US needs minority programs??

[Riotom9]

Is anyone else getting a little bemused at hearing this over and over again from Gulati and others? I certainly agree that we need to focus development and player scouting among all walks of life and look where there is exceptional skill.

The whole parallel to the USA inner-city basketball players and the poor Brazilian kids playing on clay dust outside of Rocinha is fairly obvious. But it still seems to me like this program is being touted as one of our key initiatives and that we should forget about trying to educate and lead the rest of the country into proper learning methods, less formal environments, and simply encouraging them to play more w/o adults around.

Maybe it is just because I'm from Texas and have seen a drastic increase in marketing in the Spanish language, but Gulati's comments that US Soccer needs to start printing all of their 'material' in Spanish as a key initiative for development seems a little misplaced.

There are many hispanic-only leagues in these areas, and while the talent does seem more concentrated since there is 1 hispanic team for every 2-3 'open' teams, all I see is a continuation of the central american culture that has a heavy emphasis on dribbling, no emphasis on a passing game, and a predilection for 'negative tactics' and simulation.

I understand people look at that and say, 'yes, we need some players that can control the ball', the pass-first mentality is what we're trying to get rid of.

I would argue that you run into the danger in places with no formal direction or guidance of developing talent the way the NBA does. Colleges pick many players for the 'streets' who have fantastic ball control skills, very athletic, and they dominate college. They move on to the NBA and perform well - because that is the style now played at that level also. And when the USA basketball team plays against countries that have grown up playing AS A TEAM with fundamentals such as shooting and passing, they get their 'street' game handed to them.

While the kids in Brazil do learn ball control, their tactical awareness of when a pass is a better choice is quite impressive. Selfish play isn't always the right play. What I see in the 'minority' areas down here, is that if you pass the ball when there was any chance of dribbling the player (and most likely losing the ball), they you are playing a European game.

[Gioca]

If he wants to do something about this "problem", the thing I'd have him advocate is more soccer pitches in urban areas. There's basketball courts everywhere.

The urban model of a football pitch is a fenced in area (high fences to prevent lost balls), on a pitch of small smooth sandy rocks that requires little maintence. I've seen tons of those in Italy. My city, Hartford, has been getting a lot of immigrants from Albania and Bosnia the past few years. There's a park near where I live, and in there is a grass soccer field. HOWEVER, those Bosnian kids always play on the TENNIS COURTS, because they are used to fenced in areas where they can play small pickup games.

This model is used in South America, Africa, Europe, etc. Yet I haven't seen one in the USA.

[ATLGunner]

Exactly.

[JayDelight729]

If he wants to do something about this "problem", the thing I'd have him advocate is more soccer pitches in urban areas. There's basketball courts everywhere.

The urban model of a football pitch is a fenced in area (high fences to prevent lost balls), on a pitch of small smooth sandy rocks that requires little maintence. I've seen tons of those in Italy. My city, Hartford, has been getting a lot of immigrants from Albania and Bosnia the past few years. There's a park near where I live, and in there is a grass soccer field. HOWEVER, those Bosnian kids always play on the TENNIS COURTS, because they are used to fenced in areas where they can play small pickup games.

This model is used in South America, Africa, Europe, etc. Yet I haven't seen one in the USA.

Exactly. Kids prefer to play in the fenced in area for various reasons. That is what they are used to, play rarely has to stop. If u want to play a truly organized game, then the grass field works out. But to play 3 on 3 or even 6 on 6, playing in a smaller, confined area makes much more sense.

Good post and repped.

[Farm Boy]

There are many hispanic-only leagues in these areas, and while the talent does seem more concentrated since there is 1 hispanic team for every 2-3 'open' teams, all I see is a continuation of the central american culture that has a heavy emphasis on dribbling, no emphasis on a passing game, and a predilection for 'negative tactics' and simulation.

I understand people look at that and say, 'yes, we need some players that can control the ball', the pass-first mentality is what we're trying to get rid of.


You have it perfectly. The U.S. establishment youth soccer fashions come and go, and the fashion now is dribbling as opposed to teamwork and tactical understanding.

At a recent Regional ODP camp, I saw a State with 3 attacking midfield candidates. Two dribbled incessantly, were frequently dispossessed, looked pretty splashy at times, ultimately created very few chances for their teams. The third played a calm, insightful, unspectacular, adult-style game and fed the forwards quite nicely. The ODP staffers took the first two players onto Regional Pool and left the third at home.

I believe they regard the first two players as more technical. In fact, I'm sure that's what the people reading this post will think. I disagree. I have seen the kids enough to know that is not true. In fact, my son tells me that the boy who was not taken is the best juggler that he's ever seen at this age group. His first touch is excellent, and his passes are accurate and well weighted. He also has comfortably the best shot at distance among the three candidates.

I suppose that it's a necessary step for our youth soccer establishment to move from power/thug talent identification to ball tricks identification. But it is still a flawed approach.

Finally, I would not brand this style as exclusively Hispanic, by any means. The Joga Bonita campaign hits everwhere. Several of the most flamboyant players I know are suburban middle-class gringos.

[sidefootsitter]

Is anyone else getting a little bemused at hearing this over and over again from Gulati and others?... Gulati is a Columbia guy, which is a very PC school. He's going to pay hommage to his ideological milieu, like it or not.

Personally, I think that Hispanics joining the system is better than the system joining the Hispanics and last U-17s support that notion pretty well.

[scaryice]

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-27-2006/0004349308&EDATE=

[ClarkC]

There are two ways to improve the youth soccer system: quantity and quality.

For quality, you come up with semi-flexible age-specific training curricula, spread them nationwide, do tons of coaching training, review the effectiveness of coaching training, analyze what clubs do vs. what real soccer academies do, spread the word to clubs and get them to develop players more like soccer acedmies do, fund soccer academies and let different coaching approaches at different academies compete with each other until we figure out what we think the "best practices" should be, get MLS and USL involved with academies, figure out what the appropriate practices are vis a vis number of games and tournaments per year, figure out how to get more good soccer fields, create more street soccer environments, and on and on and on.

For quantity, you develop some outreach programs into Hispanic and black communities.

Which list looks easier to tackle here? :rolleyes:

The problem is, unless the development efficiency goes up (quality), it is highly questionable that a 20% expansion in the youth soccer player pool will work wonders on the international stage for the USMNT. 200%, yes; 20%, no.

We need lots of people working on the very long and very difficult list of things needed to increase quality.

[uiriamu]

In Japan, fields are rarely covered in grass. Instead they play on a dirt field, which is unpleasant in the rain, but otherwise it makes for a fast, technical indoor-style playing surface. They even rake the field sometimes to keep it even (like we do with baseball diamonds). It surely makes passing more predictable than the clumps of weed-grass that I see on most local soccer fields in America. I guess it might deter slide tackling though.

[voros]

I've always argued that whatever problems US Soccer might have in attracting minorities, it is fundamentally a geographical one more than it is an economic or cultural issue.

It would help greatly if we got more player production out of our cities, and this isn't so much because of race, but because there are lots of kids there and we currently don't develop any of them into high level players.

[superdave]

When you're talking about minorities in the US, you're primarily talking about blacks, and Hispanics.

Our team in '06 had double the representation of blacks you'd get from random selection. So, clearly, the problem is NOT that we don't have enough blacks. Numerically, we have too many.

WRT Hispanics, well, we had 3 of 23, which is about their representation in the population.

Statistically, the problem is we don't have enough white players. We need to find a way to get more good white players, that's where we're missing out.

Unless you're the kind of racist who thinks blacks are "natural" athletes.

[ag nigrin]

Gulati is a Columbia guy, which is a very PC school. He's going to pay hommage to his ideological milieu, like it or not.

Personally, I think that Hispanics joining the system is better than the system joining the Hispanics and last U-17s support that notion pretty well.

Gulati is only an adjunct Prof. (part-time-teaches one course) at Columbia... not tenured or anything.. so I am not sure if he is really part of the intelligensia.. but I also think he likes to throw out his connection to the Ivy league to give him legitimacy in intellectual circles...

[ATLGunner]

When you're talking about minorities in the US, you're primarily talking about blacks, and Hispanics.

Our team in '06 had double the representation of blacks you'd get from random selection. So, clearly, the problem is NOT that we don't have enough blacks. Numerically, we have too many.

WRT Hispanics, well, we had 3 of 23, which is about their representation in the population.

Statistically, the problem is we don't have enough white players. We need to find a way to get more good white players, that's where we're missing out.

Unless you're the kind of racist who thinks blacks are "natural" athletes.


Not true, Hispanic is now the largest minority in the U.S., totalling from 17-20% of the poluation, which would mean we should have five hispanics on the team. Yet it should actually be a higher percentage then that. The hispanic population does not need to be taught to appreciate soccer, they already do. We have not even scratched the surface of what this part of the population can do for the team. In terms of African-Americans, I believe we still have a lot of work to do. While the USMNT has a large amount of blacks, the MLS does not. What that shows is that they are fairly successful at their trade. Secondly, I don't think I would be offensive to point out the African-American population is usually much, much better represented in athletics percentage wise then in comparison to its actual percentage of the population.

[Metros#1]

When you're talking about minorities in the US, you're primarily talking about blacks, and Hispanics.

Our team in '06 had double the representation of blacks you'd get from random selection. So, clearly, the problem is NOT that we don't have enough blacks. Numerically, we have too many.

WRT Hispanics, well, we had 3 of 23, which is about their representation in the population.

Statistically, the problem is we don't have enough white players. We need to find a way to get more good white players, that's where we're missing out.

Unless you're the kind of racist who thinks blacks are "natural" athletes.
That is total nonsense. So, we should be happy about filling our “quota” of minority players as opposed to over-representation (I mean way over) in NFL, NBA or even MLB?!?

If other sports can appreciate minority youngsters wanting to be excel in professional sport as a way out of economic hardship and take advantage of a bigger pool of talents, we should do the same thing. While we have a good foundation of youth soccer and we should never give up getting more good white players (because they are good but not because they are white), we definitely can do more to bring in more good minority players.

[Metros#1]

Not true, Hispanic is now the largest minority in the U.S., totalling from 17-20% of the poluation, which would mean we should have five hispanics on the team. Yet it should actually be a higher percentage then that. The hispanic population does not need to be taught to appreciate soccer, they already do. We have not even scratched the surface of what this part of the population can do for the team. In terms of African-Americans, I believe we still have a lot of work to do. While the USMNT has a large amount of blacks, the MLS does not. What that shows is that they are fairly successful at their trade. Secondly, I don't think I would be offensive to point out the African-American population is usually much, much better represented in athletics percentage wise then in comparison to its actual percentage of the population.
You are right. It's wrong for superdave to play a preemptive race card. We all know it's economy hardship related, not race, for more minority youngsters to try for professional sports.

[DCSharksFC]

this sounds a lot like college recruiting

i got some nice letters from minority programs, turned 'em all down

accept me into your college b/c i'm not white?

i was insulted

soccer does need to hit the urban areas

but do we need to say that its geared toward race?

[Stan Collins]

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-27-2006/0004349308&EDATE= I was just looking for exactly that program. It will be interesting to see if the Fed goes the same way.

I looked up the USSF Foundation documents recently, and they have $72 Million in assets, $15 Million of which was earmarked for facility development. Seems they could afford to put out a program of Nike's scale or greater.

[superdave]

Not true, Hispanic is now the largest minority in the U.S., totalling from 17-20% of the poluation,
1. I wanna see a link for that. Remember, we're talking about US citizens, people who can play for the national team. I'd be shocked if the number was that high. I expect it's around 15%.
2. I said "about." Even if your 17% is right, which I doubt, 17% of 23 is 3.91, close enough for "about" to work. I was just making the point that Hispanics show up on the Nats about as much as they do in the general population.

While the USMNT has a large amount of blacks, the MLS does not.
So it's your contention that on your typical MLS team, of the top American players, there are less than ~12% blacks? I'm way too lazy to do all the work to prove that wrong, but I instinctively know that's bull. I look at DC, which has about 12 regulars right now. Erpen, Moreno, and Gomez aren't Nats eligible. Adu and Simms, constituting 22% of the US-eligible regulars, are black. John Wilson and Jamil Walker are two of the next 4-5 players on the roster. So, again, black Americans are waaay OVERrepresented on DC, compared to their percentage of the overall population.

[sidefootsitter]

.... I looked up the USSF Foundation documents recently, and they have $72 Million in assets, $15 Million of which was earmarked for facility development. Seems they could afford to put out a program of Nike's scale or greater. I think there were similar threads in the past (doesn't BS have a very strong deja vu anyway?).

If USSF pitches in with the local school authorities, it could probably build a FieldTurf type pitch for about $250-300K (the entire set-up runs from $700K to $1M) and time share it with the high school football folks.

It should be able to do 10-12 new full-size fields each year this way easily, arguably even more. Maintain the program for a decade or so and you'll have a lot of quality pitches around.

Add some half-size and 3/4 size pitches and this will be a big step forward.

Now, insofar as coaching goes ...

[superdave]

That is total nonsense. So, we should be happy about filling our “quota” of minority players as opposed to over-representation (I mean way over) in NFL, NBA or even MLB?!?
No, I'm just toying with the people who reflexively think blacks are "natural" athletes so it's some kind of crime that they're only twice as likely to show up on our national team instead of, I dunno what would make these people happy, 3 times? 4 times?

I was just making a Modest Proposal.

But those of you who think the problem is we don't have enough blacks on the Nats...remember, they show up at double their rate in the population. What the ******** do you people want???