Today is my wife’s birthday! She’s 29.

In other, less important news that I haven’t discussed in pixels or .mp3 format, the USL announced its inaugural Academy Cup competition that will begin in 2020. Louisville City is slated to participate, along with 32 other USL-affiliated clubs. Los Morados Jovenes will be competing in the Eastern Conference, as you might imagine, with teams from other USL Championship, League One, and League Two clubs.

This is a neat development in concept, because it’s the first all-professional youth cup competition I’m aware of that wasn’t housed completely in MLS. It’s also a great thing for young players in Louisville because it will expose them to a level of competition (and maybe scouting) they might not have experienced outside of the state Olympic Development Program. I’d argue it might even be better, given that a lot of US Soccer Development Academy kids don’t participate in ODP anymore.

I’d like to say “this is good for youth soccer in Louisville and Louisville City” and leave it at that, but the effects of yet another national youth soccer competition is bound to send shockwaves around the country. The Development Academy setup is already fraught with problems because kids that play for those teams aren’t allowed to play high school ball. MLS clubs have loudly been considering pulling teams out of the DA setup, which was supposed to be the premier national youth competition, because the level of play from non-MLS participants isn’t good enough to make it worth their time.

While this is just a cup competition for now, which will be played in Florida for the most part, eventually the plan is to turn the USL Academy system into a full-fledged league within USL. That means they won’t be playing DA teams, MLS affiliated or not. While I’m all for giving clubs in USL cities, which are usually smaller, chances to compete at a higher national level, this has the threads of creating yet another fracture in an already nearly incomprehensible national youth setup,. However, it’s unquestionably a good thing for the kids that will participate in it, and it’s probably good for the USL clubs participating in it, save maybe the travel. Given US Soccer’s propensity to leave the pro leagues in the US alone (for better and worse), I don’t expect any sanctioning difficulties. But it’ll be interesting.