Submitted by Bob Warming, Jan 29, 2008 18:22

The MLS is a flawed system. Paul has that right. However, he has it wrong about the place of college soccer in player development. MLS and US Soccer benefit financially and in the identification and development of players greatly from college soccer and PDL soccer.

There are 200 division one programs with more than 5000 players involved. For the most part, the players are trained by men who have devoted their life to educating themselves on the best methods for training players.
As a result of this, from those 5000 players, the cream rises to the top and the best players become identified.
This system is the envy of professional clubs around the world. The pro clubs have to pay nothing to emerse a player in a highly competitive environment, by having the player play college matches and PDL matches, have no risk involved, and find out who is the best of the bunch. They pay no transfer fee and get a chance to see who emerges as a good player as a man.
The world is littered (including the US) with players who looked a talent at 16 and never make it. There is simply too much of a gap between playing with and against other 16 year olds on a regular basis and playing with and against physically developed men.
Brian McBride, Carlos Bocenagra, Richard Mulrooney, Brian Mullen, Kasey Keller, Brad Friedel, the list goes on and on are all men who rose to the top in the college game, were identified and have now represented our country. By contrast, look at all the players who played with Landon and DeMarcus on, probably our best ever U17 national team. Some have succeeded, most have not, in rising to the next level. Worse, look at how many players from Project -40 actually made it. This is not the fault of the players necessarily or of the people from US Soccer that signed them. It is the reality of trying to pick who will emerge, in most cases, from the fray as player who can meet the physical, technical and psychological challenges of playing at the next level.
The MLS has the greatest deal going with Division I soccer, PDL soccer and the sifting out program that it provides at no cost. As much as I enjoy reading Paul's insights on so many situations in soccer, Paul has this one wrong he always has. Time to do a rethink Paul.

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