United States Youth Academy Soccer
teams are transitioning into a 10-month season for elite soccer players. This change is being done in an effort
to further develop youth players into becoming more competitive on an
international scale. While this
sounds like a great upgrade for elite players to train, it is creating a tough
decision for many athletes. The
decision of playing for an academy team or their high school team is a choice that
is now required of players that have the ability to play at the academy level.
The advantages for an elite
player playing for an academy team is that the amount of instruction they would
receive is be drastically increased.
According to the U.S. Soccer website, the 10-month season will add
between 32-40 weeks of active training compared to the 12-weeks of training
during a high school season. This
abundant amount of time allows for a high amount of valuable training time for the
elite players.
However, there are downsides to academy
players not being able to play with their high school teams. While this not only affects the social
aspect that players experience with a high school team, the high school soccer programs
are now having to watch some of their star players walk away from the
program. While some players do not
have a problem leaving their high school teams behind, others still wish things
were different. A player who has
to leave his high school team in order to play academy was being interviewed by
New York Times and stated, “you look at Lebron James, he played for his high
school and went pro. Why do we have to give it up?” This is a decision that many elite athletes have to make at 15-16
years old. How many of us were
making possible life and career changing decisions at this young age?
You Make the Call --- Are select
sports leagues, such as Academy Soccer programs, putting too much pressure on
young athletes?
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