I don't understand what you're saying obviously. You stated that the USSF's policies are “so favorable for European clubs” because "Nonenforcement of FIFA's Solidarity and Training Compensation Fees."
Hmmm. It seems far-fetched to think that they want the benefits of T/SC if their academies have trained a player but don't want to pay the same price if they acquire a player that some other academies have trained. Is that what they're saying? I have no idea.
What's changed? The union still seems against it so it doesn't seem like unions were the true decision makers here. In fact, it sounds like they were being scapegoated.
The Liverpool v Barcelona UCL match is a good proxy for two different coaching philosophy schemes. Which is more appropriate for the USMNT pool?
I said that nonenforcement of the the above favors European clubs. I don't even claim that the policy was instituted specifically to help European clubs. It just happens to do that.
There are a whole lot of issues involved, not least of which is pay for play. Suffice it to say that MLS believes it has all it's i's dotted and t's crossed with regards to FIFA statutes. Evidently, from the Crossfire case, other US academies don't.
I can understand why pay to play clubs don't qualify. Why wouldn't USL or other level pro clubs not be able to get this?
Because USSF is not going to facilitate it. The point I keep making is that USSF doesn't want it, never wanted it, and is not going to do anything to make it happen. It is interesting that MLS can do it without USSF. But from everything I've seen, nobody else can. USL will try and sign players and sell them under contract. We will see how things work out. Many think it untenable to have a two class system where one gets it and the rest don't. But this kind of chaos is found in other places (youth soccer levels, USL v NASL, etc.) and USSF does nothing to sort it out. Pay to Play probably doesn't matter. DCU is PtP. If it does matter, the best kids will be move to scholarship and most are on one now. For the USMNT development, the best thing is actually to just have a domestic compensation system and have the best DA players brought into MLS Academies (maybe just a dozen of the best) for a training fee. This would concentrate the best players. Not having our best youth players playing with and against the best because of geography could be what has held us back.
That and greed, politics over the kids, basic coaching philosophy (That rewards winning over development) and the general low level of coaching that really does not understand what it takes to make a quality player. I spent a good amount of time traveling around the world when I was younger and I can assure you that the US development system is perfectly designed to turn out a bunch of average to below average players and it pulls those with real, but raw, talent down to the level of the poorest play. We teach soccer just like we educate. A class or team is never allowed to be better than the worst player/student in it therefore we see very few truly exceptional players in our system and we ruin most of those. High school and College are very poor systems to develop players yet we depend on those for most of our talent and then we take the poorly developed talent from there and ruin it further by using the greed system that the USSF has allowed to flourish. The only really quality players we get are those that avoid/ignore the system or that are developed mostly elsewhere.
My interpretation is that he feels the nonenforcement of T/SC favors European teams but he is not saying that was the reason USSF implemented the policy.
This was true ten years ago but things have changed. In particular the DA system seems to have been the big driver. Not so much because it's better coaches but because the motivation of coaches changed. Coaches no longer push winning as much and development has moved to the forefront. The spiel is no longer "college scouts come see us a lot because we win a lot" to "We follow the USSF guidelines and our style of play has their attention. Four of our players were selected for YNTs". Don't get me wrong, things are far from ideal but I think a huge change has happened in the mindset and the biggest battle has been won.
A mod should move this TC/S discussion to the correct thread. In the Fraser antitrust case the union (through member players) sued MLS and the Fed. Before trial the players agreed to drop their claims against the Fed if the Fed agreed to enter into a court ordered settlement that prevented the Fed from enforcing or implementing any FIFA rules dealing with training compensation or non-contractual economic rights of clubs that are third parties to a transfer. This was around the turn of the century. The Union has consistently maintained that they are against these rules because they see them as a tax on players signing overseas that reduces the amount of money a player can bargain for and it could be the tipping point against a marginal transaction. They have also consistently kept open the option of suing again. MLS won the Fraser suit because they were found to be a single entity (can’t collude with yourself) and because there was an international market for players. Maybe the Fed would have won too but they settled. MLS was likely happy to not have TC/S because they weren’t producing their own players and the transfer resale inter-association market for their players was not a big deal. What has changed is that the Fed seems to have adopted my reading of the settlement, that they can’t enforce or implement TC/S but they don’t have a proactive duty to stop their member clubs from doing so. The Union can try to sue them on this (breaking the spirit of the settlement or their interpretation of it) or they may just sue MLS. What seems to have started the ball rolling is the Yedlin and Dempsey cases. So now youth clubs and MLS (the two twin pillars of power within the Fed) see money on the table and the organization they effectively control is now willing to expose themselves to more litigation risk, without going whole hog and more clearly violating a federal court ordered settlement.
I have seen VERY little change for the better. Different appearance and lip service does not equal better players. Mostly, at all levels of youth soccer, all I see is no real change but just the appearance of change. I "hear" lip service being paid to a lot of ideas but the reality is that players are not improving relative to the rest of the world. With our player base and money, even discounting the players and money lost to other sports, we should be able to produce a team at all levels that is dominate both home and away but all we have really done is produce teams that are good at home and pathetic on the road. Berhalter is just good enough to get the team back up to middle of the upper part of the pack in CONCACAF. But he is not good enough to get the group of average CONCACAF players he has to be better that the sum of the parts. He has a few good players and he will ride those as far as he can BUT in the available player pool there is not even enough good players to form a decent 11 man team much less a 23 man roster and the depth below that is not even worth further development at this point because they have been ruined by the US coaching system. Because of that any injury to a key player will cripple the team. Since we will not or can not hire a coach that can make the team play beyond the capabilities of the weakest players we need to get those weak player better. To do that we need the broad base to really develop players. But that will not and can not happen with the quality of leadership we have. We also will not replace the top people and their henchmen and their clowns and their minions. When we have a massive failure all we do is replace a very few people at the very top but the rotten core remains in place. It is like trying to fix a house with dry rot in the frame by giving it a new coat of paint and replacing the top layer of bricks on the chimney. The US development system is filled with coaches and others who only have one real talent and that is to appease the higher ups and not rock the boat. This will not get fixed because the fix is too drastic and it is in the interest of no one in the current structure to rock the boat to make things better. Will we win the Gold Cup? Very possibly BUT that is all played at home and all played against mostly pathetic teams that have a MUCH smaller player base than we do. (Except for Mexico, maybe.) We should beat everyone in the Gold Cop easily (again except maybe for Mexico) but I bet we will struggle in at least two matches and we may even lose one before the final. That says all that can be said about where we are and how bad our development system is.
Based upon your join date, I would assume that you are older than some on this board and have seen the progression of soccer over the years for 20-40 years or so...maybe more. I would be interested in a few things 1) some general idea of what part of the country you have observed most and are basing your opinion on and 2) how would you characterize the growth in soccer over the past 10 years to the past 20 and possibly the past 30 and beyond? Thank you, As for your post, one thing that kind of stands out to me is that, in my opinion, the culture is given far to little importance in our standing in the soccer world. Most of what you describe, I see as infrastructure but the culture provides the raw material. and the raw material is where the problem is and where the solution lies. If we look at the young players (15-20yrs) right now, one of their most important influences is their parents and also the sporting culture they grew up in. For insight into the current state, we should look at the culture that their parents were brought up in....(20-25 yrs ago when they were 15-20). Of course if parents aren't/weren't involved in soccer but enough friends and other adults in area are/were than the importance of parents having played etc is minimized to some degree, but hopefully you can see that there will be a significant lag time in our growth because everything is affected. The coaching staff will likely be at least 25-60 yrs old, the referees will likely be 30-60 and it takes a while for each of these groups to come up to speed. In my area, I have seen tremendous growth in the ability of players from the late 60's to the present time. The initial growth seemed pretty rapid and steady but the last 20 years or so have really shown an increase in growth...both in numbers and quality but I still see that the majority of parents know very little about soccer other than what they know from watching their kids play. (this puts them at a relativey knowledgeable group compared to the typical parent, but not very knowledgeable compared to a parent that grew up playing the game.)
Maybe you don't see it but a lot of us do. Maybe you can point at another period where a USDA academy kid went to Germany at 16 and was mostly a starter within a year. When another MLS academy kid left at 18 and was a starter within a year. When multiple academy kids were bought by Bayern Munich and look to be possible contributors within a year. What other period has ever seen so many 16-19 year old kids from USDA and MLS academies get signed by so many Bundesliga teams?
You left the out the one where the 19 year old MLS player went to Germany and was immediately a starter and arguably the most influential player in his team.
It's quite fair to say that the two best players on RB Leipzig, a team that will finish 3rd in the BL this season, are Timo Werner and Tyler Adams. Clearly, the NYRB Academy didn't impede his progress. It IS fair to say that there aren't yet many academies in the US at the level of Red Bulls, but in sports other outfits typically copy winning formulae eventually, and over the last several years NYRB has had a winning formula. A few other outfits have begun following suit, and eventually I hope that would include at least one of the LA sides.
It would be unfair to Orban who is their Captain. His partner the 20 yr old cb isn't half bad either. Both fullbacks are excellent. GA in BL this year #1 Leipzig (27) #2 Bayern (31), Nobody else is below 40
Alright! Back on topic! There is a question here on how Berhalter playwill evaluate players that are in leagues roughly equivalent to MLS. I think the argument of which is better is stale and thankless and I'm not interested. To me there are a good 20 to 40 leagues that are roughly equivalent and that's all I care. Since Berhalter is a numbers guy the issue is how do you evaluate the numbers from all those leagues? In any case I know there are a fairly large number of YAs with some interesting numbers but to me really only four have been consistent performers in a position of need. To me Wooten and Robinson are the two most intriguing prospects. They have both been consistent and outstanding in their league for a full season. After that, I am interested in Holmes and Novakovich. Duane has been outstanding but it's only his first notable year so I don't put him at the level of Robinson. Novakovich has been consistent but he hasn't been incredibly outstanding. Also, we should prioritize Altidore over him.
Well, that certainly explains why GB wants to use Adams at RB! We need to get those stellar difference makers WFT and MB90 on the field at CM for the USMNT.
I think we should be valuing some other things (based on a different strategic approach) but this is likely a basis for the coach’s reasoning: https://www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2018/10/11/whatdeterminesagoodpasser
So you conclude that Leipzig will end next season with 6 GA in 34 games. p.s. edit: how good were the dmids they used before Adams anyway? Probably weakest position they had, basis everybody healthy. Agree? p.p.s.- also, the GA per game average without Adams was 1.1 so even if they had continued at that pace they would have the 2nd lowest GA today (instgead of 1st) lagging only Bayern and would be far ahead of 3rd place. Fair to say Leipzig had an exceptionally strong defense before Adams arrived which made me question the original statement above I was replying to which posited that Werner and Adams were Leipzig's best players.
Those were a lot of fun, Bob. My feeling while analyzing was that the charts say as much about the team as the player, in terms of what the team might want to ameliorate (which makes it a better tool than just a player analyzer, imo). Parenthetically, you mite want to send Curly Doyle at MLS dot com the Barco v Assad comparison because he kept whining every week about how much Atlanta must be regretting the loss of Assad when they signed Barco to replace him. Curly was absolutely sure Assad was the better player. In respect to Bradley at Toronto, notice how well he passes out to the wings, receiving an equal score both sides. On the left he had Vazquez and Osorio and Morrow and on the right he had Delgado and various wb's, mainly Auro towards the end. Yet Vanney's Quixotic quest to get more width right forward continues at an obsessive rate and he has signed Laryea and Leon in the off season. What Vanney is missing is that new signing Pozuelo can do for Toronto what Miggy did for Atlanta: Take the ball from the halfway line as a 10 and dribble into meaningful space. That was never something Gio, Jozy or Vazquez could do.