Not there yet: still losing great youth players to Football and Basketball

I strongly believe you are correct that the removal of kids from High School will hurt interest. Another thing is the cost. It doesn't cost thousands of dollars a year in travel and coaching fees to get a competitive game in football. basketball or baseball. While you can certainly find some teams where kids might pay that much, there are far more where the cost to play at a high level is reasonable and where you can see you kid in the local paper.

If you don't think players at higher levels are not great athletes you are sadly mistaken. My kid played on a team of very good athletes. My kid was very good in other sports and many of his teammates excelled at other sports such as basketball, football, baseball, track and volleyball before they decided to focus on soccer. When he went to play against professional academy players from outside the country the first thing he commented about was how they much more athletic they were than his teammates were. Soccer players are mesomorphs. The only reason they are so thin is the type of training they do. Obviously lack of height for the shorter playeres would be a negative in many sports, but if they chose to change the training, many could bulk up and be successful in American football, baseball or guards in basketball.

Players like Ronaldo, Messi, Henry aren't blazing fast. The one area where we excelled was endurance because our training was more advanced in that area. That is why Klinnsman hired athletes performance when he ran the German national team. Look at our National team who do we have that is fast? Donovan? How do you think he would rate on Brazil's national team? Some of the best athletes on the team are our German imports. You are absolutely correct about needed to improve our players tactical and technical ability. But don't for a second think we don't need those players to be great athletes as well.

The key is learning the technical skills at the cricital time which is why Subotic could come to the US yet still do very well. You could also add a lot of US stars like Ramos and Reyna to current kids like Najar and Aguedello. Traditionally US kids have been behind but our National team masked this fact by selecting very early maturing kids from our massive player pool to successfully compete against other countries that were less concerned about winning youth tournaments. I agree with you point about our better kids not working very hard. I have seen it all too often.

NEVER said higher level players arent athletes! You missed my point. Too many americans look at a 250 lb NFL player or a 6'6" NBA player and say "just imagine if he played soccer". They think soccer players we have aren't athletic enough and that goes to your comment about being thin. It's hard to maintain all that bulk running for 90 minutes a game isnt it. Demarcus Beasley played for top international clubs and is pencil thin and not tall, I'm certain PSV,Rangers or the US National team could find better "athletes" ( by the common definition) but somehow he has had a pretty good career and it wasnt because he was just fast. Its that idea that if only we had the guys who chose NFL or NBA playing soccer instead we would win all the World Cups.

"scoachD1" ...if your name means you coach a men's D1 program then you're probably all about looking for big strong players and technical skill isnt a priority. D1 soccer is really ugly soccer unless you like lumpin it long or packin it in and sure doesn't help us towards being a better national side.

Sure some college coaches may not be the best in the world, but as a whole they make due with what they are given. Schools like Akron or UCLA that can recruit kids with skill, play with skill. For example, Vom Steeg won the college cup at Santa Barbara with a team that played some rather robust sooccer. Yet if you look at the current roster, almost half the kids are 5-6 to 5-9. As they have been able to recruit better talent, the style of play has improved as well.

The reality is that no coach is going take a team full of kids with over a decade of poor training and have them played skilled soccer. Even if just one player lacks ability, good teams will just force the ball to that player until he turns it over and/or just kicks it. Yet so many clueless observers want kids who's second touch is a tackle to look the Champions league teams they watch on TV.

Much has been mentioned on this thread about coaching and player desire, but I think we're missing an extremely important point - fathers.

I was a high level basketball player in high school, and had some offers from smaller colleges that I turned down. Whatever skill I mastered prior to high school, it wasn't through practicing with any team under any coach. It was working five days a week on my game, in the driveway with my father. He had played basketball from 1st grade through 12th, and had watched countless hours of it. He knew proper shooting form, spacing, dribbling technique, etc. He was a terrific student of the game. He could teach me what I needed to know.

Most U.S. kids do not have parents who played soccer. They don't get the experience of having someone teach them the technical aspects of the game outside of practice. And we all know that you can't become an elite player by practicing once or twice per week.

And I think that also has a lot to do with the reason kids leave soccer - the parents aren't comfortable with the game because they never played it. When we get to a generation whose parents grew up in soccer, we will see a dramatic improvement in the technical and mental abilities of the U.S. soccer player. Right now, it's almost all on the kid and his coach.

I couldn't disagree more. No offense intended, but you sound like a football-cum-soccer person. And it's a huge adjustment mentally. Welcome to the game, glad you are here. We all have a lot to do and learn together.

American's really, really struggle with the idea that size, strength and speed just really aren't the most important traits in soccer. Yes, they are nice, but not the end all be all such as in football or basketball. Almost none of the historic or even current "best players" would rate very high on an American scale of "athletic".

Here is a previous post of mine on this because I'm lazy: http://www.bigsoccer.com/community/threads/bruce-arena-interview.1944237/page-3#post-25727523

You're not wrong about the former football part as a former player and coach. There was no soccer in high school when I was young many decades ago, so that's the viewpoint I bring to it. I just don't see where the 2 things have to be mutually exclusive. I know many young players in our area, including DA players who are not only fantastic with the ball at their foot, but also terrific athletes and can compete at almost anything. They lift weights, run and do agility drills on their own as well as their structured training. My son has said that his soccer team guys could beat his school's football players in football. Now that's not saying much about the football players, but there's a lot of strength, speed, agility and toughness there.

I have seen any number of undersized, highly skilled and talented players just get murdered in HS and club games by far less agile or skilled players. I've seen some of the same at the college level, although that seems to be mitigated by physical maturity to a greater extent.

I just watched Donovan get eaten alive by Marcelo, and he's one of our best, but was no match for Marcelo's strength and quickness. I'm not sure we have many defenders who match up well on Hulk either. I look at players like Nani, Kaka, and Ronaldo and think that's the type of player we should be producing here. And I'll qualify it though as that's the type of player I would love to watch play here. But I loved Zidane, head butt and all.

You see that as a fault, but in reality that is exactly what you should see in youth soccer. Soccer is an adult game and development continues until U23. Men don't reach full maturity until their mid-20s.

What matters is what a youth player will be like at age 23. Getting beat badly by stronger, faster players at age 16 doesn't matter.

Maybe you haven't been following trends in the professional game. For the last few years commentators have been talking of the rise of the small player. E.g., http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/ne...d-silva-leads-team-title-charge-espn-magazine

No, I fully get it.. I just don't think I'd like it from a fan's point of view that much. Don't watch horse racing or gymnastics either. Would rather see soccer become more like rugby. I know that's sacrilege to the purists, but I think that would be more marketable in this country. They may be far superior in Europe, but to see a highly agile and skilled player tumble to the ground screaming in agony from a little flat tire makes me look elsewhere for my valuable entertainment time. A few more bloody noses, yellow cards and grudge matches with fast, powerful and skilled teams, that's where I hope things go. 0-0 ties and nobody takes a point.

Our youth system though favors the kids born in the first half of the year, who are bigger and faster, pushes them into higher level clubs with better coaching and competition and then by the time they are fully grown, many are either burned out, broken down or passed up by the late bloomers. That is a shame and a mistake, something the DA's may improve on in time.

MLS rosters still only have a sprinkling of players born in the US and if we can't even fill the rosters of our own 3rd division level league with homegrown talent, then something major has to change.

There are about 1000 college rugby teams in the US.

Look, I agree that the flopping and diving so prevalent in parts of Europe sucks. I hate it with a passion. But one of the beauties of soccer is that you don't have to be some hairless gorilla to be good at it. There is a place for the 5-5 kid with quicks and an eye for a pass. I don't want American soccer to look like Scotland or lower level England. You're not going to get power and skill for the most part. You'll get power, and the skill will be kicked to the sideline.

It is a game first and foremost about skill. You degrade or marginalize skill in favor of strength / brutish play, and you lose the game. IMHO.

There are big players out there with the skills you mention:

Most children play sports to have fun. In the U.S. we have many sports options for children. In other countries around the world, the options are more limited and soccer is the #1 option most every time. Did it ever occur to the soccer elitist that perhaps children in the U.S. just have more fun playing other sports than soccer? I really think that is the answer to the majority whether you want to accept the truth or not.

I live in the mid-Atlantic area of the U.S. and lacrosse is a really big sport in our area. Alot of the top boy and girl soccer players are also playing lacrosse in the spring season. Every one (unanimous) that I've talked to (many of them not on my soccer team...many not even from our club) tell me they enjoy playing lacrosse over soccer. Perhaps the same is true for basketball and football. Kids just enjoy other sports more. The U.S. will alwas struggle on the international soccer scene for this reason...just too many sports options for our youth.

My son would love to play lacrosse if they had it at his school, and this is after 12 years of soccer. Of course he would like to play football too if we let him. If he doesn't stop growing, that may be his only option.

Juventus just bought back Sebastian Giovinco for 11 million Euros, or roughly $13 million. Giovinco is 5 foot 4 and a half, and weighs 130 pounds. I have to wonder how far he would have gotten playing in the US.

Thanks for the reply.

The other thing is, I don't see this as a matter of right or wrong. The fact of the matter is that in order to progress over here coaches need to win, and win now. They can talk all they want about player development, and they do, but talking about it is just another thing they have to do to get and keep jobs. Nobody over here has a vested interested in getting their hands on a promising 13 yr. old, bringing him up in their system, developing in him a love for their club, and grooming him to be the next Fabregas in 5 years.

That's life. I think people in the States just need to get used to it.

Great example from the Euros: Andrea Pirlo - Italy. 33 years old, 5' 9", probably weighs a buck fifty if that.

If you watch him, he's not that fast and almost never sprints, yet he's always in the right place at the right time. He's not physically imposing but he doesn't have to be and can influence any game at any time because he has great skill and plays smarter than everyone else. That's also why he's still at the elite level in his mid-30s.