Now that we are officially suffering the embarrassment of playing no part in the World Cup for the first time since 1986, what needs to change about US Soccer as currently constituted to avoid a repeat of this again? Clearly very large changes are needed, there is no longer any success or accomplishment to hide the problems behind. If you’re in charge, what do you change?
Fire Sunil, Fire Bruce, Fire the majority of youth coaches. Develop a program built on an identity of working harder than everyone else first and foremost. Bring skill into that, but in CONCACAF you have to fight and this team just didn't. Id like a youth team setup in every state for scouting, developing, and teaching. Not only players but coaches. Finally the changes in MLS are good, but we really need to get rid of the DP rule and allocation. More but those are the biggest things.
Fire Gulati. Merge the leagues. Pro/Rel = competition= better quality players No more "athletes" If you cant control a ball, you can't play soccer technical coaching. No brits.
I would make sure not to lose at home to Mexico and Costa Rica. I'm still in shock we only got 1 point out of those 4 games and of all places it was at Mexico.
Has to start with Gulati. For something like this, you have to cut the head off and bring in a whole leadership group. Heck, after this debacle I'd be OK with Julie Foudy as the head of US Soccer
The Old-boy network FAILED. Bruce Arena, Bob Bradley, Michael Bradley, Richie Williams, etc. Time to clean house. its that simple. Jermaine Jones was the most truthful person for the USMNT. He said two important things: 1) its everyone else's fault but Michael Bradley. 2) You blame the German-Americans and the you love them when they save our ass. German-Americans=1, Pathetic spoiled,nepotism inspired Old-Boy Network=0
I think we need to look at Iceland. They are doing it with a population the size of Stockton? Jeez. That is actually true. Whatever they are doing we should be able to do. It isn't about tracking down physical freaks. It isn't about finding a needle in a haystack. It is about training your hay to be needles.
Ultimately if you want a world-class player pool you need to build a world-class coaching pool first. That's a long-term project in its own right and I'm not sure it's one that any of the other second-tier countries have truly been able to crack. There isn't One Weird Trick that will take us to the next level.
The thing is, the other countries have nepotism and outdated structures too. UEFA isn't exactly a breath of fresh air. But there are such things as best practices and we ought to be able to get some people with a track record for evaluating talent development to evaluate practices for development. Seriously, look at Iceland. They aren't blowing people away. But they have someone at the world level in every position. Population 334,000. Let's just say 50% women and only 25% of men are between 18-35. They are pulling from a pool of ~45,000 men. That literally means 1 in every 1000 men in the age group is either on the national team or close.
Not much you can do when soccer interest is still niche overall in the U.S. Even if MLS makes some needed changes, I'd say a good 30-40 more years are needed before we can even begin to have the built-in culture where soccer is important on a day to day level like other sports are here.
I think scouting needs to get more serious, and in more parts of the country. There are young players in California, Texas, New York, and all over who are as dedicated as anybody else, but get overlooked because the travelling fees are too high. Thay kind of approach needs to end to have any chance of joining the elite
The board elects a president every 4 years. At last check Steve Gans and Paul Lapoint have said they were running. Election happens in February. Hoping for Gans who sounded like he would really do a good job.
A much smaller change than the scale of what other people are commenting. But if you are over 32 right now, consider them phased out. No more Guzan, No more Howard, no more Dempsey, etc. In fact, i'd extend that to anyone 30+. A bit more controversial, but i wouldn't call up Bradley or Altidore for at least 3 years (+ the remaining months of this cycle). Then when those 3 years are up, and they are in good form and look like good enough options to try out for the team, give them a chance at a bench spot. But I want them to go back to step 1 and truly work to re-earn a spot on this national team. I'd honestly flush out a lot of players on this team for that matter. Unless your name is Pulisic or Yedlin you are either gone or you're fighting to even have a spot on this squad. If there's anything I won't accept it's complacency, and that word epitomizes everything wrong with what happened this cycle. Altidore and Bradley were supposed to be the leaders of this team going forward and they failed. At this point I'd rather send in an U-20 squad who's willing to fight than trot out a squad like this again.
The reality is we need to start over from the top to the bottom with soccer in this country. Everyone at US Soccer needs to be fired from the top with Gulati all the way down to youth level coaches. Don Garber needs to go as well. Taylor Twellman made a great point about Germany. Here is an older article about what Germany did. We need to follow that mold. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/may/23/germany-bust-boom-talent
I agree with you. I too would rather play with a U20 or U23. Bradley needs to go. He can give you one good game and 5 bad games. You don't need someone like that. Not has his level dropped over the years, he will be 34 or 35 by 2022. He is not needed anymore.
Altidore walked away when he lost the ball that led to the 2nd T&T goal and Bradley walked the entire game including in crunch time. Bruce Arena should never be allowed to coach again in the US. He entitled his spoiled players.
I see people everywhere saying copy Germany or copy Iceland. We have a huge country with a massive population, why don't we split it up into different zones and have each zone use their own method of developing players. Maybe the German way will work well for the Northeast. Maybe the Southwest should use Mexican methodology. Maybe the Southeast should emulate Spain's development style. Maybe the Northwest should go with Iceland's system. This way we are not putting all our eggs into one basket. We can develop different types of players and if one system is a total failure, we have others to fall back on.
1. Fire Gulati 2. Fire Bruce 3. Clean house at USSF. Everyone goes save for Hackworth. 4. No more MLS old boys. Arena/Bradley/Sigi tree is forbidden. 5. End pay to play. 6. Sweeping changes to youth program. Emphasis on tactical & technical. Minimize results & games atcan early age. 7. Merge USL/NASL & go pro-rel. 8. Some kind of MLS rule change mandating X amount of Americans have to actually play.
Yeah Hackworth has been fired numerous times and has always landed a better position in USMNT...He probably is in line for 1st team coach now...