Should the US be working to develop young CONCACAF talent?

I would like to see the US/MLS work hard to become the developmental country for not only young American players (still much work to be done here), but eventually most of the other CONCACAF countries (outside of Mexico, of course). We could play a major role in developing talent within our own region, to the point that the US would be playing better competition, which would hopefully improve the team.

Currently, the US is only playing world class competition every 4 years, in the world cup, in meaningful games. Sure, they play some nice friendlies, but those aren't the meaningful games that test you for World Cup atmosphere.

It certainly isn't in our best interests to improve the potential NT players of countries like CR, HON and JAM. MLS is a separate entity, but that is not the responsibility of U.S. Soccer, and as far as MLS goes, they are simply a business trying to put out the best product they can regardless of what country the players come from.

I think that scouting and assisting in the development of some of the poorer CONCACAF countries, and even some of the less storied South American nations, could go a long way towards improving the talent level in MLS, as well as the competition for the USMNT. Sure, it would make it tougher for USMNT to win Gold Cup games and WC qualifying matches, but better competition within the region could both really help the development of our national team, and rejuvenate our local fan base at the same time.

I agree with this concept. Why not start with the model that many MLB teams have adopted? They've built developmental facilities throughout Central America.

It seems logical that improving competition will lead to an improvement in quality. The better quality will also lead to more fans, which would even lead to more youngsters choosing to stick with soccer...

Because baseball doesn't have an international competition between countries that is considered the most important tournament in the sport...

The two sports and concepts of player development aren't remotely the same.

they can't even develop top quality players in the U.S so why take on more?

But wouldn't you agree that the US is hurt by the fact that they face very limited competition? Is that not so painfully obvious every 4 years, when the optimism created by superior play, within the region, leads to higher World Cup expectations, only to be dashed when the US seems unprepared for full international competition? Friendlies do not bring the same competitive attitude. They don't effectively prepare you for the World Cup!

This is just an odd post. Do you realize we're losing 3-0 at halftime with the U17 team.
We can't develop our own players but now we should take an limited amount of resources and recruit players from other nations so their national teams will be better to beat us.
Its non sensical. Its one thing for an MLS team to have some young CONCACAF players along with a majority of US players for their professional aspirations. But why would we have some significant structured method to help other nations to improve to beat us.
Am I missing something?

Edit:Now 4-0

Didn't we win our group in the 2010 World Cup for the first time in history?
Am I missing something?

Many fans feel that it's possible to strive for much bigger things than winning the group.

Yes, you are missing something! The risk is that other teams would be more of a challenge, but the reward is that you have constructive competition throughout the regional Gold Cup & WCQ, making you more prepared for the World Cup every 4 years.

If the alternative is to be the CONCACAF champion, or runner up to Mexico, but not be able to compete with the rest of the world, I say risk losing sometimes within the region, if it could lead to bigger picture succuss for the USMNT.

There's a reason that people who take risks are more successful. When all you do is play it safe, you don't risk losing as much, but there's limited growth at the same time! You don't have to agree with the concept, but at least try to think about it in these terms!

Yup.

Plus this has absolutely nothing to do with the USSF and the USMNT.

It shouldn't actually be the USSF's job to "develop talent" at all. Bradenton only exists because MLS didn't have the resources to do the job. In the coming years they will. Hence why there are reports the USSF will close Bradenton after the 2013 cycle.

In the future the USSF's role in player development will be to provide the structure of the USSF development academy. They'll provide the structure........it'll be up to the clubs to develop the talent.

I'd much rather steal their coaches and have them coach our youth. Galaxy is making a start with Cienfuegos, but I bet there are a bunch of other Costa Rican/Salvadoran/etc. ex-pros who would do great in an MLS academy set-up.

You're right I am missing something. Baffling logic. Let me see if I get this:
-Winning a World Cup group for the first time in history isn't good enough so we now have to spend money developing players that can't play for the US so their national teams(not ours) get better which would increase the liklihood of them beating us in World Cup qualifying so we would fail to go to the World Cup to try to do better than winning our group despite the fact we're not there.

As you can see from my original post, I agree that we still have a lot of work to do, developing talent in our own country. However, there needs to be some outside the box thinking about some creative, even unorthodox, ways in which the development of talent in this country can be assisted.

In the business world, competition breeds success. Sports are no different. If you’re a business owner and you’re looking to develop your product, you, at times, must think about investing outside your company, in order to put your company in a better position to succeed. If simply promoting your product isn’t enough, you have to think outside the box. Investing in other places can indirectly improve your product. It can help increase the target audience. It can create the competition necessary to avoid your product going stale. It can get other styles, variations on your product out there. All of these improvements would even get many people from within your company (country) get into this line of work that may not have, otherwise, and those that do might approach the line of work with unique styles, that take elements of various different business models/approaches from within the field.


After all, development of products, like talent, requires evolving into something outside of the status quo. Why should talent development be so much different. Our country could be a leader for the region in a way that could benefit our soccer league & our national team (in the long term), at the same time that the other countries are improving their talent & the regional competition level.

Don’t so many of the European leagues offer more opportunities for players/talent within Europe than they do for players from other continents?


I'm not saying that my opinion is better than anyone the opinion of anyone else, but it surely isn't as crazy as some of the responders of this post have indicated.

If anybody's going to be helping the likes of Cuba and El Salvador, shouldn't it be the defending back-to-back Gold Cup champions? Clearly the USSF has better things to do than help develop other FAs... we don't exactly have resources to spare. It's not like the Germans, Dutch etc. are trying to help us get better, either.

I don't care what Mexico does. The point of my post wasn't to simply try to help teams like Cuba or El Salvador. It's that player development throughout CONCACAF could help soccer in our county, in many ways.

As far as your comment about the Germans or the Dutch, are they in our region? It wouldn't make sense for them to try to make us better.

I don't even know where to start. I agree fair, organic, business competition can help.
But having a better product without direct business competition has its huge advantages also. Your one failing point is you don't invest money in a company that is in direct competition with you selling the same product right down the street. By doing so you are increasing the likihood that your assistance helping your competition will put you out of business which in the long term far outweighs any dividends aquired by your investment.
You continually mention investing outside your business but fail to mention that it is your direct competitor which inherently would not lead to all those conclusions you list. There is no correlation with competitive investment and 'avoiding stale products'., 'increasing product styles and variations' 'increasing industry talent'.
You can accomplish this by internal competition of your superior product, talent, and resources, without spending business capital competing vs direct industry competition that you help prop up.

this literally doesn't make any sense at all. why would you say this?

I definitely see what the OP is getting at here, and while it may seem like a difficult idea right now, with the USA team hardly dominating CONCACAF competition, IF the USA ever wants to be a serious contender on the world stage it is very important they play top competition on a consistent basis. A good comparison is in the world of college football. All the elite teams recruit the same talent nowadays for the most part (although there are still regional bias in recruiting, most elite teams have a country wide recruiting approach). With this in mind, all of the elite teams have at least a fairly similar level of talent on their team. And yet the SEC has recently dominated the college football scene, winning the last 5 national titles. Does the SEC have some magic formula for winning football games? Is the talent in the southeast really that much better than the talent everywhere else? Or does playing teams like Florida, Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Georgia, etc. every week make the teams much more battle tested and ready to perform on the top stage? Even the minnows of the SEC can't really be overlooked. Because of this, any team coming out of the SEC is far more prepared for the big games, and that has shown in the last few years. Why can't this same principle apply to soccer? On top of that, the talent from the rest of the region can raise the overall quality of the MLS, creating more competition within the league itself, and likely increasing it's popularity, which would have a serious impact on the game overall in the USA. So to me, IF we want to be legit players on the world stage, it makes a lot of sense. If were content with being kings (or 2nd best as it appears right now) of CONCACAF and nothing more, then no, this idea doesn't make any sense.

Yes, it is possible to strive for more than winning the group, but when you've never done it before, it is an accomplishment.

You are correct! Nobody said it wasn't an accomplishment. But that was in the past. This thread is about the future!

MLS is a business. It should develop whatever talent makes it more profitable and more popular.

Bottom line....does this help US Soccer? Maybe it helps others as well. But if it helps US Soccer then it helps US Soccer!

We do enough just ruining youth players in our country. Why ruins the rest of the region?

Revenue sharing in many other major sports?