the problem is MLS . It's right there in the name of the league - Major League Soccer-. Sounds just like Major League Baseball. And they structured the league and how teams acquire players on the MLB/NBA/NFL model using college and a draft. the fact that MLS still has a draft is pretty troubling. The fact that MLS teams are only aloud to sign two players a year from their youth academies is also troubling. MLS's stubborn fixation with emulating other american league structures using college and the draft is hurting our youth development. There are so many rules MLS puts on teams when it comes to scouting and developing talent. Do you think the football association in England tells Liverpool that they cannot sign a youth player from liverpool? or that Chelsea cannot sign a youth player from london? what incentive do MLS youth academias have to develop youth talent when once they are of a certain age MLS will require that most of them be available to the draft anyway? take a look at all the successful leagues in the world. there is no draft. if MLS stopped with all the bureaucratic nonsense and regulations and allowed teams to scout and develop their own talent, move that talent up as they saw fit to the club team and then either sell that talent to Europe for millions of dollars or keep it then we would really start to have pipelines of talent for the national team.
The thing is that Mexico and the USMNT are about the same right now but Mexico knows how to take down opponents they are supposed to beat. Sometimes they get upset but they normally lose to superior teams, that's why they always get out of the group stage, 5 times in a row now. They take care of business. Where they run into trouble is they can't get over the hump against teams like Argentina and the like and yeah we beat them too. ( the one upset) The Mexicans have a good coach who knows what he's doing, so their tactics actually make sense, instead of Robobob slotting in Findley for his "speed". Mexico would not have squandered the golden opportunity we had, they would've taken advantage of it. We were happy and emotionally spent after making the round of 16.
You would have a better chance of trying to make the world revolve in the opposite direction. If you think you will get rid of High School Football and Soccer will jump to the front of the High School spectator sport pile you are in need of serious help.
I think Klinnsman is essentially correct but maybe he did not express himself in the best manner. The youth soccer system in the US is a business. Nothing more and nothing less. You want your kid to start, drop the club a big check, he or she will start. Not all coaches but if the parent cuts a big check to the club the coach will be under incredible pressure from the club director to play that kid. I also agree that coaches here in the US love big and fast over the technically gifted player. I have seen the same thing in High School soccer. At least in our area most HS coaches are Dad coaches that never played the game. They have very little in the way of knowledge or coaching technique. It becomes a game of brute force and fairly dangerous. I can only speak to my geographic area of course and even here there are some good well coached teams but very few. The clubs? MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, technical training, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, tactical training, MONEY, MONEY....and so it goes.
This is a stupid argument. The majority of elite athletes regardless of sport come from poor upbringings. Kobe isn't the rule. He's the exception.
One think about Klinsmann's comments that is worth clarifying: The *reason* that lower- and middle-income classes in the US turn out more basketball and football players is simply time-on-task (ala Gladwell's 'Outliers'). For example, I grew up in NYC and there were times in the summer when I was heading home at 1 or 2 a.m., and I'd pass the park with basketball courts and it was FULL of kids playing basketball. It doesn't take long to get to the magic number of 5,000 - 10,000 hours of playing ball if that's all you're doing in your free time. Most middle/upper-middle income families would never let their children play ball (or footy etc.) during all free time, whereas they'll happily push them to play a musical instrument etc. to that degree.
Oh Bullshit. Mexico tied South Africa and lost to Uruguay in the group stages and got pounded by Argentina. That's hardly beating the teams you are supposed to beat.
In respond to Jorgen Klingsman comment regarding Inner City Soccer player …. I live in NYCity, when I drive around Queens, New York and when I visit my Mom in Brooklyn, I see lots of people playing soccer in the park .. The question for me …. Where is College Soccer Coaches doing there recruiting? … is it mostly in the suburb or why is there a lack of recruit in the inner city? When Immigrants migrate to United States and play soccer, they mostly settle in the inner city not the suburb. They are plenty of soccer player in the inner city, I just wonder if College Soccer Coach are making the effort to recruit them. Case in point, the State of Florida …. How come the state of Florida is a power house in Football but not Soccer …. . is there not enough Hispanic & Caribbean Immigrants playing soccer in Miami-Dade county? Case in point NYCity … Apart from St John University been a power house in DIV I soccer, why is the rest College school in NY Metropolitan area not has successful ….......is there not enough immigrants in NYCity? … Thats the same question for Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Boston and ETC... … .or is everybody in the Inner city have to look like a suburb player in the image of Landon Donovan, Michael Bradley or Clint Dempsey to get recruited? … Whats wrong with the inner city image of a Gomez, Altidore or Onegyou?..... US Soccer Federation needs to create a platform for Inner city soccer player to show case they're skill too College Coaches? College Coaches need to do a better job of recruiting in the Inner City!!! College Coaches need to hire minority assistant coaches to be part of there coaching staff!!! the amount of effort University/College put into recruiting Basketball & Football players in the inner city is not the same effort they put to recruiting soccer player. That lack of effort is not in the best interest of MLS & US Soccer Federation. thats my thought
1. Youth Development: To me what kills it is Select/Club. As usasupporter said it is a business. I would hope that the MLS youth teams are run a hell of a lot better then them. 2. Coaching: This is where most of the problems start in the fact all of the kids play more the position on top of making about wins/losses and not finding the one spot the kid is good at teaching the skill part of the game. 3. MLS Rules/Reg.: Most of it crap or so I have been told, but most of it is there to keep MLS alive. Any rule/reg. changes that make MLS not a "Single Entry" Leg. will not happen as it will kill MLS. We don't have the cash that everyone else has. 4. The Draft: What is wrong with having it?, Does it hurt the youth system, I am going to say no seeing most kids want to play in College anyway and that youth system for the most part is joke anyway. 5. College Soccer: They have just as many problems and is much bigger can of worms. Every one know about the number of kids here in Texas that play but the BIG 12 does not have Men's Soccer and never will.
And how many of these guys that MLS and USSF are missing in scouting are starting for top-level clubs around the world? Very few, if any. Fact is, if it was a true gold mine, the Euro clubs would be over here signing our youth left and right, but it only happens rarely. I don't disagree that we are lacking in development and some guys fall between the cracks, but to paraphrase Arena, there isn't some guy out there playing rec league soccer out a city park in Queens that we are missing out on.
Are there any organizations or supporter groups that are focused on lobbying USSF on its decisions? I feel the USSF can do whatever it wants and is held to very little responsibility.
Re: Why Klinsmann is wrong about US Soccer Instead of trying to destroy american football, why don't high schools play soccer under the lights. Football makes most of its money from ticket sales. i went to a small school in southern cal. Frankly, we sucked at football, but everyone would go to the games because that was the weekly "event" for students. i don't even think students would really watch the games. (they were more concerned with where the party was after the game or some freshman/sophomore chick to hook up with.) But everyone went cause it was the thing to do. If you played soccer under the lights, it would make it more of a popular event that students would want to go to. Once soccer becomes popular for high schoolers, kids wouldn't switch from playing AYSO or club ball to playing basketball or football.
To me, this is crucial. Were I coaching young kids, every last one of them would learn ball skills AND play every position on the field including keeper at some point. Plus, I wouldn't care about winning, but rather letting them express themselves. That's it.
Reason No. 1 for me wanting to see the Nats excel in the WC is I love 'em. Reason No. 1a is my hope this conversation goes the way of the Oldsmobile. Before the WC, a friend talked to me about the US team. This guy's a sports reporter and he suggested if Rajon Rondo tried soccer for a couple of months -- no kidding: he said 2 months -- Rondo could play soccer for the USMNT. (Yeah, and I bet Michael Jordan could learn to hit minor league pitching in a summer.) I bring this up because I think it betrays a mainstream view that US soccer players aren't really athletes; they're just who's left over, bless their little hearts, 'cause the real jocks are busy with other sports. I got news for every sage who parachutes into the US soccer scene every four years to fix things that ain't really broke -- the kids are who are "really hungry" are already in the pipeline and have been for a long time. Their names are Donovan and Dempsey and Altidore and Howard and Bradley. And there are exponentially more kids looking to take the place of this bunch, kids who demonstrate their hunger by giving themselves over to the game. The Nats did us proud for much of the past couple weeks, but fell heartbreakingly short of what we wanted them to achieve, not because the American soccer talent pool's thin, but because a) they made mistakes; and b) couldn't finish the chances they had the ability to create. Period. If Juergen Klinsmann wants to see "the kids who are really hungry," let him ride buses with the Nats in Central America, or try to schedule a qualifier in the US that won't be too much of a home game for his CONCACAF opponent, or simply endure the condescension not just from the international footballing community, but from the American sports mainstream. 'Cause that's what goes with the territory for a U.S. soccer player, whether he's black, or he doesn't speak English at home, or his Mom and Dad are gated-community helicopter parents from hell. There's hunger for you. Bill Rhoden of the New York Times can fantasize all he wants about Kobe Bryant flashing past in Nike Mercurial Vapors. Me? I got soccer players to watch.
I was with you until i realized you don't think that there is any problem with where most kids are coming from and forming our pro sports league/national team. Dempsey is one of the few 'poor kids' that actually made it somehow in pro soccer. Beyond that there arent many other stories, except for maybe Eddie Johnson? Either way, there are tons of kids that probably could be something big in soccer with the right coaching, and the ability to play at the highest level. Until we can unlock this for most people, we will never get to see what our true potential could be. And yea, I dont buy into the crap either that the best athletes play in the NBA, or NFL. Donovan is the complete athlete, i think someone said before that he is as fast as olympic sprinters, but he has never been 'officially' timed.
why can't i watch this video? i live in california. is it that espn 3 crap? i do find it quite amusing when people like to highlight the exception. That's fine for perspective but that's often about it. Like Jozy, And i like Jozy mind you, but he's not finishing right now. And people will bring up Heskey. But that's the exception. Most great strikers score goals. Most good teams expect their strikers to score. YOu don't aim to be Heskey. You aim to be Ronaldo. The real Ronaldo, not that their anything wrong with CR9. Or they point say Well Greece one the Euros. Yeah but normally it's not the side that puts ten men behind the ball. Normally it's the attacking side. It's not like Blackburn win the Prem every year and attacking Manchester United are in the bottom half.
Off-Topic: My type sucks Back-On: Ball skills and the tech skill is major, most of the time the coaches will hammer that out and its not a issue with the kids that can play the game, the ones that can't fall of the table. At some point the they need to find the position on the field that the kid is good at and roll with it, but I just don't see that mind set changing that kids needs to play more then one spot to have a shot at getting time.
Can someone explain to me what these comments were? Were they said today or something? I wasnt home all day so I dont know what is going on
Typical Galaxy fan. Seriously, Klinsi had me at upside down pyramid, inner city, and Hispanics. Complex issue here. The "problems" with the USMNT are systematic. One man can make a difference, but he has to know a lot about soccer on all levels starting with with every level (AYSO/HS/College). Klinsi had the job and walked away because he wanted the power that Arena had for 8 years. Gulati and the cronies of the USSF balked. If we keep ignoring our "inner cities" we'll see more Americans playing for other countries in the very near future. That's too regressive. US Soccer has to go mining for this kind of technically proficient talent just like PRO MEXICAN TEAMS SETTING UP ACADEMIES IN OUR COUNTRY. We got a Gringo Torres this time. We might not, the next time.
I didn't see the video. Is it the old simplistic, semi-racist "we're not good only because our poor black kids don't play soccer" argument? The old "if we only recruited in the ghettoes and sandlots, we'd dominate!" opinion? Listen -- it can be said a million times, but people are missing the issue. We're not good enough not because "poor kids" are the best athletes and they don't play soccer, but because so many kids -- poor, middle-class, affluent -- don't play soccer (in favor of other sports). It's rather telling that in 2010 so many of our current national team members and prospects are the sons of immigrants. By and large, the kids in the country just aren't gravitating toward soccer, unless (1) they either break the mold and actually disregard the other sports, or (2) have a family connection to soccer (such as a parent from a soccer-rich culture) that gives them the interest and incentive to play. It's not that our "poor kids" aren't playing soccer....it's simply that not enough kids (period) are playing soccer, and the ones that do don't have the club-sponsored youth systems of South America and Europe.
I agree with what Klinsi said but there are a few things that people are missing. 1. Youth soccer is not free abroad. It is only free for the best players. As an oil company brat I grew up abroad in poor, rich and internationally "middle class" nations. In all these countries the top clubs had youth academies that were free that recruited and looked for the top players in certain age brackets. There were also YMCA/city rec. dept. leagues that were free or a nominal charge though they were aimed at real young kids in general. However, the vast majority of kids, those not good enough for a pro team to take on, had to "pay to play" on clubs if they wished to continue playing. So when people say that we need to get rid of pay to play I think they miss the point. What we need is to have a club system for our best players and prospects to continue to develop without having to worry about money. The rest of our youth players (the 99.9% who won't be pros) can just use what we got. So we don't need to "blow up" the ussf structure entirely, we only need to add a layer, ideally MLS based, for our best talents and prospects. I think this is what Klinsi is talking about, though he did not say so specifically. 2. the notion of mining our inner cities is also interesting. As a whole talent scouting is abysmal in the US and so we miss some inner city talent. But we miss talent everywhere. The solution to this is, as Klinsi implied and said, to have a club based academy system scouting kids for profit. As the profit motive will have scouts in all corners of the country. However, the notion that the poor are the best athletes or have the best drive and hunger is the one area i disagree with Klinsi on. He himself was middle class, not poor. In fact, and I say this to make a point not threadjack, of the best players in all major US sports only a few grew up poor. Most were middle class (just like most of us are) some even wealthy as kids. This is not to say there are not great athletes who came from poor backgrounds (there obviously are) but there are just as many who came from middle class and wealthy backgrounds. 3. oh yeah. We really need him as our coach this time.
great post whats your opinion on our current MLS youth academy system? MLS seems to be stuck between the past and the future- one one hand every MLS team has a youth academy but on the other hand MLS has stubbornly stuck to having an MLS Draft to supply players to MLS teams and in doing that only allows MLS teams to transfer no more than 4 players a year from academy to the club.
that wasn't really his point. it went beyond that, the fact our high school/college system doesn't work. other countries outshine us because their best atheletes play at the top level from an early age rather than going pro late on after college. It's simple, while our guys are rotting in high school and collegiate athletics other countries have their guys playing in the youth systems of Barcelona, Manchester United etc. Guys like Wayne Rooney, Thierry Henry, and Lionel Messi all went through good clubs youth systems and made their professional debuts at 16-17. The problem with high school and college athletics is 99% of the players there are playing for a free eduction and not to be professional athletes. So when our guys are in college and the majority are just going through the motions they don't gain anything from it. And it just flat out doesn't work for soccer since once you hit 30 your career is about done. So getting into the pro environment at 22 you're almost hopeless from the start.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-.../us/us-scatters-pondering-been?cc=5901&ver=us Here is an article with video of Klinsman's comments.