too bad DCU doesn't have a residency/homestay program. How many talented kids have they lost to other academies.

Anonymous wrote:Charlotte FC consider nearest mls academy down south? Seen Richmond and VA beach area kids being recruited.

Anonymous wrote:Charlotte FC consider nearest mls academy down south? Seen Richmond and VA beach area kids being recruited.

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Anonymous wrote:Can a team really be considered an academy if they don’t have a youth program? Poaching players in the DMV is development?

You're spot on. By the time they get to DC at 11, 12, 13 they're fully developed professionals under performance based contracts
Development starts at 5 and ends at 10

Of course they aren't and of course development doesn't stop at 10. But they have been playing the sport longer outside of DCU than they will play it in DCU. Which in turn gives DCU a very limited window to work with the player. Couple that with a weak academy philosophy and system and you have a recipe for development stagnation which is a huge problem that DCU has. Players aren't getting better at a rate that is faster than their peers in better systems.

What is the average age players are entering MLS academies who stay through U18?
What precisely is the dcu academy philosophy and system?
What details do you have of other academies philosophy and system so we can measure against?
How are you measuring "development stagnation" and the rate of speed objectively against others?

Based on the placement in college/professional ranks per academy player ratio numbers, what are the overall MLS academy levels and where does dcu stand?

What details to you have to support any of these questions and a positive DCU argument??

So let me get this straight.
You throw all kinds of personal conclusions about an entity and it's performance relative to others.

You however don't know the performance of the others and you want a member of the audience to provide the data for your presentation?

there are pages and pages of concrete examples in this thread of areas in which DCU Academy is behind its peers. just a few posts up is a quantitative measure of the size of the staffs. Before that, there are stats on the number of homegrown players, their treatment of players garnering interest abroad, their lack of comparable facilities, their failure to have younger age groups in the academy, and their historical lack of investment.

your attempts to cast doubt on these facts merely by floating unanswerable questions have failed. At this point you are wasting your time. It seems like you have a lot of time, for sure, but you may want to rethink how you spend it. And whatever your motivation, you're likely hurting your cause. I have found the discussion pretty interesting in that it has laid bare DCU Academy's many faults. Your constant questioning of these facts has just led the folks posting actual information to do it more, and more effectively.

and still no positive comparison for DCU against its fellow academies, by any metric.

Blah blah blah blah....
More words doesn't equate to a convincing argument.

Saying "concrete evidence" doesn't make people's strongly worded opinions and assumptions actual concrete evidence of anything.

The questions you refer to as "unanswerable" would give the anti-dcua people a resounding victory if they could answer them accurately and factually.

The reason they can't or won't answer them, is because the answers change the whining griping personal grievances mudslinging to a truth and facts discussion minus the biased emotions.

No one can say what the value of Homegrown Players are in the arena of top level professional football as an objective measurement of success for an organization.
What if New England decides to name many academy players as Homegrown in 2025, does that automatically mean NE is a top organization?

What you don't understand is that the argument has already been won. Many times. HERE IS A NEWS FLASH - YOU LOST. You can keep trying to deflect and misdirect but everyone who reads this thread for the rest of the time that it lives here will know that DCU is not a good academy. And the reasons for that conclusion are well stated and laid bare for all to see. You can think whatever you want and just live in denial. It really makes no difference. It's clear that you didn't know these things before and you're upset that people exposed something that you believed to be different. You bought into a lie. It's ok. You can still recover from it. At least you now know what's up. That is empowering.

I know you say facts guy lost, but as a neutral, I can't concur fully with that, because he asked several times for information on other academies that folks say are doing x,y,z better than dcu and no one can provide
My 2 cents

You haven't read the whole thread then. Just a few quick examples that were covered:

DCUA does not run a program for U14 and under. Other academies have programs starting @ U6. Development programs, pre-academy teams, etc.

DCUA does not have it's own facility let alone field. Does not provide residency/homestay and just recently started a full time program, but only for their U16 group.

DCUA does not compete overseas at all.

DCUA signs less kids to their 1st team despite having been around longer than younger academies.

These are points you can plainly see. Points that are not opinions but facts. I'm sure there's more that I missed.

You're naming nice to haves that are not used for rating academy success

In the real football world, academies are rated by
1. Number of professionals produced playing in top leagues
2. Revenue raised off selling or loaning academy players

Would love to see numbers for DCUA on those two.

Dear Small Picture Guy,
The fact no MLS Academy is strong in those areas should be your concern.

Its a measurement of USA soccer and development overall.

Tunnel vision to bash dcu is adolescent and amateurish.

You're right, they all suck compared to Europe. But some suck less than others. And the ones that don't suck as much will perhaps be closer to producing top league players.

Close to Pro is a thousand miles away.
You're either pregnant or not.

So it's Europe or nothing, got it.

It's kinda true. If you want to be a high level pro your odds are just substantially higher in Europe. Of course you can become a pro from here. But if you want a big career in football in the upper echelons of the game, you probably need to leave the US. We don't have the footballing culture, sophistication, coaches or expertise in our country. Now take that (ie we are already starting with a low bar) and then start to think about the tiers of MLS academies in the US and then you'll start to see why DCU is just not a great landing point if you have aspirations of becoming a high level pro.

It's not the academy, its the player.

The academy where your kid can't be successful doesn't exist.

Also, no MLS Academy is churning out Pros at a high percentage or high numbers.

Unless there's an academy out there where almost everyone turns pro or an academy where no one has turned pro, this is all likes and preferences for the most part.

This is way off. The academy where your kid isn't playing because the coach doesn't rate him is one where he won't be successful. The academy with crap coaches is the academy where he won't be successful. The academy that has no experience producing pros is an academy where your kid won't be successful (becoming a pro). The academy where there are three kids in your kids position that are better than.him is an academy where he won't be successful. The academy that values size and your kid is small is an academy where your kid won't be successful. The academy that has no commitment to the players or accountability to the players is one where your kid won't be successful. Could go on and on.

No club anywhere is producing high numbers or percentages of pros. What are you talking about??? We are talking about a very low margin game to begin within any academy system in the world. Some academies are just better at producing a few pros each year than others.

Likes and preferences is what differentiates each club and the player fit. If you didn't have that, they would all be the same and clearly they are not.

The academy is to be blamed for your failure to make adjustments for your kid and your kid's failure to be exceptional apparently.

Which MLS academy is producing Pros in high percentages?

If others, even in low numbers, make it to professional level from an academy, then if your kid is worthy, he can too.
If he can't then that's why the top is reserved for the best and filtered.

Verifiable facts poster AGAIN. Aren't you tired yet?? This post is so flawed in so many ways, it's hard to know where to begin. Clearly written by someone who has never played sports at a high level themselves or ever been in a high level environment themselves. And someone who clearly believes that parent involvement is just standard in football, which it isn't. Right, it's the parents fault for not over orchestrating everything. Typical attitude in America. Some parents don't have the resources, time or interest to be super involved in their kids football. This is especially true overseas. Football isn't an elitist sport overseas like it is here and there aren't as many rich manipulative parents involved in the sport overseas. But when academies recruit their kids, they send them with a level of trust and this trust is what most good academies understand. The bad ones, like DCU don't understand this trust that the parents are giving to them. They are arrogant and think it is the parents that have the privilege of their son attending their academy when in fact it is the other way around. This arrogant, privilege to be at DCU attitude is one you exhibit in your posts as well. And because there is so much trust being given to academies with the well being of young children, yes, they do carry some fault because they have a responsibility. Not all fault. Of course the kid needs to work too and there are a lot of variables in player success. Every kid who is at an academy could become a pro. Presumably, that is why they are there. It's just that there are academies that are better at cultivating that talent. DCU isn't one of them.

It's all about perspective. Do you know how many kids there are in Europe and South America that don't even play in an academy system that would absolutely destroy every kid at DCU at every age group? Countless. Being elite is a very subjective concept and in the US, we don't truly understand what that is when it comes to football because we are a weak footballing nation. We already established earlier that NO academy anywhere produces pros at a high percentage. It is a low percentage of success business.. but there are academies that are better at it than others (both here and overseas) and DCU isn't one of them.

And if your football experience is limited to the US, your chances of being a pro are also very limited. Even in the US pro system (MLS). Overseas even less of a chance. If your experience in the US is limited to DCU those chances decrease even more. Like a PP said, if you are in the US and you have options, it is about finding the best option among mostly mediocre options. DCU isn't even one of the mediocre options.

Can you provide the mathematical calculations to prove your conclusion that going to the dcu academy is less of a chance of becoming top level pro versus the other 25 academies that aren't producing top level pros either? 🤣

You don't need mathematical evidence to know that DCU is substandard. If you're learning in a substandard environment your chances of being better are less than someone who is in a strong learning environment. This is just common sense. It's not hard. Couple that with no academy infrastructure and no money and you're in a dead zone for pro soccer. College soccer, maybe better outlook.

You call it substandard is your subjective opinion to which you're entitled.

Others say it is a great place for their kid to be and a very good avenue to their professional aspirations.