by Mike Woitalla @MikeWoitalla, Mar 18, 2015

In its quest to "accelerate its mission of developing world-class players," U.S. Soccer has hired the Belgian consulting firm Double PASS

Double PASS lists among its clients the Bundesliga, the English Premier League, the J-League and the federations of Germany, Belgium and Hungary.

“We are now ready to take on the challenge in your country to work together to produce more better players,” said Double PASS CEO Hugo Schoukens in a conference call with U.S. Soccer Development Academy (USSDA) club representatives on Wednesday. “The Double PASS USA project starts with what we call customization. It means the adaptation of our talent development model to the situational context of your country.”

USSDA Director Jared Micklos said the partnership begins with an analysis of MLS first teams, MLS Academy teams, and a selection of four other Development Academy teams.

“It’s a consulting project that has a large scope that has not been defined in all the exact details until we get through the evaluation task force,” Micklos said. “We’ll be looking at different geographies, different markets, different player pools, different sizes.”

The USSDA was launched in 2007 by the Federation and is now comprised of more than 100 clubs.

“We could not be anymore excited to start the partnership,” said Micklos. “Together with their help and our partnership we’ll have better players and more of those better players.”