2018 CONCACAF Women's U-20 Championship

[tc-in-bc]

[  1  ]  I think some people on this board already know this and some  people  may not,  but Canada is not really trying hard to win youth tournaments anymore.  Basically the EXCEL program is  prioritizing player development over  winning youth tournaments,  which is why they are not selecting their strongest age eligible  youth rosters anymore.  Even if Canada  qualified for the 2018 FIFA U20 WWC France  then they still would probably not be selecting Deanne Rose or Jessie Fleming and would  prefer to select EXCEL prospects for those two roster spots . Furthermore, the EXCEL program goes on to contend that this is absolutely necessary now in order to compete at the international  level in women's  soccer.

QUOTES taken straight from  EXCEL program literature:

8) Put Players, Not Youth World Cups, Front and Centre As we move away from a “Youth National Team” and a “winning Youth World Cups” mindset towards a player-based approach to development, we are now able to mitigate some of the obstacles that limited the quality of the youth players progressing into the Women’s National Team.

https://www.canadasoccer.com/files/CanadaSoccerPathway_WomensEXCELProgram_TechnicalOverview_201509.pdf

While youth FIFA World Cup competitions are not the objective of the program, the FIFA Women’s U-17 and FIFA Women’s U-20 World Cups represent important opportunities for learning and benchmarking, so the two phases of the Women’s National EXCEL Program are structured with these in mind

https://www.canadasoccer.com/files/CanadaSoccerPathway_WomensEXCELProgram_Guide_20140603.pdf

[ 2 ] A  very small silver lining here :  Canada won't be seeing Nerilia 'Mondesir at youth level anymore.

[GMAC]

What percentage of female soccer athletes are currently playing in Canada are in the EXCEL program?  How do national team scouts identify talent outside this system?   Does an athlete have any shot of making it to the national level if not involved in that program?  Sorry for so many questions I am new to the forum.

[Vic]

Think most people here are well aware and it would be hard not to be - one look at our rosters and it's the elephant in the room. It's also a gray area. I remember a women's club coach who sat injured players and played short in his last group game at nationals because he was already through. He got a long-term ban for it from the CSA. The principle applied was not competing to win, thereby taking the game into disrepute.

The youth crutch will keep managers in their jobs longer but it's disrespectful to the spirit of competition and hugely more so to the fully committing young ladies who miss out because they unfortunately happened to be born in country that espouses equity and fairness but when it comes down to it would rather hide behind the "our result doesn't matter because we didn't send our best team" card.

Again, the message you are sending is it's not about the best players which is a cancer.

If you want to run the youngsters find another tournament or set of friendlies or do your scouting better.

Here is our women's World Cup roster:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_FIFA_Women's_World_Cup_squads#Canada

How much building for the future and 2019 do you see there? There is not one single player who is there for development purposes. Surely if that's our modus operandi it would be there as well. I can see an argument against that but I don't buy an ounce of it.

[BreadBoy]

8 hours ago, tc-in-bc said:

[  1  ]  I think some people on this board already know this and some  people  may not,  but Canada is not really trying hard to win youth tournaments anymore.  Basically the EXCEL program is  prioritizing player development over  winning youth tournaments,  which is why they are not selecting their strongest age eligible  youth rosters anymore.  Even if Canada  qualified for the 2018 FIFA U20 WWC France  then they still would probably not be selecting Deanne Rose or Jessie Fleming and would  prefer to select EXCEL prospects for those two roster spots . Furthermore, the EXCEL program goes on to contend that this is absolutely necessary now in order to compete at the international  level in women's  soccer.

QUOTES taken straight from  EXCEL program literature:

8) Put Players, Not Youth World Cups, Front and Centre As we move away from a “Youth National Team” and a “winning Youth World Cups” mindset towards a player-based approach to development, we are now able to mitigate some of the obstacles that limited the quality of the youth players progressing into the Women’s National Team.

https://www.canadasoccer.com/files/CanadaSoccerPathway_WomensEXCELProgram_TechnicalOverview_201509.pdf

While youth FIFA World Cup competitions are not the objective of the program, the FIFA Women’s U-17 and FIFA Women’s U-20 World Cups represent important opportunities for learning and benchmarking, so the two phases of the Women’s National EXCEL Program are structured with these in mind

https://www.canadasoccer.com/files/CanadaSoccerPathway_WomensEXCELProgram_Guide_20140603.pdf

[ 2 ] A  very small silver lining here :  Canada won't be seeing Nerilia 'Mondesir at youth level anymore.

They might not see Mondesir but the 15 year old and a few others looked dangerous. Haiti had the youngest team at the tournament, Canada 2nd youngest

[Blackdude]

2 hours ago, BreadBoy said:

They might not see Mondesir but the 15 year old and a few others looked dangerous. Haiti had the youngest team at the tournament, Canada 2nd youngest

Canada had the youngest team according to Shek Borkowski.

[BreadBoy]

6 hours ago, Blackdude said:

Canada had the youngest team according to Shek Borkowski.

Pretty sure the announcer in the game said Haiti had youngest team at 17.xx and Canada was just a bit older at 17.xx 

[Vic]

Get out your slide rule:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_CONCACAF_Women's_U-20_Championship_squads

[Yorktown FC]

My personal experience is as follows. Basically the "selection" process takes place at the U10 level. The fastest, biggest, most aggressive kids are selected for the clubs A team. The rest are assigned to the clubs B and C teams. Movement up from the B and C teams into the A team is almost impossible. New players to the A team normally consist of A team players from competing clubs. It is the A teams that play in the higher tiers (e.g OPDL in Ontario) once you get to the U13-U14 level and it is these players that get the exposure required for consideration for provincial teams.

Some of these kids truly love the game, other might be doing it as a summer activity and some are doing it for scholarship reasons. The kids who love the game are the kids who will take a ball to the park on the "off" day to kick at the net, play with friends, or even watch games on TV.  These are the kids that actually develop because to be world class it is not enough to just practice with the team. Rep teams typically practice 3-4 times per week, typically 1.5-2.5 hours per practice, so that’s 10h/week. How many weeks until you get to the theoretical 10,000 hours require to become an expert?

Sidenote: You would be surprised to find out how few kids actually watch soccer. You would think it would be almost automatic for someone who made it to the university level but I once attended a prospect camp where one of the speakers had played soccer at an American university and she re-counted a story of how when her coach invited her team to watch the Champions League finals, only seven teammates attended. One aspect where our national teams are lacking is what has been referred to as “Soccer IQ”. I remember reading an interview with Pele where he said that if he wasn’t outside playing soccer, he was watching it. That is one way to acquire “Soccer IQ”.

At age 14, basic skill development ends, and the focus on team tactics begins. As the years progress, the strength and speed advantages of some players are minimized, either because other kids have caught up physique-wise or due to team tactics (i.e. that kid that could run through a whole team and score, can no longer do that). Still, for many teams, success depends on having a speedy striker and playing kick-and-run.

That has been my experience the last 10 years, but maybe it is changing.   

[Saviola7]

2 hours ago, Yorktown FC said:

My personal experience is as follows. Basically the "selection" process takes place at the U10 level. The fastest, biggest, most aggressive kids are selected for the clubs A team. The rest are assigned to the clubs B and C teams. Movement up from the B and C teams into the A team is almost impossible. New players to the A team normally consist of A team players from competing clubs. It is the A teams that play in the higher tiers (e.g OPDL in Ontario) once you get to the U13-U14 level and it is these players that get the exposure required for consideration for provincial teams.

Some of these kids truly love the game, other might be doing it as a summer activity and some are doing it for scholarship reasons. The kids who love the game are the kids who will take a ball to the park on the "off" day to kick at the net, play with friends, or even watch games on TV.  These are the kids that actually develop because to be world class it is not enough to just practice with the team. Rep teams typically practice 3-4 times per week, typically 1.5-2.5 hours per practice, so that’s 10h/week. How many weeks until you get to the theoretical 10,000 hours require to become an expert?

Sidenote: You would be surprised to find out how few kids actually watch soccer. You would think it would be almost automatic for someone who made it to the university level but I once attended a prospect camp where one of the speakers had played soccer at an American university and she re-counted a story of how when her coach invited her team to watch the Champions League finals, only seven teammates attended. One aspect where our national teams are lacking is what has been referred to as “Soccer IQ”. I remember reading an interview with Pele where he said that if he wasn’t outside playing soccer, he was watching it. That is one way to acquire “Soccer IQ”.

At age 14, basic skill development ends, and the focus on team tactics begins. As the years progress, the strength and speed advantages of some players are minimized, either because other kids have caught up physique-wise or due to team tactics (i.e. that kid that could run through a whole team and score, can no longer do that). Still, for many teams, success depends on having a speedy striker and playing kick-and-run.

That has been my experience the last 10 years, but maybe it is changing.   

 

I've heard of programs that don't encourage movement between teams, but ones that I have been involved have seen players move up and down quite frequently up to U12. While it's true that OPDL players are basically A-team players from the year before, the trial sessions from the program we're involved in seemed to give everyone a fair shake and even went so far as to scout the rep-team/b-team for potential additions for the next season. 

A quick google search will show that 10,000 hours is a myth. Doing some quick math it would be very difficult for any player to get to 10,000 hours before age 25 without burn-out. Imagine you are looking at a 15 year window (age 5 to 20) and giving a 7 week offseason (more likely 2 chunks of 3.5 weeks) to recover and you're looking at 5 days x 3 hours a week. Yes, you can eliminate some of that with school-yard/park/street soccer, but it is a tough ask.

I do agree on the watching soccer part though. These days there is really no excuse since it is so available.

 

[BreadBoy]

10 hours ago, Vic said:

Get out your slide rule:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_CONCACAF_Women's_U-20_Championship_squads

Well I needed to distract myself from something else so here is what I came up with:

Average age for Haiti roster was 17.5 (or born roughly July 15, 2000)

Average age for Canadian roster was 17.7 ( April 25, 2000).

This was average of total roster and not the starting roster. Interesting to note that Haiti had four 14 year olds and one 15 yr old on roster wheras Canada’s youngest were five 16 yr olds.

[The Ref]

Do I dare to say that this so called Excel program does not develop anything.  Our youngster are developed by the U.S. Universities.

[rkomar]

Maybe it's my crappy memory, but I seem to recall Nikki Izzo-Brown, the coach of the WVU women's team, mentioning in a press conference before the 2016 final that the Canadian players were trained differently from the US players, and that was a very good thing for the team. It didn't sound like the Canadians were solely developed by the university's staff.

[Vic]

"While it's true that OPDL players are basically A-team players from the year before"

I was at a mid-age Ontario Payroll Deposit League girls game last year with a player on the field who was actually round. I honestly think she would have struggled to tie her shoelaces.

For the kids here it's $8K+ per year all-in. From U13-U17 is five years that's $40k plus compound interest.

Imagine if the high schools came out and said it will cost you $40,000 for each of your kids to graduate high school. There would be a revolt, cities would burn. Everyone would pull their kids out and home-school them.

Great players will be great players, it's in them or it's not. They decide if they will be great. No one can give it to them. Unless you're a millionaire find a good local team up an age that has a quality experienced coach and put that $40,000 away for your child's education.

The really sad part is parents just want to make their kids happy and will break their backs and bank accounts to do that and they can't understand what they're caught up in and there is no one to break it down for them.

And it's not just the parents who need deprogramming, we need to go up to 13 year-old kids and say "do you want to play in this league or do you want $50,000 cash when you turn 18?"  Then watch their thinking faces.

[Saviola7]

11 hours ago, Vic said:

"While it's true that OPDL players are basically A-team players from the year before"

I was at a mid-age Ontario Payroll Deposit League girls game last year with a player on the field who was actually round. I honestly think she would have struggled to tie her shoelaces.

For the kids here it's $8K+ per year all-in. From U13-U17 is five years that's $40k plus compound interest.

Imagine if the high schools came out and said it will cost you $40,000 for each of your kids to graduate high school. There would be a revolt, cities would burn. Everyone would pull their kids out and home-school them.

Great players will be great players, it's in them or it's not. They decide if they will be great. No one can give it to them. Unless you're a millionaire find a good local team up an age that has a quality experienced coach and put that $40,000 away for your child's education.

The really sad part is parents just want to make their kids happy and will break their backs and bank accounts to do that and they can't understand what they're caught up in and there is no one to break it down for them.

And it's not just the parents who need deprogramming, we need to go up to 13 year-old kids and say "do you want to play in this league or do you want $50,000 cash when you turn 18?"  Then watch their thinking faces.

Wow. We're up to $8K now? Which program is that? Of the five clubs I'm aware of it's $3.5K, and I've never heard more than $5K. I suppose if you go to 3 American tournaments per year you could get up there?

I get it, pay-to-play is evil, and OPDL is the paramount of evil since the fees are slightly higher (but not that far off normal rep fees and often lower than academy fees), but let's not exaggerate ad absurdum.

[Vic]

That's what parents say they pay all-in => travel, tournaments, etc. 

Slightly higher?  Most rep fees are about $400 - $800. 

[Yorktown FC]

The cost can vary per club. I have seen it between $3.5-5K range, for player fees only. The argument is that it is still one of the cheapest sports compared to baseball or hockey. And I am certain the costs will rise, because they there is still a large margin compared to those others sports, before there is any kind of revolt or pushback. My experience is that soccer fees have more than doubled in the last 10 years for any level of soccer, be it HL or rep. The four clubs closest to me are charging about $1600 for non OPDL teams (for 11 months, 1 month off).

 

[BreadBoy]

On 1/31/2018 at 8:18 PM, Yorktown FC said:

The cost can vary per club. I have seen it between $3.5-5K range, for player fees only. The argument is that it is still one of the cheapest sports compared to baseball or hockey. And I am certain the costs will rise, because they there is still a large margin compared to those others sports, before there is any kind of revolt or pushback. My experience is that soccer fees have more than doubled in the last 10 years for any level of soccer, be it HL or rep. The four clubs closest to me are charging about $1600 for non OPDL teams (for 11 months, 1 month off).

 

I think $1600-2000, would be the cost to play on a rep team year round and get the same number of training hours as an OPDL team. The $400-800 Vic quoted would get you 2 days a week from May to August on a low level rep team.  Rep teams might also travel more than an OPDL team during the year for games and to more tournaments bringing the overall costs closer together.

 

[Vic]

Rep teams do not train as frequently as OPDL teams. You can register in about a half-dozen clubs around me for $500-700 for summer. That's 3-4 days per week on rep teams from L3-L5. Winter programs are cheaper, about half to 2/3 of summer.  So about 750-1000 maybe 1200 tops year-round.  Rep teams travel out of town about once a year. Some teams do two but not as common and more than that is almost never. OPDL teams do more out-of-town tournaments and travel every second weekend.

Depending on the situation OPDL is somewhere between 4X to 6X rep.  You could find outliers on either end but that's a probably a good measure.

[Saviola7]

On ‎2018‎-‎02‎-‎02 at 8:23 AM, Vic said:

Rep teams do not train as frequently as OPDL teams. You can register in about a half-dozen clubs around me for $500-700 for summer. That's 3-4 days per week on rep teams from L3-L5. Winter programs are cheaper, about half to 2/3 of summer.  So about 750-1000 maybe 1200 tops year-round.  Rep teams travel out of town about once a year. Some teams do two but not as common and more than that is almost never. OPDL teams do more out-of-town tournaments and travel every second weekend.

Depending on the situation OPDL is somewhere between 4X to 6X rep.  You could find outliers on either end but that's a probably a good measure.

I still don't understand here - I thought we weren't including outliers, which 8K certainly is (is it OSU? If so, yes the Ottawa teams pay more because they travel more, but I notice that WOSC is substantially lower, 5K at worst). Note that you don't have to choose an OPDL program that goes to lots of far away tournaments, there are many that are content with Umbro and some preseason friendlies. You can also choose a rep program that travels to multiple tournaments! A generous comparison (travel included):

Max: OPDL = 8K, Rep $2500  + $2000 two US tournaments = $4500  (<2X)

Average: OPDL = 5K, Rep $2000  (2X to 3X)

Min: OPDL = 4.2K, Rep $1000 (4X to 5X)

The min is actually not a fair comparison, because it assumes a) fewer games because you're not playing in an indoor league, b ) probably only training 2X per week in winter, c) playing low level - district rather than regional therefore your travel is much less.

Somehow you've failed to capture travel of any district rep team in your calculations; the difference is not as large as you think, see below:

Take any GTA OPDL team and you're looking at about 6 home games, 8 away games and 6 neutral location games. That means you're travelling 20 kms one way 4 times, 60 km one way 8 times, once 100 km and one trip to Ottawa (two if you're unlucky), for a total of about 2000 kms and one night in a hotel.

For the comparable CSL equivalent, you probably have 16 games + league cup and Ontario cup, so let's say 20 games, 10 home, 10 away. 4 of those are probably 20 kms, 5 are probably 60 kms, and you likely have something like Collingwood/Muskoka/North Bay, so that's 200 kms once, for a total of 1000 kms and one night in a hotel (again, if you get stuck with an OCup group in Ste. St Marie, add to the budget).

For teams in Whitby/Pickering, the travel will be more in both scenarios (more trips to Ottawa; further trips to York/Toronto/Barrie). At a generous charge out rate of 50 cents/km, that's a difference of $500.

 

These comparisons don't capture the fact that you're paying more for more (generally speaking - a debate for another time).

 

[Yorktown FC]

According to OSA site, OPDL (or League 1 Ontario) is the PRIMARY program in which potential Provincial Team Players are identified. The alternative method is the player recommendation process into a Talent on Location Day (TOLD) at the U13, U14 or U15 level, from a OSA member club or academy. With about 15-20 OPDL teams per age group (or almost 400 players), I would say the alternative (a single opportunity versus a year long "evaluation" with OPDL) is truly a long shot. According to OSA, they utilize data collected by OPDL and player rubrics to assist the selection of approximately 90 to 120 players to attend the Provincial Screening. I wonder what data they are referring to and who compiles the player rubrics. It sounds like the Provincial coaches do not actually scout games, which is a shock to me (but I may be wrong). At the Provincial Screening, 40 players will be selected and in final selection process, 22 players will make the Provincial Team. So from a 30,000 foot view, the selection process seems suspect. Again, the big, strong kids would seem to dominate (the only data that I know the OPDL collects is goals and assists).

With regards to the 10,000 hour theory, the gist of it is that it will take 10 years for a person to master a skill. From a purely mathematical point-of-view, 10,000 hours over 10 years translates to 20 hours per week. I can tell you it is not uncommon for figure skaters, competitive swimmers or rep hockey players in Canada to have 18-20 hours of practice per week. Perhaps our soccer players are not getting enough practice time compared to the other sports that Canada excels on a world level . For certain, the quality is not world class. 

IMO, it is at the U14-U15 level, that this becomes more apparent. Look at the recent 2017 Danone Cup results, Canada Boys topped their group which included heavyweights like Uruguay and Belgium. And they ended up tournament ranked 6th! ahead of Spain (8th) and France (11th). The Canada Girls were finalists! losing to Brazil. At age 14, at least for the men, other countries have professional teams with academies and that is where the physical ability gets overtaken by skill. It is interesting to note that typically a rep team will get 3-4 sessions per week (1.5-2 hours per session), so maximum 8 hours. We definitely must be doing something wrong because that is consistent with European youth academies. The ECA Report on Youth Academies reports an average team session for 13-15 years olds is 7 hours/week plus 2 individual sessions of 1.5-2 hours (8.5-9 hours per week), for 16 and over, 7-9 hours/week plus again 1.5-2 hours of individual sessions (up to 11 hours/week) plus games.

[Vic]

The 10,000 hour theory was debunked a couple years ago. Some kids can go farther in 2,000 than others in 10,000.

Not OSU but yes they are probably there as well, and WOSC as well too.

Rep kids pay between $400-700 (summer only) to $700-1100 for year round. They may do a tournament or two out of region and in province. Maybe 5% tops out of province. Maybe 1-2% out of country. Most rep teams don't do Ontario Cup.

Sure you can find rare examples of frequent and far-traveling rep teams but most rep kids don't pay much at all.

If you compared a mid-range rep team they would be maybe $800-900 year round programming and one night hotel for an out of town tournament. Maybe $1250 all-in.

What is a mid-range OPDL program all-in? They definitely travel more, in province and out of province. Whatever number you come up with you are in the 4X to 6X ballpark.

[Vic]

Sorry missed this part:

"would say the alternative (a single opportunity versus a year long "evaluation" with OPDL) is truly a long shot. "

If the goal is to make a provincial or youth team, sure. If the goal is to become a great player, it's a different story.

Reminded of the old adage: "if you live in the depths of the woods and build a better mousetrap, the world will come knocking to your door."

All programs never stop looking for great players. You may get ostracized at young ages where it's not as much about talent, but at the senior level where it is; where you came from gives way to what you can do on a field. 

[Saviola7]

15 hours ago, Yorktown FC said:

According to OSA site, OPDL (or League 1 Ontario) is the PRIMARY program in which potential Provincial Team Players are identified. The alternative method is the player recommendation process into a Talent on Location Day (TOLD) at the U13, U14 or U15 level, from a OSA member club or academy. With about 15-20 OPDL teams per age group (or almost 400 players), I would say the alternative (a single opportunity versus a year long "evaluation" with OPDL) is truly a long shot. According to OSA, they utilize data collected by OPDL and player rubrics to assist the selection of approximately 90 to 120 players to attend the Provincial Screening. I wonder what data they are referring to and who compiles the player rubrics. It sounds like the Provincial coaches do not actually scout games, which is a shock to me (but I may be wrong). At the Provincial Screening, 40 players will be selected and in final selection process, 22 players will make the Provincial Team. So from a 30,000 foot view, the selection process seems suspect. Again, the big, strong kids would seem to dominate (the only data that I know the OPDL collects is goals and assists).

Just to be clear on how this works:

OPDL players are scouted (I don't think the scouts are the same as those who pick the team or coach the team) over a sample of 4 or so matches throughout the season. Players are also evaluated quite thoroughly (the rubric itself has about 130 elements) by their coach with the supervision of the technical director. The OSA combines those two to get the 90 or so for the provincial screening. As far as I know, goals/assists are not part of it (except that presumably they double check that the top 5 or so are also invited if they weren't already).

Non-OPDL players are nominated to TOLDs by their technical directors. The TDs need to vet the player through a similar rubric before recommending them.

15 hours ago, Yorktown FC said:

IMO, it is at the U14-U15 level, that this becomes more apparent. Look at the recent 2017 Danone Cup results, Canada Boys topped their group which included heavyweights like Uruguay and Belgium. And they ended up tournament ranked 6th! ahead of Spain (8th) and France (11th). The Canada Girls were finalists! losing to Brazil. 

I wouldn't put much weight into this competition. I doubt the selections for the teams are made in any sort of comprehensive way.

 

12 hours ago, Vic said:

Not OSU but yes they are probably there as well, and WOSC as well too.

Rep kids pay between $400-700 (summer only) to $700-1100 for year round. They may do a tournament or two out of region and in province. Maybe 5% tops out of province. Maybe 1-2% out of country. Most rep teams don't do Ontario Cup.

Sure you can find rare examples of frequent and far-traveling rep teams but most rep kids don't pay much at all.

If you compared a mid-range rep team they would be maybe $800-900 year round programming and one night hotel for an out of town tournament. Maybe $1250 all-in.

What is a mid-range OPDL program all-in? They definitely travel more, in province and out of province. Whatever number you come up with you are in the 4X to 6X ballpark.

I have never heard of an OPDL program so high, nor have I heard of a *respectable* rep program so cheap (indeed I lived in rural Ontario for a couple of years and I suppose what you might call "rep" worked out to about $1000 after travel, but that was pretty rudimentary). I will therefore use real examples:

OPDL base fees: Waterloo, Cambridge (available on their website) = 3.2K, Oakville, North Miss = 3.4K Richmond Hill, Burlington = 4K

Rep base fees (summer+winter includes Hershey): Erin Mills = $1600 <-- this was U12, I am positive the price goes up as you go to full field.

I would argue most serious teams will do Ontario cup (last year's U13 boys division featured 5 of the 7 GHSL teams, and a few more from lower divisions). Furthermore, I think you overstate how much OPDL teams travel. In an effort to compare competitiveness, I tracked teams going to showcase tournaments in the US this fall: 33 OPDL teams vs. 53 Non-OPDL teams. So while they tend to travel a bit more, you can easily find one that doesn't. Until you quote me specific programs, I'm afraid I can't take your claim to be anywhere close to being true.

Generally speaking though, I concur with your original point - if people think it's a good investment because they'll get some sort of return, they're sadly mistaken. If they think the experience worthwhile and want to be challenged day-in, day-out*, maybe it's a good idea. You can also save even more money by paying $500 all-in per year by playing house league!

*-with the exception of the odd time you play a "round" player

 

 

[Vic]

33 OPDL teams vs 53 Non-OPDL teams... you make that sound so equivalent.  Except that's pretty much all OPDL teams at the older showcase ages and probably 1-2% of Rep teams in the province.

About what people are paying, I'm telling you what I'm told by different parents, if you want to keep throwing straw men and calling it untrue and take me as a liar knock yourself out. Whatever helps you sleep at night.

"If they think the experience worthwhile and want to be challenged day-in, day-out*, maybe it's a good idea."

How people want to part with $40K per child is up to them (or even $25K by your measure - which I have never seen).

But if that's the price "to be challenged in the game" that's tragically non-inclusive and disproven in pretty much every country in the world.

 

[Yorktown FC]

OK, so...we have a pool of probably 900 kids nation-wide who are playing high level soccer (OPDL or equivalent);  we have "scouts" evaluating these kids; after several processes, the best 18 kids per province are selected; and from these kids, we pick the best ones to be on the national team. 

Also, we are providing these kids with equivalent (at least, time-wise) training that kids in European academies are getting; the cost for participating in these top leagues is under debate but whether it is $5K-8K per year...

We lost to Haiti. I don't know about these players but their women's team in 2014 was playing with second hand equipment. The average annual per capita income in Haiti is $350-$409 (the price of a nice pair of cleats).

What are we doing wrong?