Real Madrid has the second most impressive striker lineup in the planet, with Pipita, Benz, Ronaldo, and Ozil (dual role) and Di Maria feeding them balls. And Barcelona may lack the big guns, but they have a choice of attacking mids who can score from anywhere: Messi (dual role), Iniesta, Cesc, Xavi, complemented by Villa, Pedro and Alexis. So it's not that the defenses are weak, but that those two are fearsome attacking powers. Only ManCity has that much gunpowder.
Agree with the general idea, but I'd put the details differently. Forget strikers, Barcelona and Madrid have the two most prolific scorers on Earth by far in Messi and Ronaldo, with the best set-up players on Earth also, in Xavi, Iniesta, and Ozil. Man City's best options for scorers and set-up are good, but way behind that. The supporting cast for Barcelona and Madrid is the Spanish National Team, with the addition of the two best attacking fullbacks in the world, Alves and Marcelo. Barcelona and Madrid, for the last few years have also had the two most highly sought after managers in the world. So yeah, teams 3-20 of any league are going to struggle against that.
I do not believe off the ball movement cannot be taught after the formative years. Problem is JK does not have the USMNT every day. He literally only has them a few weeks a year and that is not enough time to reinforce the proper use of movement and space, especially if the guys he selects have acquired bad habits at club. Ascertaining who can do what and experimenting/ teaching new systems is all JK has been able to do thus far. (There is something to be said of Spain's player's familiarity with each other and their system.) Hopefully, the team JK wants in '14 starts coming together by this time next year and he can start imprinting some of the finer points from then on.
I mentioned this before and it is probably idiotic, but I wonder if there is anyway to get volunteer camps going for younger players. Our starting squad is what it is. If they cant make an overlapping run or off-shoulder the CB for a run into the box, they arent going to start now, but the pipeline guys can at least learn a style and perhaps some timing. Of course, the question is when and for how long and who pays for it, etc. Don't know, just think broader and more frequent camps for the next generation are needed if we are ever going to build a style. And from what I have seen, Claudio Reyna is probably not the guy. You need a true manager and administrator who has been doing it for 20 years.
This isn't enough. I can't just be a free camp for talented players. It has to be free, year-long camps, with the promise of big fat paydays in the future PLUS (and this is the important one) high level, highly paid youth coaches AND scouts. We have one academy (Bradenton) in the entire United States of America that comes close to that. A lot of other countries have way WAY more.
Bradenton is responsible for quite a few of the now regulars and it should be obvious that movement off the ball was NOT a priority since the finished products seem incapable of reading a situation!! It doesn't even matter if we use highly paid youth coaches that grew up with Bradenton influence because they simply cannot teach that which they do not know. Since I did not have a High School teaching certificate, I dealt with a figurehead coach who dealt with all the paperwork and supposedly I was responsible for teaching, training, tactics and assigning positions and individual duties of field players. One particular year (my last at that level) I was blessed with two teachers and a new crop of players. We had worked pretty hard on assessing the relative talents of individual players and to my chagrin found out that no one except one player was willing to head the ball. He also was the only one with a relatively powerful shot. I had suggested a short corner and a relay pass into the 11 meter area with the goal being to let the willing heading player to run onto the cross with a shot at heading on goal. Mind you these were players who had no idea there was more than one way to kick the ball, much less volley. So these guys in their wisdom countermanded my decision and had the only semi talented player take the corner kick, effectively making the corner kick a way to give the ball over and allow a counter by the opponents. Which did happen. luckily they misfired. Nevertheless it points out that you cannot understand what you aren't taught but the xxes and ooos and stop and start nature of American Football and even the sets used in basketball are detrimental in the game of soccer. It is also why we seem to do better at set plays(free kicks and corners than open play.