Lack of 3rd generation Americans on the USMNT roster

First of all, let me say that I have absolutely no problem with the US bringing in Foreign kids that never lived in the US but have American citizenship because one of their parents are Americans. There are countless players like this and we know who they are. There is a whole generation of European soccer players who have American fathers. As we know, the US has many military bases in Europe, especially Germany and often, these guys wind up marrying German women. Timmy Chandler and Jermaine Jones are 2 examples of this and there are many more, some not at the level of Chandler and Jones.

These guys have American citizenship and while they did not grow up in the United States, like I said I have no problem with these guys wearing the red, white, and blue. The best should play.

I also have no problem whatsoever with the 2nd generation Americans like Agudelo, Adu, Corona, etc. Though they were at one time eligible to represent other national teams (well Corona still is I guess), they are Americans, period!

The point of my post, though, is that almost 20 years after World Cup 94 which in many ways was the birth (or re-birth if you prefer) of American soccer, we are still seeing that 3rd or 4th generation Americans (inotherwords, their grandparents, great-granparents or earlier generations were born here) are only making USMNT rosters at a rate not much higher than foreign players and 1st and 2nd generation Americans. I dont have statistics on this obviously but I'd guess there are exponentially more 3rd, 4th, 5th generation Americans playing youth soccer, HS soccer, college soccer, etc than there are 1st or 2nd generation kids. Simply put, there are many many more later generation Americans than 1st or 2nd generation Americans. That much is obvious.

However, while we have many more later generation Americans playing the game, a very small percentage of them are attaining "world-class" status. If your parents immigrated here from Mexico or Argentina or some other soccer-playing country, you have a much greater chance of excelling in soccer in the US than if your great-grandparents were born here.

I think we know the reasons for this. Later generation American kids play 2-4 sports growing up and soccer may be just a "fun" sport. Very few of these kids or their parents see soccer providing a viable career. However, some of these kids and their parents do dream (even if its just a fantasy) about the NBA, NFL, etc).

1st or 2nd generation kids are raised in "soccer homes." They watch the Mexico Primera Division or EPL religiously. They play in their backyard everyday. They play pick-up soccer with their friends after school. This type of stuff doesnt happen in Suburbia.

I close by asking the question, 18 years after WC 94, with kids being 5 and 6 back then are in their mid 20's, is it alarming to anyone for lack of a better term, "regular Joe American Kid" still does not have enough skill to be able to beat out foreign kids with American citizenship or 1st or 2nd generation Americans for spots on our youth teams (look at the US U17 team which was comprised many foreign kids, the U20, and U23 teams)?

While I do think these "regular Joe Americans" are getting better and the depth of talent has never been better (look at MLS), not enough of these players are becoming Landon Donovan or Clint Dempsey or even Michael Bradley and I wonder if we can sustain the current mediocre level of the USMNT and improve on that if we have to rely on Foreign kids and 1st or 2nd generation American kids to play for us?

yeah that is a very disappointing thing that not enough 3rd generation and beyond kids aren't become professional soccer players. The problem really is when kids grow up here, they dream of playing in the NBA, the NFL, MLB, etc etc but the desire/dream to play in the EPL or even the MLS isn't really there for different reasons. There are some like dempsey who randomly get really into the sport and become great, but guys like him are clearly far and away the exception rather than the rule.

I do have friends who grew up playing soccer, but to be honest i doubt any of them will become professionals. They don't really have the desire to become a great soccer player. A lot of them come from families who are doing fairly well, they play soccer more recreationally then as a passion and I'm not sure they are very well informed of the professional opportunities.

I don't think any of them see themselves as a european caliber player, and mls players make good money but not enough to invest a lot of money and time at soccer academies, and possibly skipping college in the hopes that maybe they'll pan out and be able to stick onto a mls team.

If you look at poorer families, typically a lot of those kids try to go the football or basketball route as a way to get out. Mainly because the presence and the culture of those sports are far more ingrained then soccer.

I think the number 3rd generation and beyond american soccer players that develop into something special will come in time, but i think a lot of it has to do with soccer becoming more of a mainstream sport here. Until that happens, it will be a sport where most of our 1st and 2nd generation americans will make up the bulk of our soccer talent.

I'd like to think that in a perfect world, the first two posters could be stripped of their citizenship for posting this dumbass thread.

Oh, come on now, Warmth . . . . How many generations has your family been here?

Well for one thing I didn't post the thread, I merely commentated on my observations growing up pertaining to the topic... number two I could honestly care less what u think...no matter what world we live in

repped

can the mods handle this?

If it makes you feel any better, being that yours was the second unnecessarily long post in this thread I doubt many people read it.

Well tbh I only read like the two first paragraphs of the initial post so I wouldn't be surprised...still though I was more reinforcing the point that we struggle to adequately draw in and develop players unless the talent comes from soccer roots from outside the country(and usually they develop in spite of us

Yeah, I like how we stole Clint Dempsey from Thailand.

Hahah okay im not sayin we don't generate those players, obviously we've been able to develop guys like dempsey, donovan and michael bradley (just examples, I could name more). I feel like we could do better though, maybe im being a dumbass and not giving us nearly enough credit(which i likely am) but I wouldn't mind having like 5-10 clint dempsey esque players coming out per cycle rather than 1 or 2 and I believe we have that capability

Considering that widespread access to high level European soccer only happened in the latter part of the last decade, why worry?

The game is slowly moving into mainstream, these things take time. In 1994 the average American didn't know what the World Cup was, and we hosted it. And, kids who grew up in soccer (mostly Mexican league) homes moved towards his native lands sports like NFL, nBA and baseball.

You got to think that only recently, in the last 5-6 years has soccer started being shown as more than filler on ESPN. FSC still isn't everywhere, and only started 10-12 years ago, and is still niche. It was only last year that the first live EPL game was broadcast on American TV.

What's the stat from the last census? Around 50% of people currently living in the US were either born elsewhere or have at least one parent born in another nation.

[Note that the stat isn't citizens.......but people currently living in the US.]

Our national team is actually a pretty fair respresentation of the US as a whole right now.

About 25% of americans are foreign born or have one foreign-born parent. So yeah there is an imbalance on the team. As for foreigners living the US they're not relevant to the US pool in the way of representation as only US citizens are eligible for the US Team.

Adu and Agudelo were born abroad and are thus 1st generation. Donovan has a foreign born parent and is thus 2nd generation.

Can't say I'm personally frustrated. Soccer is not the first sport among elite young athletes in this country. I'm guessing this would be even more so among those without recent immigration in the background.

Elite soccer that is as played by truly elite athletes is primarily an immigrant sport in this country. Given the financial prowess of the other major team sports including college football and hoops it's tough to see this changing.

"5-10 Clint dempsey-esque players"

Does England have 10 Dempsey's?

Funny how it took Dempsey to the age of 28 to be recognized.

Maybe these players are under our noses and we don't nurture them.

Personally, I'd love to see JK take a liberal attitude in these warm up games where he calls in 2 or3 guys, out of his 23, who are real newbies, guys like Wegener at Mtl, or Billy Schuler, or Gatt, or other good college players who stood out, just to recognize them and encourage them and see if they have the right stuff and see how the other players and leaders on our team like them.

Zeroing in on a young guy like Shea, because Bradley called him up, gave us a chance to see what he had and what his limitations were at the international level. You never know, one of these guys might break through and I think a little more attention from JK would help.

the thing is that some of the college players may be a little behind in playing time but they have pretty good team experience at the college level and, because they are older, they will be around 24 by 2014 so we are not talking about somebody who is too young.

Brek Shea is 2nd gen.

Of the 18 or so Americans playing in the UEFA top 10 leagues Dempsey, Ream, and Cherundolo are probably the only non-1st or non-2nd gen. Throw in the ballers plying their trade in Mexico and the share shrinks even further.

I agree with Corona the bigger challenge is getting a decent share of elite athletes from any available pool. Has US Soccer even had an asian american athlete on the level of Jeremy Lin for example?

I'm sure someone has brought this up in the past, as these types of threads occasionally pop-up, but I still think it's worth mentioning.

The rigid, revered American educational system is a big problem for developing soccer players. The fact that everyone in this country, up to at least 17 and usually through 22, MUST BE A STUDENT FIRST and and athlete second is a serious problem for soccer athletes in this country, who have far less reps than their foreign counterparts. This is because youths in this country for the most part are discouraged from immersing themselves completely in a single pursuit before they become adults- especially if it's outside of academia.

This is far less of an issue for physicality-first sports like football and basketball, where there are many cases where someone playing for only a couple of years (especially in football) can become pros at the highest level. Soccer is too skill-reliant for players who are true late-bloomers.

Baseball, a skill-reliant sport, has a developmental advantage over soccer in this country for two reasons. One is that baseball "prime-years- 25 and older" - are far after the mandatory matriculation periods for Americans. Secondly, there are established and sometimes profitable professional incubators (minor leagues). And it's still not uncommon to see a non-pitcher or part-time pitcher become an ace. Baseball is still far more physicality-reliant than soccer too.

To sum it all up, it'll take far more than a shift in "sports culture" for the US to emerge as a soccer power.

South Korea also places a strong emphasis on scholastic sports if I'm not mistaken. And even they have produced a first team regular for Manchester United.

Outside of the center position you're generally not going anywhere in hoops after just few years playing the game.

Big criticism I read from the experts is that the US youth player plays too many games and doesn't spend enough time developing skills.

to be honest no, but it doesn't mean we can't develop 10 guys out of a pretty large player pool that can't be at least upper level players

and maybe we are overlooking them, but perhaps that means we need to improve on scouting and other things as well

i agree with real corona in general though, i'd be happy with more first class talent rather than worrying about whether they are first generation or not

OK, I'll bite.

Juergen Klinsmann has called up 50 players to the full team so far and to the best of my knowledge, 20 of them, or 40 percent, were born in the United States AND so were both their parents.


Kyle Beckerman
Michael Bradley
Steve Cherundolo
Geoff Cameron
Clint Dempsey
Brad Evans
Brad Guzan
George John
Clarence Goodson
Jeff Larentowicz
Zach Loyd
Jeff Parke
Heath Pearce
Chris Pontius
Tim Ream
Robbie Rogers
Brek Shea
Jonathan Spector
Chris Wondolowski
Graham Zusi

I wouldn't say 40 percent of the players called in would equal a lack of, but maybe that's just me.

i think ur kinda missing the point. I don't think anyone is upset that our team is made up of 1st and 2nd generation americans. I think the worry is we aren't maximizing our player pool. The talent pool seems to be pretty barren when you subtract the 1st and 2nd generation talent out of the equation. And its not like we don't have a lot of those kids playing soccer. It just seems like not alot of them make it very far in their progression.

well u know seeing that list maybe it isn't as bad as i thought. Good post.

completely agree. I really don't care about their nationality, except in the context that for as large of a registered player pool we have, how few actual make it to the professional level. I thought this particular disparity between high level players that come from soccer roots that go outside this country to kids who have been in this country for awhile was a bit alarming in itself.

But to be fair this comes from the belief we have far more 3rd and beyond generation americans registered here than 1st and 2nd. I could be absolutely wrong about that I've never actually checked.

The solution to the problem, i agree has absolutely nothing to do with the nationality of the player. Just merely an observation i thought was kind of interesting, that's all