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Message: [QUOTE="upstater, post: 3699730, member: 153"] It hasn't impacted just my region. It impacted all of America. Our club is part of the MLS league. It still plays at the highest level. The problem is the highest level is now lesser than what it used to be. More importantly: there is no more subsidy for lodging/food/transportation nor a subsidy for coaching from US Soccer. All that is gone. Nor are the systems in place for uniform play. That's all gone. Years of development. & no, the MLS academies do not have a magic wand for all of this. They are not the best at developing young talent (which is why you're finding a lot more talent outside of the MLS academies as inside). Many D1 coaches (who dont have travel funds for recruiting) grab kids sight unseen from the MLS academies and they end up feeling they've been sold a bill of goods. There are too many kids who are now not going to get the support to develop. That's the problem. Seriously, you're making this personal. I have very little stake in all this, none at all actually. I never wanted my kids to go to the DA anyway. We turned it down every time they were invited. My oldest turned it down when asked to even play up an age level on DA. So that's not my concern, and it's not the point I'm making. Instead, I witnessed practices that were entirely unlike anything the top premier clubs had been doing, I saw UEFA pro coaches at work, I saw poorer kids hop on team buses and travel to games for free, eat for free, free hotels. The irony of all this is I elected to pay MORE for tuition & cover our own travel costs because I didn't want my kid to train with the DA and devote themselves to it with all its crazy requirements (2 hours a day+ 5 days a week). No thanks. The non-DA teams at our club were unsubsidized so we paid MORE. So this isn't personal for me. My concern is only for the strength of the US Men's soccer team. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach