i didn't see any "fight" in this team. it looks like they thought they'd coast through, and T&T would roll over for them after they pasted panama. i didn't hear lalas' rant about rich tattooed players, but it looks like a lot of these guys expected to go to the world cup because of their salaries or teams they play/ed for... because they deserved it rather than because they went out and won the games. i'm not in the locker rooms or at their training so i don't know, but that's what it looked like to me on my tv.
What good the DA does is control the training focus so it stays on player development and doesn't get influenced by well-intended, but ignorant parents. I suspect the theory behind the DA is that the men's national program only has to focus on developing the best 400,000 players. The weakness is that the best players are identified at age 12 and too often coaches select the "oldest" 12 year-olds (the most physically mature) as the most talented. Physical maturity is not an indicator of talent. Not to mention they generally only select from USSF registered players.
We failed to qualify because we lost 4 matches. We failed to qualify because on the final day, the top three teams each lost to an lesser team. The only way we could have been eliminated was for all three favored teams to lose on that day. Freakish, but stuff happens. We failed to beat Trinidad and Tobago because our team did not press and increase the tempo. The team let T&T set the pace. You could tell Arena was going nuts about it. After the half break, the US came out pressing and immediately scored a goal. Inexplicably the team slowed play down after the goal to once again let T&T set the pace. Everybody must realize this was the problem. Arena subbed Dempsey who had a few chances, but nothing significantly changed regarding the pace of the match. Arena is responsible, but is the brunt of criticism he doesn't deserve. I have views about the effectiveness of individual players, but don't think it is my place to say anything. The players know better than we do what went wrong and I guarantee nobody feels worse about losing than the players involved already do. Finally this is my view: We lost. Soccer is just a game. I am over it already and so should everybody else. Time to focus on what comes next. (All is not lost for US fans as we have the reigning world champion WNT.) Perhaps the networks and USSF will start giving women's soccer the greater attention it deserves.
Each state ODP program is independent. There actually 2 programs per state--boys and girls. Some are better than others.
i believe odp is invitation only in indiana, and i bet you can guess where the players come from. i don't have first hand experience though so i may be wrong. maybe it's because it's indiana, and we're basketball mad here, but if a kid is good, he's going to get found. if he's good, he's probably going to get aau offers when he's young too, but my point is, there's a system in place to find the good players. contrast that with soccer where we don't have an infrastructure to find players unless they're already at a club that's playing in a competitive league or at big tournaments.
Not incorrect criticism but I’d save it for a few years down the road. The DAs have not been in existence long-no choice but to recruit players away. Up until recently the youngest age group was u14. The talent needed to come from elsewhere. Now the line has moved down to u12, I believe.
For some background: we had 150 kids total this fall. 2 travel teams. Rec at 6u, 8u, 10u, and a 14u 3v3 league. Travel teams were 10u and 11u. Fees by birth year: Rec was $55, $40 for additional siblings. Travel was $100 for 2008s, $125 for 2007s (plus uniforms at around $100). Other revenue streams: Rec team sponsors at $150ish per team. We had 19 sponsors this fall. Expenses: Player registration fees with IN Soccer, travel team reg. fees, mowing, paint, portapots Insurance: Covered by IN Soccer Salaries: none Coaches/Travel: I think we agreed to get our travel coaches gas cards, but that's it. Fields/Maintenance: Mowing, paint, "field marshals" to help direct traffic and supervise during game days. Equipment: We replaced several goals this calendar year, bought new club balls. Those were significant expenses. Refs: We use high school boys who are not licensed for our 8u, 10u, and 14u leagues. They cost us $120ish per week. Scholarships: none Other: we paid to have a website built this year. That was a significant expense.
I don’t know if we can delve into the psyche credibly but they didn’t look ready to fight. Further, they didn’t look prepared which is on Arena. Build out, their shape was horrendous. Knowing where to “stand” is Build up 101. The shape was atrocious. Second it was never clear what their instruction was in terms of line of confrontation. We set up high but we’re half hearted in the press. Other times we started to pressure once they crossed midfield. MAYBE they had specific triggers but it looked disorganized and disjointed. RCA has a good perspective-it took a perfect storm to knock us out and we got one. The problems are the same as they ever have been. As I mentioned to others-we’d always had events or players paper over the cracks. Robert Green’s bobble against England. A last second Landon goal vs Algeria, Thorsten Frings ball to hand, Playing Mexico in the knockout in Korea, Howard having a killer game vs Belgium. All events that made it look like we belong or we were close. I’ll be that guy-I’ve said it for years we’re not good enough. How did I know? We didn’t have a player capable of starting for a WC semi-finalist. We didn’t have a player capable of being a major player on a champions league team. Until Pulisic of course. But we need like 25 solid players, not even stars. Do we even have 25 European or South American based players?
There’s a big shout to find the talent in the Latino communities and inner cities. Kinda hurts my feelings. I live on the border of rural and mega suburb. Rural is kinda similar from a socioeconomic standpoint to those other groups-but we’ve produced capable players with great college careers. We didn’t create the system. In my case, I didn’t plan on coaching and I didn’t plan on being recruited TO coach in pay to play. We are drawing from the same genetic pool that would’ve been blue collar football players a generation ago. I don’t buy the idea that all these kids are soft or that they are vastly different than Alex Ferguson’s coal miner upbringing. I think that there is a legit gripe about a lack of promotion relegation system. It’s frankly unamerican.
I posted this on the So Cal forum: A few ramblings: 1. US Soccer really pooped the bed on this one. With the current issues surrounding the NFL (Flags, concussions and loss of viewers), NCAA basketball (who knows what will wind up happening here. If the NBA starts a true developmental league for 18-22 year olds, NCAA basketball will see a real decline in talent and viewers) and Baseball (I didn't even realize that the playoffs have started. I haven't paid attention to baseball in years)... US Soccer had a chance to grab a fanbase and grow with some casual fans. These fans might not know a ton about soccer, but they love to watch the Red, White and Blue play. They would buy $90 replica jerseys. They'd watch games glued to Fox Television. They might even start to understand the offside rule. The only money that is really going into TV advertising these days is for live (sports) TV. Nobody watches commercials any longer. 2. The US Sports media is also losing out. All of these former NFL and NBA guys that do sports radio are making jokes this morning about soccer while talking about how devastating a loss last night was. What these knuckleheads don't realize, is that the decline in viewership for NFL, NCAA and MLB will have an impact on their industry too. Soccer could have pumped some more money into their side of the business. 3. The US had been known for years for producing world class goal keepers. Howard, Guzan, Keller, Meola, Friedel, Rimando (maybe). Was Howard the last great american GK? 4. How do we not have a center mid? That is the position that every parent wants their 10 year old playing. "Joey plays defense, but he really belongs as a center mid" can be heard 1,000's of times a weekend across the US. 5. The players on the field last night. Many of them had great moments over the last 15 years. Last night cemented the legacy for many of them as "crappy players". (Bradley, Howard, Besler, Jozy and Omar should be excused from any further US National Team calls ups). We shouldn't need to have 3 players with more than 110 caps. That means there is nobody coming up behind them. 6. Sucks that John Brooks was hurt. When is he set to return? Seems he's been out for a long time. Him at 80% might have been better than Besler or Gonzalez. 7. Zardes has a horrible touch, but works his butt off. Too bad he got hurt last week. 8. Dom Dwyer had a very nice Gold Cup. His work rate was off the charts. Why didn't he get a look at a call up for this cycle? 9. Has our Development Academy approach made us soft? Are we trying so hard to develop great touch and creativity that we have forgotten about grit and heart? A lot of chatter about "Development over winning". I believe that this is a good concept. But we also need to "Develop a winning mentality." When Pulisic is fouled every time he touches the ball and there is no retaliation, that's BS. 10. About developing a good touch and soccer IQ - I get that this should start at an early age. But how can a player not continue to improve here later in life? I play adult soccer. I'm a hack at best. But at 43 years old, my touch improves the more that I play. Let's put it in terms of other sports: Michael Jordan - Did NOT have an outside shot his first few years in the league. Guess what? He worked his a$$ off to improve that part of his game. Draymond Green - Not big enough. Not fast enough. Played all 4 years in college. Was a 2nd round pick. Didn't play much his first 2 years in the league. Didn't become a starter until his 3rd year. Didn't make an all-star team until his 5th year. He worked his butt off and is now considered the most versatile player in the NBA. Tom Brady - 6th round pick. Only started because Drew Bledsoe got hurt. He was the 4th string QB his first season. 11. Tactics, lineup, strategy - Whatever. You can blame Arena for some of that. But players need to make plays. You need to win the ball in 1v1s. You need to make that off the ball run. You need to anticipate what's going to happen next. Coaches shouldn't need to remind National Team players of this. Playing with 3 days of rest should not be an excuse at this level. I don't care if you had to fly to Trinidad and practice on a wet field. 12. MLS - Not a great league for American players to get to a world class level. But MLS has elevated the game for the Central American nations. I'm no expert in Central America soccer leagues, but I have to imagine that playing and living in the United States is preferred to playing and living in Panama, Honduras or Trinidad. Even at $75k a year in the MLS, it's got to be better than playing part time in a 3rd world country where you might need to work in a field farming bananas during the off-season. Some argue that promotion / relegation is needed in the US. I'm not sold on this idea. But we do need to do more to further the play of American players. Teams spend millions on aging Euro stars to have a 2-3 year retirement tour across the United States. And a guy on that same team will make $60k as a domestic hanger-on. That $60k a year guy could make more money as a youth club coach. The US fan base is increasing. Look at the sellout crowds when Euro teams play exhibition games in the US. We are selling out the Big House in Michigan, the Coliseum in LA and just about any other big American Football stadium in the country. There is passion there if we put out a good product. 13. Youth Development. The "best" youth coaches are guys with British accents. If they are such great coaches, then why are they in the US? Why don't they stay in the UK and coach at the youth academy level in Europe? We are getting glorified British gym teachers over here. Why don't we have more Brazilian coaches working with our kids? Why don't we have more Argentinian coaches? French coaches? German coaches? There are quite a few Eastern European guys coaching around South OC. I'm not talking about guys like them. What are we doing to improve coaching education? Our licensing system is expensive. Our license system is "pass a test". It doesn't teach anything. It's just a knowledge check. Why don't we have on-going (free) seminars for coaches to learn and network? Free play- Instead of hosting 10 tournaments every weekend in the summer, there should be options for free play. Forget a tournament. Announce that the 3rd Saturday of each month, there will be a free-for-all at Oceanside, Great Park and Norco. Show up by 9 am. You'll get placed on a team with kids your same age but a variety of skill levels. There will be 11 kids on each team. Game will play for 20 minutes. You'll play 2 games with the team you were assigned. Then you'll get assigned to a new group and play 2 more games. Then you'll do the same thing on Sunday. This will cost $20 per player. A colored training bib will be provided for each team that you get assigned too. Referees will be there to keep players safe and fouls will be called VERY tight. No standings or stats will be kept. Pay-to-Play- I don't see us adopting "solidarity payments" anytime soon. Coaches need to get paid. Referees need to get paid. Administrators need to get paid. Facilities need to be rented. We have to find a way to keep our costs lower for all level of players. Do we really need $300 worth of uniforms, $700 EZ-Ups and extensive travel costs to get kids playing at a high level? We need to find sponsors that will allow kids to play for "almost free." Fox Sports 1 is a sponsor of AYSO. Since this sponsorship, I have not seen AYSO fees go down. Where is this money going? I see some clubs with logos on their jerseys. Where does this money go? I think those players are still paying $2,000+ to play for that club. College -We have formed leagues and tournaments to make it easier for college scouts to find players. Kids travel to Vegas, Nor Cal and Texas in hopes of catching the eye of a D1 scout. There has to be a better way. Put the responsibility back on the college coaches to find players. Let the Power 5 Conferences create their own tournaments (free of charge) for teams to play in. Invite any college coach that wants to attend, but make them pay to attend. This will cover the tournament costs. Let the players stay in dorms (For free). Find a title sponsor to provide a "training table" for food. If parents want to watch, they can pay for their own room and board. That's all for now. Maybe I'll submit this along with my application to take over Sunil's post when he is hung out to dry.
My challenge to the we-need-more-players-playing-in-South-America-and-Europe approach: Name a country who has won the world cup (in modern times) without a strong domestic professional league? The world cup is not won by countries that have to export their players for development.
And my counter argument for finding players in the inner city and the Latin community: Iceland didn’t have an inner city or Latin community to look from. They trained and developed the 330 thousand players available to them and found 25 that could do the job.
the point is that we have a ton of good players in those communities, and we miss them because they don't have a chance to show the right people they can play. iceland, belgium, holland, uruguay, you're right. these countries have a plan to identify the talent and nurture it. their small size makes doing that easier though. it's easier to train enough coaches to handle a 300k population than it is 300M. if we took the same approach that iceland did, only on a 1000x scale, i have no doubt, we'd be competing for world cups. to do that, we're going to need each little fiefdom from each state, region, and organization to cooperate, and that's not going to happen. we're too big, and the interests are too varied throughout the country. as it stands, the best we can do is try to figure it out at a state or regional level and go from there.
As I said, don't go nationwide. Focus on your state, or even regions within the state. LA, Bay Area—focus on these for example. Now an article in the Guardian goes into the difficulties for Latino families in the American system. Not to paint too broad a brush, but there's questions of how to get kids to the games and practices. It's pretty hard to do when both parents probably have to work on the weekends, for example. Concerns about insurance—what if a kid gets injured? Medical costs are the leading cause of bankruptcies in the US. So there's a big logistical component, not just a desire to find them. Trust me, I'm from "that" population. First gen immigrant, single-mom. Getting to practices, I had to car pool with teammates growing up because mom worked. Games and tournaments were a financial strain. When I was growing up in the 90s coaches didn't want small, technical players—wanted big, robust guys who could bang and run all day.
I think it betrays the deep deep issue - not enough of the leading lights in our program know how to develop players - they almost all succeed via recruiting. They dont want to admit this, so they look for a solution that fits them - there's an untapped pool of players that already know the game that will help me win, I must find them.
I think this is the theory, but is it actually happening? I think the best grade you can give the DA at this point is "Incomplete". It certainly can't be judged to be a success based on its' mission, straight from its website: The U.S. Soccer Development Academy impacts everyday club environments to develop world-class players. We have several DA teams in driving range of us, 2 MLS and 2 non-MLS. The MLS teams probably come closer to fulfilling the mission since their goal is to produce first team players, who may ultimately become world class. The non-MLS teams spend a lot of time promoting which of their players received scholarships. It seems like this is the metric they use to measure their success. Nothing wrong with that, but how does it fit into the mission of the DA? It seems like a league run by US Soccer for one purpose, comprised of members who aren't necessarily working towards that purpose.
My club has a player who was at Columbus Crew academy. Now he's with a non-MLS academy mostly because of travel time—practices were 3.5 hours away (brutal/not sustainable). This is a kid that's still wanted by a few European clubs. But we'll take all the credit for developing him at this point—since he went there at age 15.
When I watched the T&T game I noticed a few things. Maybe it's just me, but... First, they all looked confused by the bumpy surface. Once simple ground passes started bouncing randomly they started to second guess all of their passes and movements. I've seen this over and over again with USMNT - if the surface isn't spectacular they team is simply incapable of adapting. That led to: Second, their passes got long fast, and almost all of their long passes were well short of the mark. Once they saw their short passes were bouncing everywhere they seemed to play more and more long balls - someone who has access to stats can tell me if my eyes were lying to me. I noticed that they were using a pretty shiny Adidas ball rather than the Nike Ordem balls the USMNT uses - having played with both I can say the Ordems tend to carry better in the air. Wouldn't it make sense to practice with the ball you know you're going to play your next match with? Third, I lost count of the number of times Bradley was playing at the same level as, or even behind, the back line. If they intend to play through Bradley he can't be playing a few feet forward of the back line or he'll have to play increasingly long passes to connect the lines and he simply wasn't able to make those passes accurately. I'm not sure I saw an arrogant team as much as one that simply didn't know how to handle the first sign of adversity. That might show as arrogance to those predisposed to look for it, but in reality it's mental frailty. I saw a team playing disorganized and panicked and fractured - each of the players reacted to the situation differently, some held forward, some dropped back, some tried to make ever shorter passes, some started lobbing forward. When the team doesn't move as one and react to adversity as one you get just what happened at T&T - gaping holes the opposition can sit in comfortably and run into unopposed. IMO, and this is just IMO, if we know the USMNT is going to go into places like T&T with pitches that are of questionable quality at best wouldn't it make sense to periodically run training on the same type of surface? I can guarantee J Random High School would be over the moon to allow the USMNT to play on their bumpy pitch that's mowed by the janitor every other week with a 20 year old mower. Finally (and wow this was way longer than I intended...) somehow someone needs to find a real leader in this team, someone who the players will rally around, someone who will pick up the proverbial banner and lead the charge. That person doesn't necessarily have to wear the captain's armband, but there needs to be at least one person in that role. I'll agree with what Donovan said after the game - in past seasons we'd have players killing themselves and even if they lost the game the opponent would know they played a team that went down fighting.
If the surface isn't reliable, we can't play passes six inches above the surface?? Yeah, it takes a lot more technical ability to pass and receive this low, pinged passes but you are "pros", right?
As for the question of academies, I can't find the local numbers directly right now, but after looking into clubs and academies for my son here's the range: - Yearly club cost: ranges from ~$1500-$3000 depending on the level and club (the clubs increase the cost by hundreds of dollars per level between entry and premier); we have two clubs in the area, Seacoast United and GPS. Seacost is part of USDA and GPS is affiliated with Bayern Munich IIRC. - Uniform costs: initially ~$400 with normally $100-150/year kit updates. Goal keepers can expect to pay an additional ~$100 because their tops are more expensive. - Indoor training for the winter months is an additional cost, and while not "mandatory" you know if you don't do it your kid will fall behind. That was on average around $500/yr. - Travel is somewhere between crazy and insane. In our case the "home" Seacoast fields are an hour away, and the games were frequently between 3 and 6+ hours away. The GPS fields are actually very close but GPS being ODP is much harder to get into and is generally more expensive per level. - Tournaments vary based on the club but are (or were when I looked) at an additional cost. IIRC we were looking at ~4-6 tournaments per season and were $50-100 per tournament. Needless to say when doing the math I just couldn't come up with the $5000+ per season, let alone manage the insane amount of travel required. Even if I could afford the monetary outlay I could never manage all the time away for travel, as each kid was expected to get to the game on their own. I work 60-80 hours a week, there's no way I can lose 1-2 days a week in travel like that. Again, I haven't looked in a while so prices and arrangements may have changed in the interim.
Watching the game I noticed even their simple curled passes didn't have the curl they usually did. I'm thinking, e.g. of a pass from right to left only ~1/3 the width of the field; at this level the pass is curled so it's rolling in the direction the receiving player is running to make receiving it easier - the passes I watched had far less curl than usual. That suggests to me that the players simply didn't trust what was going to happen once the ball left their feet. Also, just a technical point, I did see several low pinged passes, but those frequently take one hop ~3 feet from the receiving player and that hop was inconsistent at best. That's not to make any further excuse, rather I think these players simply didn't have the tools to cope with the pitch because they're always training on pristine surfaces. Once things didn't go perfectly they reacted like the proverbial boxer that had never been hit who finally takes a punch to the nose. They didn't play determined, they didn't play arrogantly, they played scared.
I agree. What I saw wasn't "arrogant". I saw disorganized, confused. Well, the 1 hop pass actually isn't a bad approach. The bounce takes the sting out of the driven ball.
Talking more with this German coach I quoted earlier. It sounds like their system is more like our local rec and travel club system. The main difference is that their volunteer coaches are very very qualified. The club makes up the rest with sponsorships and fundraisers. Sounds like more affordable, more accessible coaching education is one step in the right direction. An F is a start, an E is a start. Also need to get the idea across that the F and E are not just for dads/moms who have never played. Being a player, even a good one, doesn't mean you can coach or know what to coach or how to coach specific ages.
@Peter Rival why the hell are uniforms $400? home/away shirts, shorts, and socks can be had for around $100 even for the nice nike kits. where's the other $300 going? that's nuts.