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Edited on Thu Jul-05-07 08:13 PM by northzax
which makes my tenth Copa game in a week, I actually concur. This team played better than it had any right to. yes, it came in last, but for half of the first two games, and all of this game, it gave as well as it got. We learned who can play at this level (bornstein, guzan, benny f, ricky clark, conrad and a few others) and who should never touch a US jersey again (Twellman, Gaven, Keller) and who needs some work to get there (Boswell, Beckerman, Mapp, Moor) and should get some more qualifying caps in the run up to South Africa.
a couple of corrections of note: first off, the super development league is not replacing ODP, which will still exist, just passing it by. ODP will fall by the wayside eventually. Also, MLS teams with Academies are participating in superleague (at least DCU and Red Bulls, in fact I think all have qualified except New England, which doesn't have an academy) MLS teams, starting next year, will be able to sign players directly out of their academies without exposing them to the draft (plus, if they sign them, they get to keep 80% of transfer fees if they go abroad) in 2008 teams can sign one player from their academies, 2009, two players and 2010 and beyond, three players. teams now have an incentive to develop young talent and invest in their development. in fact, it makes no sense for a team to not have an academy, and having 15 teams at least exposing young players to professional talent and coaching is going to make a difference. there is also, starting this year, an MLS youth cup to increase competition at that level. I know that both Red Bull and DCU are bringing talented youth players from their system up to practice with the big boys at times.
thing is, there aren't enough professional teams to really develop talent in the US, so it makes sense to have more and more club teams operating like mini-professional development squads.
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