Up to 80 clubs across the country will be part of the Development Academy. On Monday, the Empire United Soccer Academy (consisting of players from the Rochester Junior Rhinos, the Syracuse Football Club and the Buffalo United Soccer Club) was accepted as a member. Empire USA under-16 and under-18 squads will play home-and-home series against other northeastern teams as part of a 30- to 38-game schedule over eight months.
Other New York-based teams, all of which will carry a minimum of 22 players per age group, in the program are B/W Gottschee, FC Westchester and Met Oval.
Top prospects from U.S. Development will be filtered into a national academy team and regional teams. Under the old system, according to a story in Tuesday's Democrat and Chronicle, the national team would rely heavily on the Olympic Development Program to identify players, which left club coaches scrambling to fit in as many high-level games as possible during the soccer season.
Players on academy teams are prohibited from playing in any other leagues, tournaments, the Olympic Development Program or State Cup competitions. They can compete for their schools and the national team. Academy teams will not play against any other outside competition.
J-D's Triche ready to return: Brandon Triche is back on the court, six months after the Jamesville-DeWitt standout tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.
Dr. Irving Raphael, who performed the season-ending surgery on the 6-foot-3 guard on Jan. 12. cleared Triche last week to play basketball again. He will play for the Donyell Marshall Foundation AAU team coached by Mickey Walker this weekend the Las Vegas Big Time Tournament.
On June 15, the day college coaches were first permitted to call him, he received messages from Syracuse, UConn, Virginia, Clemson, Pittsburgh, Miami, Rutgers and Georgetown, according to The Post-Standard.
