So the U20s defeated Guatemala today 10-0. Allowing no shots on goal. So far, three clean sheets, 19 goals scored.
No socioeconomic diversity. This must be the all-upper class team. Perhaps we could make an all-middle/lower class team as well. I don't know about you but I have hopes for some evolution in the women's game in the US. Something beyond having the biggest players, and largest player pool, in the youth game and having them be limited to running through all of the tiny programs in the Concacaf like a bull in a china shop. I know earlier some were clamoring for more speed but I would settle for a midfielder that can keep possession, move into open space, and find feet with precise, accurate passing. I'd like to see a youth game that goes beyond the one tactic being deployed, find the target forward. But hey, you are right, they won handily. So, nothing could possibly be wrong after they pushed through CR and Jamaica, who have a combined female soccer population the size of Dallas, 9-0.
I agree. I realize there is a short learning curve when u coach one of these teams. In the few weeks u have them in camp it's hard to build an offense and gel the team. To this end u need a standardized systems throughout the U program. As the players advance thru the age groups theyd already have the basis of the offense the team will play and just need to keep refining their skill. Instead they seem to use the least common denominator system and start new each cycle.
This is exactly what USSF has been trying to do, with their women's YNT administrative reorganization (Ellis and Heinrichs), the move to coaches who are not college coaches, and the Reyna curriculum -- calling for a 4-4-2, with a diamond in the midfield, formation and the capability of morphing it into a 4-3-3. Whether one likes who is in charge at the top or not (I don't), they have the stated intention of doing what you are calling for. But, especially in this country, trying to push the system down to the lower levels is difficult (if even possible) and will take at best a long time. And, of course, within that there always has to be some room for tinkering based on the specific players you have.
I don't think the Mexico games are being broadcast at all. They at least haven't mentioned it on their twitter.
I think it goes beyond that even. The support for young girls in sports seems to be best in North America and maybe Germany. A girl who just recently moved here from Denmark showed up for my daughter's soccer team practice and the dad was telling my husband that the opportunities for girls to play sports were very limited compared to this area, and there was almost no encouragement for girls to play sports at all. This was surprising to me as I thought all of Europe would be almost equal or maybe even better than what we have here in the U.S.
old mantra that's easy to repeat. however, (this, from me, who doesn't like their play that much) it ignores, as cp points out, the real direction of the program. it also ignores the way the team has played. they have not, by and large, lumped the ball forward to find a target. it ignores that asking for more speed does not mean asking for less technical skill. i, at least, was asking that we do not neglect our speed advantage as we ramp up technique. yes, i know it's hard. just asking for it.
I was in England a couple of years ago, and we stayed with a family the wife of which had played professional soccer there. They were a sophisticated working class family. They had a daughter, about age 10, who clearly was an excellent athlete and wanted to play sports with her older brother. I asked the mother if her daughter played soccer. She said, "No, very few girls do that here, it just isn't done. It's nothing like in the United States." She clearly was sad about it, but very resigned. I was really surprised. I felt like she was telling me that the vast majority of people there felt there was something wrong with a girl who wanted to play soccer.
Since soccer is the #1 sport in most countries, there's a certain macho-ness about it. Would we like our own daughters play American Football??? We probably would have to but the catch is there's very few girls football league's around. Girls soccer is very popular in some of the Scandinavian countries though; Norway reports that 1 of every 4 girls plays on some kind of soccer team(at any given year). There's slightly over 1 million females that play soccer last year in Germany(compare that to the US with it's 3 & half times the population)
For girls/women, the USA leads Germany in total numbers, if not by total percent of population. Most sources say soccer is now the #4 sport for boys behind basketball, football, and baseball ( almost tied) and #3 sport for girls behind Basketball and baseball/softball, (almost tied). Baseball and Football have declined slightly recently. Most census figures give around 13-14 million soccer players, or about 17% of kids playing team sports. I think most censuses count mainly grade school and high school sports. FIFA counts a bit differently. The FIFA big count says the USA is #2 in the World for total players behind only China, with about 24.5 million players. Around 4 million of those are registered with the USSF, which figure is also #2 in the World. FIFA says Germany has a bit over 16 million players (#4). A bit over 6 million of them are registered, which makes them the World leaders in Registered players. Brasil has around 13 million total, and around 2 million registered players (#3) http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/bigcount/allplayers.html The DFB says that about 1,022,000 of their registered players are female. http://www.fifa.com/womensworldcup/destination/footballgermany/leaguesclubs.html Of the 4+ million registered players in the USA, 3+ million are registered with the USYSA. The split by gender for that organization is around 52%/48%, or just slightly more boys. Most of the rest are registered with the AYSO. http://www.usyouthsoccer.org/media_kit/keystatistics/ Extrapolating for the other million or so registered players gives pretty close to 2 million registered girls and women in the USA, which is about twice as many as Germany. The USA participation in soccer has about doubled in the last 20 years. The only sport growing faster is Lacrosse, which has doubled since 2000. Lacrosse has about a million players in both genders.
FIFA undertook a detailed survey of Womens soccer in the World in 2006 which give a country-by-country breakdown. There may be a more recent one, but I haven't found one. It does give different numbers than adding up what different associations give now, but the ratios are largely similar. http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/afdeveloping/women/93/77/21/factsheets.pdf Some interesting facts on the first pass through. In Germany, there were about 300K u18 players and 650K adult players, or over twice as many adult women playing the sport as Youth. In the USA, the total was given at about 2.6 million women. That ratio decidedly favors youth. There were 1.56 million youth players and 1.04 million adults. So while in 2006 there are over 5 times as many youth players, there were less than twice as many adult players as in Germany. And to answer cpt's wondering about participation in England, the study showed that there were 112K female youth players and a little over 17K adult players in 2006. England now has just under a million and a half total registered players, which puts participation by women at around 7.5% of the total - almost all of it youth.
FIFA undertook a detailed survey of Womens soccer in the World in 2006 which give a country-by-country breakdown. There may be a more recent one, but I haven't found one. It does give different numbers than adding up what different associations give now, but the ratios are largely similar. http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/afdeveloping/women/93/77/21/factsheets.pdf Some interesting facts on the first pass through. In Germany, there were about 300K u18 players and 650K adult players, or over twice as many adults. In the USA, the total is given at about 2.6 million women, that ratio decidedly favors youth. There were 1.56 million youth players and 1.04 million adults. So while in 2006 there are over 5 times as many youth players, there were less than twice as many adult players as in Germany. And it appears that in Germany the numbers have shown a modest gain in Germany and a large increase in the USA. And to answer cpt's wondering about participation in England, the study showed that there were 112K female youth players and a little over 17K adult players in 2006. England now has just under a million and a half total registered players, which puts participation by women at around 7.5% of the total - almost all of it youth.
thanks for those stats! I got the feeling it's very incomplete. But it's interesting to note that in other countries adults still play rec soccer(or other sports), while in the US we mostly hang up our uni's after the glory days of high school to joining the local gym(to keep in shape). The stats for US involvement(from your 1st post) are very impressive as many millions of boys & girls play soccer, but I do believe it does max out as early as u6. I've coached my girls in youth soccer at probably the biggest league in our state, and we had 21 u6 teams(playing 4v4). Though it still was pretty decent 8 teams for u12(8v8), it falls flat when the kids finally hit the full side field at u14(only two league teams). This is the time when mid school soccer starts though(so most give up on rec). The one stat I'm familiar with is that aprox 380,000 girls play high school soccer. This would be even higher but only 12K of the close to 18K high schools have girls soccer teams. Both basketball & volleyball have higher involvement but that's because many of the so called high schools have student bodies under 100, 50, or even 20 pupils. It's worth mentioning too; there's also a lot of ticky tacky part time leagues out there for youth's that don't necessarily have to follow the USSF rules & regulation or members of their own states soccer assoc(all they need is to be insured). This includes city rec departments, ymca's, the christian Upwards Org. and even the premier/select US Club Soccer. A lot of kids will play in the fall for one of those groups but then join a more official org. league by spring. So it's hard to get an even close count on how many kids to play soccer in any given year.