Below is a link to a fantastic article written by Brian Bickerstaff and posed on vicesports.com last week.  This article discusses a company called Double Pass, which is a football consulting firm based out of Brussels, Belgium.  I was very impressed after reading about what this company does.  Here is a quote from the article:

“(Double Pass) regularly audits and evaluates the youth academies in both nations and presides over a system of incentives and rewards that drives investment into the academy systems.”

The history of the company’s involvement in German soccer is telling and I’m sure Canadian soccer enthusiasts will be interested in learning about it.  Following a disappointing performance at Euro 200, in which the German team finished 16th out of 16 teams, Double Pass was brought into the German FA as an unbiased third-party, to evaluate the performance of the country’s professional clubs and youth academies.  In just over 15 year’s time, the changes initiated by Double Pass have been instrumental in Germany becoming not only one of the best – if not the best – soccer nation in the world, but also a country with one of the best reputations and track records for youth development in the world.  Now the company has greatly expanded into several different countries ad professional leagues around the world, including Major League Soccer in the United States.  Can they achieve similar success in that league?

I hope you enjoy the article as much as I did.  I’d love to hear your thoughts about this topic.  Drop me a line here to get the conversation started.

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/inside-double-pass-the-best-kept-secret-in-youth-development-is-coming-to-america