Welcome to Allocation Disorder episode, I think like eight or nine or ten or something. I've lost track,

Paul, but that doesn't really matter. How's it going tonight? I'm just glad to be back. I took a

week off last week for our team episode and just, you know, glad to be back here with you yeah I'm glad to have you

back you know it's it's nice to have you back off the bench hopefully your confidence didn't

suffer too much from the demotion but you know I trust that you'll bounce back in solid fashion

now that you're given the opportunity anyway I digress the big news of the week, Paul, is that U.S. soccer decided to

shut the Development Academy effective immediately for both boys and girls. This is a story to

toot our own horns that we broke earlier this week. The ramifications are pretty massive

for the youth soccer in this country, quite obviously,

and for pro soccer in terms of how MLS and USL clubs in particular develop young talent,

less so for NWSL, although there are some ramifications there too.

We're going to focus mainly on the boys' side today, for those of you listening,

just because that's

kind of what paul and i know best um we might dive into the girls side maybe on a future episode

or a future article or something along those lines but for tonight anyway for this episode it's

going to be focused mainly on the boys side of things um so anyway without any without any ado, Paul, what can you tell us about the DA closing up shop

and U.S. soccer deciding to do that on pretty short notice and pretty out of nowhere?

Well, a couple of things.

I think the first thing is it's a little surreal.

You know, for me me personally when I started my

journalism career back in 2007 at the Washington Post covering the launch of the the

DA was one of the first things that I did um in soccer journalism professionally and so

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