On Friday, the United States Soccer Federation announced that the US Soccer Developmental Academy will be playing a 10-month season starting in September and ending in June. The new schedule applies to the 2012-13 season. US Youth Soccer technical director Claudio Reyna "Going to a 10-month season is an important step in the evolution of elite player development.

One of Jurgen Klinsmann's goals upon becoming coach of the U.S. national team was to revamp the system from senior team to youth structure, and with Friday's announcement, he has certainly made a major change to the latter.

Starting in September, the U.S. Development Academy will operate on a 10-month schedule, mimicking the development systems of nations around the world.

Lionard Pajoy was having the best season of his career as a 30-year old in Colombia, and now the 6'1″ striker has a chance to build on his late blooming success as a member of the Philadelphia Union.

The team announced the signing of Pajoy (pronounced "Pa-hoy") from Colombian first division side Itagui Ditaires today.

Chesterfield United Football Club in Richmond, VA has had multiple players from their youth teams selected to participate in prestigious international tournaments and an elite women's showcase.
JoJo Taylor and Jackie Zerull invited to participate in the Puma Elite Women's Showcase held in July Puma has informed Chesterfield FC that two of their very talented young women, JoJo Taylor and Jackie Zerull, were selected to participate in the Puma Elite Women's Showcase held in July.

Some of the top girls soccer players in the Midwest will be playing in Madison this weekend.

An Elite Clubs National League Elite Player Development Program, featuring 45 players from FC Milwaukee, Minnesota Thunder Academy, Sockers FC-Chicago and St. Louis Scott Gallagher, will be held indoors at the McClain Facility on the University of Wisconsin campus.

Some of the top girls soccer players in the Midwest will be playing in Madison this weekend.

An Elite Clubs National League Elite Player Development Program, featuring 45 players from FC Milwaukee, Minnesota Thunder Academy, Sockers FC-Chicago and St. Louis Scott Gallagher, will be held indoors at the McClain Facility on the University of Wisconsin campus.

Ron Clark has a fantastic article up at CNN highlighting the flight of teachers from the profession, in part because of trouble dealing with parents. Reading it, I saw a lot of parallels with coaching youth sports and dealing with soccer parents, which can have a huge impact on a team and player development.

Photo: Paul Rudderow

Le Talk

Yesterday he's going, today he is staying. An article from sportinglife.com suggests that Le Toux "did not impress sufficiently" at Bolton. Owen Coyle is quoted in the article, "Sebastien came in for a couple of days, and to be fair to him he hadn't trained for four or five weeks.

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Player Development is such a hot-button topic right now in the United States, and as US Soccer and Major League Soccer moves forward with youth development models and curriculums, Leander Schaerlaeckens of ESPN caught up with some of the top minds in US soccer to discuss 'where do we go from here?'
Bob Bradley, head coach, Egypt national soccer team

"It still comes down to how many good people get with clubs and are working with young kids to make sure things are done right.

Paul Mariner believes Khano Smith could make an MLS comeback. (Photo by Art Donahue/artdonahue.com)

Former New England Revolution midfielder Khano Smith's MLS career came to a screeching halt in 2010 at just 29-years-old thanks to extremely inconsistent and often frustrating play. Now former Revs assistant coach and current Toronto FC director of player development Paul Mariner believes the ex-pro could make a comeback at left back, according to a report in the Bermuda Gazette.

Photo: Nicolae Stoian

Philadelphia Union

Jack McInerney scored in the US U-23 team's 1–1 draw with the USMNT. McInerney, Amobi Okugo, and Freddy Adu started the first half. Zac MacMath and Sheanon Williams started the second half.

John Hackworth says of Tom Brandt, the Union's first pick in the Supplemental Draft, "We wanted to get a quality player in the back and we feel like we did that with Tom Brandt.

For U.S. head coach Jurgen Klinsmann, one of the key components to the holistic approach to player development is providing nutrition education. Years and years of scientific study have proven that proper nutrition leads to better performance. During the training camp in Phoenix, the U.S MNT received instruction and advice from Danielle LaFata, the Director of Performance Nutrition at Athletes' Performance.

Elite coaching is an art.

This is my response to reader John, who left an excellent set of comments. The last of which I'll address here.

Specifically:

I'd love to see you talk about specific tactics, Gary. I have no doubt that you are very a bright guy, but I wish you'd share your knowledge with us.

Featured image: Nicolae Stoian

We'll have updates of today's SuperDraft throughout the day as well as reaction to the Union's selection. On to the news...

Philadelphia Union

Ives Galarcep's mock draft at Fox Soccer has this to say: "The Union are believed to be shopping forward Danny Mwanga, and even with the recent addition of young Costa Rican forward Josue Martinez, Philadelphia can use some depth up top.

Brad Evans was certainly a hit at Friday night's Q&A session at Official U.S. Soccer Bar Tim Finnegan's Irish Pub, answering questions and sharing stories for more than an hour about rising from a club player in Arizona to the U.S. National Team.
The local fans were particularly interested in his thoughts about player development in the state and how more kids can reach the elite levels in the sport.

The Chicago Fire announced that Mike Matkovich and Leo Percovich will return to the club as Frank Klopas' assistant coaches for the 2012 season. Matkovich rejoins the Fire as an assistant coach, having previously served in the role for the club from 2009-10. The fact that Klopas is bringing Matkovich back on suggests that there was some kind of rift between Matkovich and former Fire head coach Carlos de los Cobos.

Since 2003, Soccer America has reviewed soccer clubs from across the country and highlighted the best of the bunch. Two weeks ago, they continued the tradition by releasing the 2011 edition of the Best Boys Soccer Clubs. Drum roll please...

1. Baltimore Bays
2. FC Dallas
3. New York Red Bulls
4. Chicago Fire
5. PDA

Least you think this is a minor accomplishment, let me remind you that the Fire have gone from being unranked in 2008, up to No.

What we want for 2012: 'Make Mario Balotelli Manchester City captain'

From modernising MOTD to Liverpool ditching their persecution complex, Guardian writers offer their new year wishlist Richard Williams Capital cities seldom win the European Cup: Madrid, Amsterdam and, long ago, Lisbon and Belgrade are the exceptions in the history of a tournament that has brought no joy to Rome, Paris, Berlin or, of course, London.

Trevor James, an assistant coach for the Portland Timbers during the 2011 season has officially departed from the team's technical staff today. Those of you who were with us during this past pre-season will remember that he had spent the previous 5 years as an assistant coach and director with the LA Galaxy, which means he brought a lot of experience from one of MLS's best teams to the Timbers, unfortunately for us.

Photo by John Dorton/ISIphotos.com

Plenty can change in terms of player development over the next number of years, but for the time being, the United States Under-17 national team proved that there's much to be excited about when it comes to the future of the U.S. program.

CHICAGO (Nov. 22, 2011) - FOX Soccer will broadcast all three U.S. Under-17 Men's National Team matches during the 2011 Nike International Friendlies in conjunction with the Development Academy Winter Showcase in December. The U.S. will take on Brazil, France and Turkey during the competition, which will be held at the Premier Sports Campus in Sarasota, Fla.

Union

The Union has become well-known for its innovative use of social networking tools. The latest bit of cleverness is this: when their Facebook page gets 92,012 likes, they will unveil the new designs for the first and second kit. You can 'like' the Union by clicking here. As of this writing, there are only 6,500 'likes' to go.

I'm certainly not the first one to look at possible replacements for Steve Nicol since his departure two days ago. Several of our fellow Revs outlets (most of which are listed on our blogroll to the left) have already put some names out there, some good, some bad, and some baffling.

I'll get to that.

Finding a replacement to fill the enormous shoes left behind by its most decorated manager in club history will be no easy task for the Revolution front office. That is a given.

But, the organization won't be at loss for possible suitors. Although the Revolution may have posted a franchise-worst five wins in 2011, there's still a number of talented players on the roster that could merge under a new manager.

Photo by Howard C. Smith/ISIphotos.com

With Steve Nicol's tenure on the New England Revolution sideline coming to an end, the search begins to replace a coach who was a fixture with the organization for the last decade.

Former longtime Nicol assistant Paul Mariner has to be on the radar, even though he took a position with Toronto FC as director of player development prior to this season.

What follows is an initial list of 25 things obstructing the US from becoming a soccer powerhouse.

The "what's wrong" topic is always around and maintains a certain level of attention. Then, when our national teams flounder, the topic spikes and dominates the discussion.

And of course everyone and their mom has an opinion.

I flew to Toronto this week to represent MLS on the Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) Social Media Panel as part of their 2011 Sponsorship Marketing Summit. MLSE hosted the event at the Air Canada Center – which is where the Maple Leafs play of course. Being in a hardcore hockey town, in their beloved hockey stadium, right on the hockey ice was simply Canada-tastic!

Some 78 clubs currently comprise US Soccer's Development Academy and three of those clubs—FC Delco, PA Classics and Players Development Academy—are part of the Philadelphia Union's Youth Development Affiliate program.

Evaluations of these clubs were first started by US Soccer in 2007 with the founding of the Development Academy.

One of the things to do when reviewing the release of the USSDA/USSF Academy ratings is figure out how the MLS teams rate compared to each other. The Philadelphia Union are hard to rate as their structure is unique at the Academy level. One of the ratings (Player Development) seems to favor teams on the East as they are more likely to get picked for national team games due to a proximity bias and it also rewards teams that sign players that they don't intend to play.

The U.S. Futsal National Team is holding a camp this week at Soccer City in Torrance, Calif. The training camp is building on the success of the player identification camp held earlier this month and the team is now in the process of preparing for FIFA Futsal World Cup qualifying next year.
One goal of the player identification camp was to rebuilt the squad with an injection of youth, and three players who are 17 and under have joined the team in southern california.

Last week the Chicago Fire announced a new academy partnership with Indiana United. There are a couple of goals in this relationship and what we as fans can expect to see come out of this arrangement. For starters, you have the obvious idea of opening up a new metropolitan area for Chicago Fire player development.

As U.S. Soccer's Youth Technical Director, Claudio Reyna believes a key to improving American player development is convincing more youth clubs to strive for a style of play conducive to nurturing talent. The 78-club U.S. Soccer Development Academy, which kicked off its fifth season this month, is a integral part of the national team program's quest to improve American soccer.

The most powerful and prestigious soccer leagues in the world have stopped at 20. From a huge country like Brazil to a relatively small one like England, 20 clubs seem to be the limit for even the strongest circuits. Whether it's to keep the number of games manageable, maintain the depth of the talent pool or simply a trend, 20 has become the standard.

- Jason Davis
The theme most prevalent thus far in Jurgen Klinsmann's tenure as USMNT head coach - all month and change of it - is the movement towards integrating America's abundant Latin soccer influence into the team. In part because Klinsmann has made it his cause cause célèbre (in concert with imbuing in the team a more attacking, fluid style - more on that in a minute), we can't go more than a few hours without a new piece waxing on about it, without the Paul Gardners of the world bellowing "FINALLY!

With frustrations mounting around the Revolution fan nation over the team's forgettable season, many fingers (including our own) have been pointing to Steve Nicol. While just about any Revs fan will give due credit to Stevie's years with the team, especially the Revs' MLS Cup Final years of 2005-2007, sometimes a change is the best solution.

Charles Boehm wrote recently about how the new USSF curriculum that was created by Claudio Reyna is starting to make it's way into our youth soccer setting here in the United States.
Last year U.S. Soccer hired Claudio Reyna as the federation's youth technical director, tasking the former Men's National Team star with evaluating and revitalizing the nation's approach to player development from the ground up.

The Philadelphia Union have brought in former Player Development League (PDL), part of the United Soccer Leagues (USL), Defender of the Year Joe Tait on trial.

Tait, revealed as a Union trialist during the team's 5-3 friendly win over the USL's Harrisburg Islanders, is a 20-year-old defender with the Dayton Dutch Lions of the USL PRO division.

Liverpool U15s are celebrating after emerging triumphant from a tournament held in Dublin at the weekend.
The young Reds saw off Celtic in a tense penalty-shoot-out leaving coach Phil Roscoe delighted with his side's overall showing at the competition.
Roscoe told Liverpoolfc.tv: "We had a tournament over in Dublin for the 1997 group which is the younger U15s and U14s.

Great article from Ned Zelic on the World Game today.
Question to is - does any Club pay their Coaches at 7,8,9 10 age group.
If they did the club can set a standard of commitment of direction for all coaches - and this could make huge changes to all player development at your local club.