Louisiana ODP is designed specifically to give the elite youth soccer player an opportunity to focus on his or her personal development as a player in a highly competitive soccer environment. To become the best, one must play with the best.
Player Development
Club soccer focuses primarily on results and team achievements. By contrast, ODP focuses entirely on the development of each individual player. Club soccer trains players to win games as a team. ODP simply trains players to be their individual best. Much of ODP training is "functional" and trains players in their specific position and the responsibilities of their position in each area of the field in both attacking and defending. While age/gender pools are established and are assigned a Head Coach, ODP players will have numerous coaches helping them learn and develop. They will hear different voices and experience different coaching styles. Finally, unlike team based programs, ODP attempts to take players out of their comfort zones and to embrace failure as part of the learning process. Because wins and losses are secondary in the ODP environment, players can play without stress or fear of failure. They also get used to playing with new teammates in an unfamiliar environment. In that regard, ODP mimics the college experience. All of these facets of ODP make it a different experience than club soccer. It isn't designed to replace club soccer. It is designed to be different.
Player Identification
The US Youth Soccer Regional and National ODP programs are designed to scout and identify those elite players who can compete at the highest level possible. This process starts with the Club. Coaches are asked to identify their elite players and pass them on to LSA. LSA then brings these players into LA ODP to learn, grow and develop with the best players in the State.
Each of these players is scouted by our ODP Coaching Staff. ODP also brings in coaches from the National and Regional ODP coaching staff as well as coaches from professional teams across the country to scout our ODP players.
Finally, our players will be scouted by Regional Staff Coaches at a South Region ODP Tournament. Based on the input from all of these coaches, invitations will be sent to players to attend Regional ODP Camp in July.
In terms of player qualities- here is a link to what US Soccer utilizes in their approach to defining player qualities:
For the South Region, you can read how those qualities are applied by position:
Both documents provide insight into the qualities, roles, and responsibilities of Regional and National Team Players that State ODP Players should employ in their personal development plans.