Then let’s look at the soccer economy and processes of our country. MLS had done almost no youth development until ‘07 when clubs were granted the right to sign their own players. This means that pay to play clubs were almost totally responsible for the processing of our raw material. These nascent pro youth teams were also in only 11 American markets at the time and their seriousness varied widely. Youth development is an iterative process that has long lead times. Meaning it will take 6 years for the effects of a full system to start to pay out and constant tweaks are needed, especially for a new setup. I think most would say that NYRB had done the most work prior to ‘07 and they’ve had one of the best programs. They’ve had the most lead time and chance to make improvements. So kids born around 95-97 and after in a handful of places have had the benefit of a pro setup in its infancy. Today they are 21-23. Guys older than that got benefits later in their development, usually the ages when tactical instruction is more important, and our coaches especially suck at that. Pro development doesn’t only help the kids on those teams, it raises the level of competition for everyone.
Zooming in another level to the individual youth to pro pathway. Their are structural issues that effect efficiency but fundamentally the process is the most important part, without that there can be no systematic production of pros. It’s not just about having youth teams, it’s about the full process required to get them into the first team. From talent identification to first team integration, ownership and management needs to understand what that looks like and be committed to the process. If not you get the Galaxy. An organization with the talent pool, facilities and even the youth coaching to provide a steady stream of MLS quality starters and regular national team contributors but doesn’t even have a good RB for its first team. They tried to fix their process with a second team but the coaching their was not what it needed to be and there was still a disconnect with the first team.
Beyond the pool of talent we can also look at some specific key individuals to see how, beyond the missing generation, we’ve had some flameouts. From say the ‘07 U20’s until the ‘13 team we’ve had a handful of guys who had the skills to contribute but didn’t put it together: Adu obviously comes to mind. If he had just been as relatively successful a pro as Feilhaber he too could have been dropped from the team by Klinsmann, but at least we would have had some more moments of attacking genius. Brek Shea, based on talent should have been our left sided counter attacking threat, he’s got a low soccer IQ and it doesn’t seem like he cared enough to learn. Gyau, another speed option but at least he was cut down by injuries instead of imbecility. Agudelo, like Gyau I still hold out hope but he made a bad decision to not try to stay in Holland and I don’t know if he will pull a Buddle and put it together. Renken to me looked like the heir to John O’Brien... he surpassed him on the injury front. Luis Gil, go back and watch him play as a 15-17 year old, completely unrecognizable as a player now, the spark is gone, for me he was the Kreis canary in the coal mine. Omar Salgado, a 6’4” ST with the skill and wheels to play wide. Started to break in with Vancouver, something happened and he was banished, injuries, loans, off the map. Rubin breaks through in Holland, good play but his finishing abandons him, injuries, coaching change, move, move, trying to claw his way back. Junior Flores goes to a team beyond his level and just fades into obscurity only to pop up in rumors he’s moving. Then there’s Holden, this one hurts the most because he got there, it wasn’t potential that got snuffed out, he was doing it and had to retire early.
Where did sidefootsitter go anyway? Agree with arrogance, and coupled with complacency with no accountability , eventually this period inevitable. It just awhile to expose the dysfunction. One thing I don’t see mentioned is our development and progress doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s all relative to how fast and efficiently other nations are upping their programs ( and most relevant Concacaf teams...) MLS has been a tide that has lifted all ships, but has especially benefited foreign countries players. Other countries across the world ( as evidenced by this past worldcup) are narrowing the gap on traditional top teams. There is more parity more now than ever ( which is a good thing.) its a bad thing for us because we aren’t hanging with others progress. That is the most worrisome and doesn’t get mentioned much....
I did a quick search to find out what happened to IMG Bradenton and apparently they closed down their official soccer program that had been used previously due to the multitude of US developmental academies that now exist. Well, apparently we might need to revisit a revamped version of the concept. They still offer the boarding school/soccer program in some form for a mere $75,000 (no scholarships offered as per their website) a year! Cant wait to sign my kids up! Perhaps some sort of subsidized equivalent where the kids can attend local public schools (less cost) could be worked out. Ideally run by experienced european coaches that have revitalized their youth programs (ie. France Fontaine academy.) I would love to see some experimental program like the above.
I would also suggest that there was excessive and unrealistic under-valuing of how good Reyna, Dempsey, McBride, LD, JOB even Bease, Boca, Sanneh, Bradley and Dolo were. Regular starters/regular rotation players on B1/EPL/Serie A teams are not as common as some expected. And the pieces fit well together. But we also have players trying to play "better" than the team as a whole is capable of (against top teams - we can play possession out of the back against most fair-to-middling sides.) We seem not able to adjust our tactics to play ugly/tactical/results oriented soccer. Remember when the Netherlands went nuts because we played such a cynical game against them in a pre-WC friendly? But Arena was not above practicing deliberately crappy footie against good teams cause he knew we'd need that once in a while. In some ways the players (and perhaps the coaching staff) might be suffering a bit from believing their own hype. It is great to aspire to Barca football, it is another thing to think you can execute it against England. (Hyperbole, of course, but suggestive of the issues to me.)
Central America turned its eyes to South America: they're close, culturally not too different, and you can get good coaching talent from there for cheap. It's slowly paying for them. We turned our eyes to Europe, specially England and Germany. They're not so close, culturally not too different, but to get good coaching talent from either you need money. A lot of it. So we got their rejects. There was a time when any Brit expat could put his soccer academy and people would take their kids there because of his accent. It's worked to make our younger teams strong, based on the emphasis on physicality. But for the older teams, where skill & intelligence matter? No, not at all. Our players are, for the most part, dumb as hell. We could partially compensate with a very good sense of camaraderie, but that's gone now.
I think you're way off base here. "Camaraderie" manifests itself when teams are well-drilled, know what they are doing, and know what their teammates are doing at all times. This year under Sarachan, there was no plan. Pulisic literally came out and said it. Players were not instructed or were not instructed well. There was almost no semblance of an overarching plan in any of the games we played. It matches the perspective of some viewers that our players seem to play as a collection of individuals, rather than a unit. We've seen a complete overhaul of the player pool, but a benefit of that is that the players all clearly like each other. Many of them have grown up playing on Youth National Teams for years. Some play in the US, where they are peers with other team members. Others are among a tight-knit exPat community overseas. Social media is filled with stories of these players bonding on and off the field, from YNT prospects you've never heard of going to Bieber concerts with Pulisic, to Tyler Adams being comforted after a loss by YNT teammate EPB. There is nothing to suggest that this team does suffers from the same self-loathing that tore us apart in 2017, and there is a mountain of evidence to suggest that they are a very tight-knit group.
I was talking up to our last meaningful match. I completely ignored the Sarachan era. At this point we've been in limbo since the Trinidad game, as far as I'm concerned.
Oh, then yeah, we obviously lost it in T&T. And since all the ugliness that's come out as a result of that game, clearly it wasn't just the failure at T&T, there were long-standing issues that simmered for perhaps an entire cycle, ups and downs. I would say that limbo is preferable to hell, right? It makes a difference if all or most of the guys who were in that locker room are no longer there...
There were some others. McBride, JOB, Mathis, Dolo, yes Mike Bradley. When Donovan broke through in 02 I thought we were going to produce a player like that every WC cycle. We haven't produced one since. Our talent right now is exceedingly average. Qualification for Qatar is going to be challenging. The program cannot afford another bad hire for coach. We haven't had a tactician since Milutinovic. I think it's time for another.
I'm going to cherry pick. Many of these sentiments I either agree with or are correct. To summarize: Talent in the US exists despite not because of the system in place. The system in some cases may in fact hurt more than it helps. The concept that MLS 'youth academies' will help the USSF is exactly the problem. 1. They exist to help, first the MLS owners, team, then MLS collective. 2. They have absolutely ZERO business mixing. This is like a church and state issue for me. Unless MLS is in the business of winning world cups. Unless USSF gives MLS the directive to win the world cup by 2022 or be fined $450,000,000. MLS is not beholden to the players or their families or their individual success. MLS exists so that KRaft can throw anti-semitism matches and cash in on chanukah crosses to the box. Whatever, it exists to make profits for owners, not make players better. The very second corporate and association interests were mixed it was, is and will continue to be a detriment to the USMNT. And as evidence now proves out, it is in fact a massive detriment. Why? Because MLS found a far superior, less expensive and more manageable product to the south. Just like chinese manufacturing goods. One could make a very strong case that MLS has been the single biggest force in ruining individual and team progress in the united states.
I know MLS has a professional 'hit' out on JK and all his minions, JJ for example, but Bob Bradley benched Feilhaber early and often. Also, while you and MLS guys like you were mentioning little digs like these, you were also publicly asking why Cameron starts against Belgium instead of Beckerman. Somehow NONE of you mentioned that Bob Bradley exiled Berckerman in his prime for his son. You never mentioned Bob's incompetence at having zero defensive midfielder to coddle his sons game ruined the best generation of US attackers. Not once. Where was that analysis when you are crucifying JK for using a tactical sub when Dreds never sees the pitch for 6 years under Bob? Silence.
Whether MLS has retarded American player development is possible. It's undeniable it has been a boon to our Concacaf opposition.
In terms of "where it all went wrong," I see this as the second-best answer. MLS had been instrumental in the careers of so many US stars of the previous generation (Donovan, Dempsey, Beasley, Howard, etc.), so when MLS lost interest in young Americans, it really threw us for a loop. But I think that the best answer is that the pay-to-play DA destroyed our pipeline by driving the cost of participation went through the roof. All of those guys I listed grew up with very modest means but had still managed to squeeze into our system. In the higher-cost world, the next generation of similar kids no longer could. The good news is that even though our system is still massively dysfunctional, neither of these problems is quite so bad now. Top prospects have figured out that they need to leave the country in order to develop, and a few free-to-play MLS set-ups are cranking out prospects in a way that none of the pay-to-play ones ever do. We're only barely scratching the surface of our potential, but this is still America. Our potential is amazing.
True as this may be, we should still develop our tactical strategy based upon our pool and not some desire for appearance. We may not have the same counter-attacking abilities as we had previously but we clearly don't have the horses to run a possession game with top teams. Not even close. Hopefully, GB acknowledges this and doesn't try to make us appease those who care about style over substance.
The change in European academy rules hurt too. That was a legit option, and guys like JOB had shown it to be viable if not beneficial. As more American kids saw that MLS was not going to be a waltz into the starting line-up, I would have expected more youngsters going the Euro academy route - but without a dual passport it's impossible. As Green, Zelalem, etc. have show "just" getting in an academy is not a golden ticket, but as Wood, Pulisic, Green and Zelalem (and others) have also shown, having more than one route to St. Ives is not a bad thing.
After all the hand wringing over JK not featuring Kljestan and Feilhaber, Arena comes in and does not feature Kljestan and Feilhaber in competitive matches. Kljestan actually played more minutes for Klinsmann in HEX 2018 than for Arena! Feilhaber did get 8 competitive minutes for Arena in HEX 2018
Yeah, JOB's game had Ajax written all over it ... being part of their system was a match made in heaven. Btw, even though Sargent plays a different role, I feel like he has echoes of O'Brien in him. Maybe it's just the puffy red hair, but they also seem to approach the game the same way.
I feel sorry for this kid. There are spells for the USMNT where he will be 1. the best defender. 2. the best defensive midfielder. 3. the best creator. 4. and the best finisher. Unfortunately, what he is not is the best defense, then pass to himself, then create for himself then finish for himself. Somewhere along that string of 'bests' the ball will have to go to Trapp, or Weah or Weston or Adams and it will die. During his entire youth career I saw him time and time again make incredibly smart, creative plays, set up the perfect pass, only to have one of the many, many bonefooted running backs in our system ruin the play.
This phrase alone made dropping in on BigSoccer worthwhile ... so many Corey Ashes, Danny Cruzes, and Brian Ownbys. I think you're being way too dismissive about Weah, Weston, and Adams, though. Those guys are gonna be good. (It was maddening to watch our U17s sit Weah behind Ayo Akinola.)
Weston will play better for country than club, when motivated. Adams, honestly, I don't get the hype, but I will keep the book open. Weah for me is the biggest international american wishsong in 10 years. If we can use the Auba style striker, then he might pan out.
$75K a year attracts the Riverdale crowd. If we want the children of the Trumps, the Rockefellers, the Sinclairs, the Kochs to play the beautiful game, it's not a bad idea to make academies very exclusive. Heck we could become the first country to put class back into the sport, as it used to be 130 years ago. Call your personal valet to tie your cleats, and ask for a Dom Perignon break every 15 minutes.