Clubs in big European leagues are interested in our raw materials, not our 28 year old MLS veterans. They're not interested in 28 year old Belgians eitheUSMNTer Walker Zimmerman was a free agent two years ago. He travelled around Europe looking for a job and nobody in Scandinavia would even bite. And he's a USMNT-caliber player that got a lot of playing time in MLS. The academy players are what clubs want. You can say Euro clubs aren't happy with their buys...................but Weston McKennie was at the FCD academy for 7 years (2009 to 2016). Schalke got him on a free. Seems like a great deal to me!!!!! Weston McKennie is as much of an "FCD product" as Brek Shea was when he was sold to Stoke. McKennie was at FCD quite a bit longer than Brek was. Why pay for Kellyn Acosta when you can get Weston McKennie for free? We all have to take a step back. The MLS homegrown initiative only started in 2007. Before that academies were essentially community outreach programs. So real investment has happened for only about a decade. Weston McKennie is sorta the leading edge of the class of kids that have been developed in a world with the development and MLS academy structure. Prior to that there were very few kids coming out of academies that looked like MLS prospects. They all became NCAA players and most leveled out there. We're at a situation now where academies like NYRB, RSL, FCD, LAG, Philly, etc. appear to have waves of kids coming thru they need to figure out what to do with. Its easy to find playing time for 1 youth product (like a Kellyn Acosta in 2013 with FCD). its quite another to find playing time for 10. Some clubs like NYRB and RSL have done well getting USL teams started early. Others have done great at the academy level, but not so much with the next step..........FCD is the poster child. Although they still start Reggie Cannon every game and will finish top 3 in homegrown minutes. Whatever. And half the league is behind desperately trying to catch up. There's a lot of investment going on. We just can't snap our fingers and be Germany or Spain. Its going to be a gradual process. If this youth development game was easy, everybody would be doing it. I know people don't want to hear this, but to some degree patience is required. That's not a virtue we're known for on these boards. Or Americans are known for in general And lest we forget, youth development and players sales isn't a panacea to fix our USMNT ills. What nation is known for its youth development and sales to big leagues. How about Holland? How are they doing at the World Cup?
You never ever see this type of discussion about basketball or football. Do you know why? Kids just do it themselves. It's in the DNA of America for kids to be playing these sports by themselves all the time, making themselves better players without having to bring massive organizations to bear, getting kids spend countless hours in the backyard practicing by themselves. Have you ever tried to get your kid to do something they don't want to do? Nightmare. The player and maybe his or her family are responsible for the player's development. Until more kids are dying to play professional soccer like they are dying to be like Mike or play WR for the Dallas Cowboys, we are going to have problems in the pipeline.
This is a good point. Wasn't MLS created to help the USMNT? Now they don't think they need to help the USMNT because their league is roughly equivalent to Denmark's league? Would the Danish League executives say they don't need to help the Danish NT because they have a 15-20 league in the world? And I agree with your league Cup idea. Thats what Mexico does. They do something similar in Brazil. I think its a good idea. But I also think that the teams have to take more responsibility in how they build their rosters.
It's simple. American player development isn't prioritized because the incentives aren't there for it to be prioritized.
Never do I say that the ultimate responsibility for the individual development player doesn’t depend on the individual player. I do say, however, the collective development is much different. And MLS and USSF should strive to compete to be the best in the world... something that basketball and football don’t have to worry about as much. A total laissez faire attitude is why we didn’t qualify for the World Cup. So, some structure needs to be put in place if we want to reach our goal to be the best in the world. There needs to be a plan or pathway for success. Currently, there is no plan or pathway in most cases. In other words, I’m not saying we force kids to practice 10 hours a day or coaches to start every brat whose parent wants to involve them in the sport. I am saying for those cases of the players with the talent and will to succeed, they also need opportunity. And, right now, we are failing the players with the talent and the will because there is less than optimal opportunity.
The raw materials are just not there. European and South American countries, do well because they have good systems in place, but more because they have the raw materials of kids who will spend as long as it takes to become as technically good as they can be. This all comes back to the fact that in the US, youth soccer is so there so that parents can make sure that there is at least 2 or 3 hours per week where their kid isn't playing Fortnite.
I don't disagree with you at all. If you look at programs in Iceland and Belgium who decided to maximize training time (to champion the 10,000 hour rule) and blend football training into education, they start with a very willing participant. They spend 3-4 hours a day at critical periods of youth development on playing the game. They can do this because the kids there will do whatever it takes to become a pro soccer player. There are just not that many kids in the US who have that mindset. Substitute the word basketball or football, or in some areas baseball for soccer, and you'd have kids lining up around the block to be in a program like that.
I think MLS could do more for player development, and I agree that more linkages between lower levels and MLS teams could help get players some field time before they are quite ready for MLS. However, player development is something that starts long before a kid is fighting for minutes on an MLS team, and if a kid can't earn minutes in MLS in his early 20s, he's not likely a player who's going to really help the national team anyway. Coaches have a job to do, win. And if the young Americans can help them do their job, they will get minutes. If they aren't good enough, it's absurd to say they have to play them anyway. Teams investing more in youth set-ups is a positive sign and hopefully will bear fruit. But, if we're talking about developing players, the most important thing to me is that it starts long before a kid rises to professional level. You can't make up for lost time trying to turn a poorly skilled 20 year old into a highly skilled 25 year old. That has to happen much earlier, so blaming MLS coaches for not developing players through just throwing kids on the field who aren't good enough to win their spot and thinking that's somehow going to make a big difference just seems like a red herring to me. Also, the Premier League hasn't hurt the England team. They have a World Cup win in 1966, over 50 years ago, and have basically been ho hum since then, before and after the Premier League. They actually failed to qualify three times since that win, all before the Premier League started up. I actually think they'd likely be even further behind the rest of the world if they isolated themselves and just kept playing lob it down the wing and cross with each other for these last however many years rather than actually opening things up and exposing their players to the best ideas from across the planet.
I always enjoy reading your insight on comments...I will add that I hear that patience is necessary. That’s why I hope I’m clear that I see much of what I propose as long term goals. However, I do want to hear, here and now, what is the mission? How are we working towards that? ...while patience is necessary so is the desire to improve.
I think that there's been an enormous amount of investment from MLS clubs in youth development. There's just a lag between the investment and the end product being measurable. The current lack of 28 year old international caliber USMNT-eligible players is a reflection of MLS development programs 10-15 years ago. Not today's development academy and MLS. maybe I just take a longer view because I've been watching the sport in this country since the early 80s. The difference in investment in youth development between 2000 and 2018 is astonishing alone. Its night and day. So when i see people complaining about it I want to take them to a time machine and show them 1988 (only 30 years ago). I actually think we're seeing quite some progress this year as a number of clubs are giving a lot of opportunities to youngsters (RSL, Philly, SKC, etc.) The numbers are moving in the right direction. Last year there was also an inverse relationship between number of minutes given to homegrowns and making the playoffs. The only club near the top in homegrown minutes to make the playoffs was NYRB, and they were the 6 seed in the East. Those were homegrown minutes not U20 or U23 minutes, but we get the idea. THis season the data seems to have shifted so far. SKC, RSL, and FCD are all in playoff positions in the West for instance. Just like every league on earth, not all of the clubs are going to "buy in" to youth development as a primary means of player acquisition. So yes there are going to be clubs like Portland that don't seem to give a damn. THey believe they can win MLS cup without it (and have). One can require Portland to spend X dollars on their academy, X dollars on a USL team, have X domestic players on their first team roster.............................and still not have them take youth development seriously. I don't think setting up quotes and forcing teams to do it is necessary. The benefits should be self evident from the point of view of the business as well as results on the field. The data is pretty clear. You're not going to be able to acquire YOUR domestic version of Tyler Adams unless you develop him yourself. They're not available in the draft anymore. He can help you win and then you can sell him for money to reinvest.
Not to be Debbie Downer here, but as we pat ourselves on the back on how good MLS has become, there is only ONE player and he was a substitute who played and was part of a winning team over the first stretch of matches at the World Cup. So, the players keeping players on the bench are a far cry away from world beaters.
I would say about 95% of the responsibility for development is on the player, specifically their innate gifts (talent) and the desire to leverage those gifts to achieve in the field of soccer (drive). Systems (academies, youth coaching, leagues, etc.) maximize and refine ability; talent and drive are the ingredients. Without these ingredients, it doesn't matter how expensive your academy is. Ability = competence to perform / achieve in a given field (in this case soccer); obtained through a combination of natural talent, drive and guidance. Talent (as it relates to soccer) = God-given athleticism (speed, strength, agility, coordination, reflexes, endurance and resilience) + God-given aptitude (insight into the game, "IQ", the ability to acquire skills quickly and apply acquired knowledge instinctively) Drive = the commitment to put unlimited effort into the achievement of goals, in this case the acquisition of ability. This is uniquely important to soccer, where the technical skills required can only be gained through many hours of self-initiated practice. Talent is a multiplier on effort -- prospects with athleticism and aptitude will acquire ability much quicker and have a higher ceiling for the same level of effort. Systems cannot create talent or drive, these are fixed inputs, so they are limited by the quality of the raw materials (prospects) they are working with.
I like how you define these terms... I’d add though opportunity = a combination of luck; available support through guidance and direction; and a pathway to success. Ultimately, this is the factor that I’m arguing is missing. I’m not ignoring those other factors however crying out that without the opportunity the whole thing falls on itself. Please do not hear me say that talent, drive, and ability are not essential. I am simply trying to say that opportunity is as equally essential.
@Clint Eastwood (for some reason can’t quote your post) On Portland and youth development.... Sure, we can say that Portland shouldn’t necessarily be forced to spend X amount of dollars on playing their youths. However, I would like to see the league put in place the ability for clubs to build superclubs through their youth academies; meanwhile, the Portland’s of the world can lose every game from then on because their talent is far from the level of teams that invested in youth development. I’d like to see the teams that invest in youth have every competitive edge over the teams that don’t.
Renya and others have been arguing that the pool of American youth talent that is available to MLS clubs is in fact way below the available foreign youth talent. Are you arguing that the American youth talent is in fact better than the foreign talent that MLS clubs are acquiring?
I would argue to that comment what is Reyna and company doing to raise that level of American youth development? If the answer is nothing then he needs to be out of a job for someone who wants to see that drastically change.
That's not true. There are more Mexican American kids just in SoCal than total number of kids in Belgium and Iceland together. And weather I guess better than in Iceland. The same in Texas and Florida, Northern California, Arizona and New Mexico. Most of those kids don't care that much about basketball and baseball. In SoCal 99% of all boys (not just Latinos) are playing some kind of soccer dwarfing baseball and basketball. Our totally rotten development system is the principal problem. The higher kids go in that system, the worse coaches they are getting, and will eventually end up with Williams types. At least Bradenton is closed now so many more kids are getting some kind of exposure.
You did not answer my question. Lets start there before we compare what Reyna has done for youth development to anyone else.
If this was the Army, this is how this conversation would go... If you had a Joe (slang for a private) messing up and being a turd, and his team leader said to the squad leader (above a team leader), he’s just not a good soldier.... I can guarantee to you that it wouldn’t just be the Joe who was ‘corrected’ it would be that team leader too for failing to provide the proper leadership to that Joe in order for him to be a better soldier. This is how I view this issue. No one is saying that the players don’t need to do X,Y, and Z to be better players. That part is obvious. The part however that is ignored is that it’s the leadership, the Reyna’s and company, who have failed these players. It’s a disgusting lack of responsibility from leadership to see a problem and do nothing to fix it. And saying, it’s only the player’s responsibility whether or not the collective youth development improves or not, indicates a leadership problem and should not be tolerated.
It in fact is the central point of your whining and now criticism of Reyna. If the young Americans are better than the foreign players that MLS are buying then we should do something about it. If they are not better then it is a non-issue. It is clear that you don't know who Claudio Reyna is and what he tried to do for US youth development.
If you want to have civil discourse we can have that, otherwise you can PM me if you want to get into attacking each other’s character.
Anyone here think the USL plays the biggest role here (besides individual player drive)? The USL is where 90% of our youth is starting out (forget NCAA). Anyone more familiar with their league know what their growth model is like? Only thing I’m aware of is how many new teams are popping up there each year.
I'm not sure this is a useful analogy. The key thing to understand is that there is no one in charge of youth development when considered broadly. There is no hierarchy. (You see this confusion over in the some of the USSF threads. The USSF isn't in charge, it's clearing house for information, basically a trade organization with some regulatory functions tacked on, but that's another issue) I think a closer analogy is if we decided that we are not very good at teaching math in this country. We could set up a blue ribbon panel and talk about best practices but there are literally a thousand different schools and colleges, each with their own opinions on what should be done and their own competing goals. Where Iceland has a huge advantage is that they could get everyone who matters in the same room (literally I imagine) and determine what they want to do collectively. The bigger the organization, the harder it is to come to an agreement on what should be done.
Tab Ramos thinks so. https://www.onceametro.com/2018/6/1...idfielder-and-u20-coach-more-than-a-world-cup