Hey, y’all! I hope your week has been as socially distant and anti-septic as mine! I’ve obviously slowed down with the writing as there hasn’t been a ton to write about, what with no soccer and no much other news of import.

HOWEVER.

The truth is a lot has been happening that either directly or tangentially effects Louisville City and Louisville TBA (NWSL) from a scheduling and developmental perspective, and I’d like to talk about that for a bit.

Hackworth and Spencer Press Conference

Because Howie was probably bored and wanted to flex his Zoom skills, he hosted a press conference yesterday with local news media (plus me, for some reason) to talk to Hack and Luke about the goings-on in a COVID-19 reality. Both guys are really good with a microphone, which is a nice quality to have in a sports organization.

John Hackworth noted that the team hadn’t trained together for at least five weeks, but that everyone on the team and the staff is healthy and staying that way. Stuart Wright (Scott Ritter’s replacement) has been taking care of individual and team training and performance regimens, and it appears that the players have done a great job staying on top of their fitness.

Luke Spencer said he didn’t have any doubt that everyone was doing their best to stay on top of training. He didn’t think accountability on that front was a concern at all. He was more concerned about making sure everyone on the squad is mentally healthy, which I thought was a really genuine thing to say.

Hackworth fielded a lot of questions about the schedule and the opening of Lynn Family Stadium. On that front, he knows about as much as any of us.

The USL has extended its training moratorium to May 3. I have sincere personal doubts that many, if any, public health officials will give the green light to relaxing social distancing guidelines by that point. There may be signs that, in Kentucky, at least, the peak of new cases and deaths around that time, but that’s the peak. My uneducated expectation is that things won’t start trying to open up again until we’re all well down the other side of this curve.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, doesn’t think we can get back to sports as we knew them for quite some time. He believes that sports can resume again, but only without fans, with teams otherwise sequestered in a single city in separate hotels, for example, and with a widespread, regular testing regimen to keep players and staff safe. That last one has been a huge problem in Kentucky, for sure, and in the country at large. It’s not what we’re used to. But I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t take it at this point if there was a promise we could get back to something approaching normal down the line.

In any event, the LouCity manager expressed his disappointment that we weren’t able to open Lynn last weekend, but that he expects that when that time does come, it’s going to be truly special. There are lots of conversations about when the team can start playing games, whether that’ll be behind closed doors or with fans, and how many fans can attend and how close they can be together. All of that appears to still be on the table, but the club wants to do what’s safe first.

More Academy Shake-Ups

U.S. Soccer announced the permanent closure of its development academy Wednesday, citing financial difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. U.S. Soccer had previously anticipated spending $12 million on the DA in 2021, but between recent lost revenue and an anticipated settlement with the USWNT over its lawsuit, the federation wanted to cut costs.

John Hackworth was one of the folks at U.S. Soccer that originally conceived and then led the DA. He expressed disappointment in the federation’s decision in yesterday’s presser, but acknowledged that there were several problems with it that may have led to the league’s demise.

MLS will apparently attempt to fill the void left by the DA, but there will likely be competition there. The USL Academy appears to still be moving forward, though there have been indications that the USL would be willing to move its academy teams to the new MLS academy league if invited. Apparently, that’s a big “if” because such a move would require the MLS clubs to relinquish some control and divert top talent away from their own teams.

Meanwhile, the ECNL, of which LouCity’s academy is a member, is making lots of moves and adding new teams, too, in the wake of the DA’s closure.

Competitive youth soccer has always been a bit of a slap-dash proposition at the national level in the US. The federation’s abdication of the leadership role in that space really only opens the door to allowing others to step in that may not have the same objectives in mind that the DA’s founders had. However, in terms of developing professional talent, it’s difficult to argue that the professional clubs shouldn’t be the ones doing it. That’s not to say they deserve carte blanche or that their way is the best way, but if the objective is to take local talent to the first team, then maybe this shakeup will help. However, if it operates to exclude players from any market not already occupied by an MLS club, well, that seems to be pretty short sighted.

USL hints at July start date?

USL president Jake Edwards participated in an in-depth interview about the US Open Cup this week with Sports Illustrated. He outlined where the league’s priorities lay with respect to clubs playing in league matches vs. the Open Cup (preference to completing the league season), and where the league stood in terms of trying to get back on its feet. Edwards said the league is eyeing a mid-July start to the season with a compressed schedule made of two games a week.

Luke Spencer and John Hackworth both said in yesterday’s press conference that they expect a similar kind of schedule and have developed training programs to accommodate it. Spencer said he believed that the players could get back up and ready to play matches in three weeks time, but could do it in two if they had to. Both Spencer and Hackworth said they believe the club’s current depth lends itself to success in such a format relative to the rest of the league.

Again, playing games in July seems a bit optimistic, but I have to give the league credit for putting on a positive face. Perhaps by then medicine will have developed therapies that make exposure to COVID-19 less risky, or cases will be spread out enough that hospital and healthcare resources won’t be exhausted or close to it.

The broader message of Edwards’s interview, though, was that the USL’s participation in the 2020 US Open Cup was very much in doubt. That’s a huge bummer, but sacrifices have been and will continue to be made in the face of this pandemic. Here’s hoping it comes back better and stronger in 2021.

Have a healthy and safe weekend, y’all, and VAMOS MORADOS.