Stoke are setting up a series of Academy partnerships in America. Wasn't Kreuger talking about doing that? We've been beaten to it.
Saints Academy Thread
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[video=youtube;--T6HLryseM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=--T6HLryseM[/video]
Oh, I'm sure we can still do it, but I thought it was a revolutionary idea and it's obviously not.
We seem to do this, but for all we know other teams may also be young. The manager said that we have been defensively weak...another game to prove it. Academy games are more about developing players than results, but you would hope we would do better than this.
[video=youtube;gmaqAJoqq9Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gmaqAJoqq9Y[/video]
It really doesn't matter. Stop worrying about results for these squads.
Indeed. Results are an indicator only. Yes, it is fun to have the underage sides winning, but the individual performances are far more important.
Those partnerships don't mean a whole lot. It's really more like they sponsor a local team, rather than actually training kids.
The team I used to play for is a Wolverhampton Wolves academy, for example. Partnered up with Wolves through the same go-between agency that Stoke just affiliated with.
They go to a soccer camp (which the parents pay for), and they get nice shiny Wolves uniforms and maybe Wolverhampton sends a coach there for a day or two. And I mean, it's definitely not Kenny Jackett and probably not even anyone from the real Wolves academy but some coach/scout hired by Wolves to travel around for this purpose. For the kids, it's cool to put on a "real" Wolves uniform and dream about being a pro (though probably none of them really dream about playing for Wolves). For Wolverhampton, it's good branding because those kids might become Wolverhampton fans. And of course there's the 1 in 1,000 chance that some heretofore unknown kid shows up and actually has the goods.
But at any rate, the club's involvement in actually coaching/training these kids is minimal. Someone shows up and teaches 10 year olds how to dribble around some traffic cones and tells them to stay off drugs. That's about it.
Not saying it's not a good idea for Saints to do stuff like that. But it's not like there is an actual training facility and scouts showing up to recruit players where you then go and train "full-time" (or what constitutes full-time for kids) with an eye towards eventually moving to England and signing a pro contract with Saints.
I thought that Reed had a top game, when Gallagher come on looked very good, obs lacking match fitness. Omar Rowe didn't impress me tonight.
Said it before about Rowe he needs to lesrn to control the ball. He is quick as **** tho.
Yeah and he also needs to put on some muscle, got absoloutly smashed by the Norwich defence!!