What's the Difference Between ODP vs PDP vs iD2?

What is the difference between ODP, PDP, and ID2? I'm the College Soccer Guy, and I'm here to help you play college soccer. If you want more help, give me a call. Links in the bio. Let's get into it. So you get the question often: is ODP worth it? Is ID2 worth it? What is PDP? And I don't know why they make it so complicated, but I'm going to break it down for you. So the first thing to understand is organization-wise and why it's important for college soccer, right? Knowing the answer to this is only relevant if it helps us with college. So the first thing I want to tell you, if you're ever given an award or recognition by anything, even if it's Bob down the street and it has some merit to it, we want to tell college coaches. You want to say, coach, I was recently selected for blah blah blah. Now, for example, there's an exact selection or a La Liga selection, which is like a separate scenario. Those are not very helpful. So some of these selections are good and some of them are bad. PDP, ID2, and ODP though do have some merit. So real quick, there's something called US Youth Soccer. Okay, then you have something else called US Club Soccer over here. It's all organizations. It's all money-based. Don't get into the pay-to-play thing. It's not changing. How do we manage it given that's the situation we're in? So in the US Youth Soccer, you have ODP and ID2, which I'm going to talk about in a minute. You have E-64 and EDP. Okay, those are club levels. Okay, that's over here. Then you have US club soccer. That's PDP, ECNL, ECNL RL, and something called NPL and NPL Pro. Okay, so that's over there. Now, when it comes to college soccer, what's important to know is ODP and ID2 are the same thing. Okay, I don't know why they made it extra complicated. But here's a quote. The ID2 program is an Olympic Development Program ODP approved by the United States Olympic Committee and US Soccer Federation. So ID2 and ODP are basically one in the same. Now, if you get identified to do ID2 or ODP, like we have one 8th grader right now who got identified in ID2 and did end up playing at a youth national team camp, that is a great thing. Traditionally speaking, to get selected for ID2, that means you're playing in US Youth Soccer. Now, because coaches change jobs and because club teams within US Youth Soccer play against US Club Soccer, then sometimes you will still get selected by ID2 or ODP even if you're playing in US Club Soccer. Now, US Club Soccer is PDP. PDP really refers to Northern California, and it's a version of their ODP. Then you have ECNL, ECNL RL, and NPF. Okay, so as I said, PDP is basically ID2. So here's a quote real quick. This is by SoCal Player Development Program. They are saying, we're pleased to announce our partnership with US Club Soccer. As a reminder, US Club Soccer is ECNL, ECNRL, and NPL. And their PDP, which is like its own version of ODP, is saying this year's club soccer's ID2 class are girls and boys 2011. So PDP and ID2 and ODP are basically the same thing. Now, from a college perspective, what you need to understand is ODP as of today is still— has a little bit of weight to it. It used to have a ton of weight, like ODP was everything. Now ODP doesn't mean as much as, say, playing MLS NEXT or ECNL. But if you get invited to play ODP and you're not playing ECNL, you should totally do that. If you're playing ECNL, frankly, the ECNL events are better than the ODP events. Now, and I'm just going to use the word ODP, but ODP equals ID2. Now on paper, again, this is about college soccer, how do you play college soccer because of this. US youth soccer is below US club soccer in terms of organizations, as college coaches believe in their strength to recruit players. Now that's not entirely accurate because you might have a team that exists in US youth soccer, for example, an E64 team that is better— we're jumping over here to US club soccer— that's better than an ECNL RL team. and you go, well, we're better, we beat you. But that's not what it's about. It's not about winning or losing. Once you hit 10th grade, 10th, 11th grade, even 8th, 9th grade depending if you're a boy or a girl. Girls, it's a lot sooner, so more like 8th and 9th grade. It doesn't matter about winning. It matters who gets exposure. Where are the showcases? Where are the events that you can go to? There's a limited amount of events you can go to where college coaches are coming. National events that exist in US Youth Soccer and US Club Soccer, college coaches at the high levels do not attend those events. They go to ECNL showcases, ECNL playoffs, MLS NEXT events, and MLS NEXT playoffs. That's where the majority of the showcasing is done. Now, Las Vegas Cup, Surf Cup, Mayor's Cup will have exceptions. Now, at these national showcases, you may have local college teams, and you may have some of the bigger schools going. On occasion, so you should definitely still email them. But what you need to ask your club, whichever club you're a part of, is what do you have in store for us to play college soccer? What showcases, frankly, how many showcases are we going to in order to play college soccer? That's how you determine which club team you want to be a part of. I'm going to do the pyramid on another day in terms of the whole thing, but today is just to explain that ODP versus PDP is basically the exact same thing. And now that they're combining forces, if you get selected for ID2 or ODP, it's a good thing. Now you say, well, I want to get selected. How do I get selected? It is usually club-based as well as coach-based for a recommendation to this event or that event. So the 8th grader I mentioned has been playing really well at the ECNL levels, was recommended to an ID2 program, right? All these coaches know each other. Yes, it's about money. Yes, it's also about helping the kids. But the point is they know each other. So ID2 and ODP, instead of thinking them as two different federations like UEFA Champions League and FIFA, don't think about it as separate. Think about ODP and ID2 as here's all the club teams operating, and then there's this Olympic development or elite level program that you can get basically voted for. Now remember though, ODP and ID2 and PDP are still below ECNL and MLS Next when it comes to scouting, coming to watch you, and everything else. And that's the most important factor when it comes to this recruiting process, is understanding where can you get recruited the most. Okay, now we help students switch club teams, but we're going to help you switch not based off of always who's the better club, but who's the right coach, who's going to help you get recruited. If your coach is willing to make phone calls, that changes a lot of things. If your coach is not willing to make phone calls, that changes a lot of things too. Maybe your director is going to be very involved. Maybe your club has a college night every single month. I guarantee you they don't because none of them do, but maybe they have one once a year. I am starting to work with club teams, so if you happen to watch this and you're a club coach, I want to help your club understand the attention needed for the college recruiting process. Then you get a whole spiel that I'll talk about later. But in terms of ODP and PDP, they're basically the same thing. Your job is to ask the club, are they willing to make phone calls for me? Are they willing to go on camera and talk about how great I am as a person and a player? And if the coach is willing to support you, it doesn't really matter if you play EP, E64, PDP, ECNL, ECNRL, NPL, MLS NEXT. If the coach is willing to support you, that really is the most important factor. Now, if that coach is like, I'm willing to support you, but they have limited connections and limited time, that's the big problem. They may say we're going to support you, but they can't support all 25 of you on the team, right? They're going to have favorites. And so maybe they say, because we have favorites, we're just going to help nobody. And so what I do in my process, I'm not allowed to directly connect you to college coaches. I can educate you on how to get recruited, and I spend a lot of time doing that. If you send your coach your highlight video, they may say, great, it's good, you know, uh, send it out, versus I'm going to look at every single clip and make sure it's correct. You might write an email and say to the coach, hey, does this look right? And they'll say, oh yeah, use the template that the club gave you. I'm gonna be like, no, that template's not good for your situation. You need to change it to this, this, and this, and you need to add something genuine. and we get very specific with each, with each person. Then they may say, hey, I coach, I made another highlight video. If it's a good coach, they'll say, the coaches don't want another highlight video, they want an every-touch video. No more highlight videos, only one highlight video basically a year, everything else should be every-touch videos. So that's the level of attention I want. If you want more help playing college soccer, I hope this was helpful. If you have any more questions, put them in the comments because that's how I can tell you guys what to do next. Okay, like, subscribe, follow. Rate the pod, rate the YouTube. Just kidding. Call me if you need help. Bye.