It is difficult to argue that coaching has, in the past, or can in the future "make" great players. After all, if youth coaches can 'make' great players. You'd expect the best of these coaches to make more than one great player in their lifetime. Seems more logical to suppose that the players who become great had talent and drive already within them, and at best, their coaches were smart enough to get out of a boy genius' way, and simply let natural talent thrive. Of course it is difficult for coaches to let horses run. I'm thinking of all the managers who tried and failed to get a little Diego, little Lionel, and little Robben to use their right foot.
Heartened you agree Balzac Remember when our college boys used to qualify for the Olympics? and make the semis?
Sorry, I should have specified MLS academy signees. The NCAA has different rules for Yanks and non-Yanks when it comes to getting paid to play before college.
I have only read the amateurism NCAA bylaws when they were first changed a few years ago. MLS Academy kids play USL all the time and don't lose eligibility. I have heard rumors their minutes are limited or something but no one has shown me proof of that in the NCAA bylaws. Where does it differentiate between Yanks and non Yanks?
It just does. I've seen it many many times with basketball eligibility. Here's why I think it matters. It's hard for MLS clubs to sign kids to actual contracts real early in the process, because to the kid, signing with the MLS club kills their college eligibility. By the time a kid has developed enough to know he doesn't need a college scholarship as a fallback plan, the Euro clubs are sniffing around him. To pick a specific example, this mechanism is one reason the Gals got nothing for Haji Wright. That's why in my opinion one element of reform of college soccer would be for the NCAA to allow kids who sign academy contracts to still be eligible to play, and to get scholarships if their MLS club releases them.
I happen to think there's mutual interest here. Women's soccer is solid because of its status as one of the sports balancing football from a Title IX perspective. Men's soccer, IMO, can become like baseball or women's basketball, not exactly a revenue sport like football and basketball, but an often-break even sport. One significant obstacle is the schedule. They pack all of the games into 3 months, which means many weekday games. A 6 month season means games only on the weekends, which means more revenue. It also concomitantly means more practice time, which is the real weakness in college soccer. Better soccer means better revenue from conference TV deals and from attendance, and they can get that better soccer by making MLS academies stronger with what I outlined above. It won't be easy, but it's doable. The NCAA is sclerotic as hell, so the Fed will have to present them with a package all wrapped up with a bow.
Heck yeah. I like that there's this other pipeline that other countries don't so much have. And it's not going away, it's directly connected to our mainstream youth sports culture and numbers... we have to look at it as a positive and try to make it what it can be. Could some of those other great players we listed above have benefited more from going straight into pro soccer? Probably. Seems like that's already more prevalent with the greater prevalence / accessibility of academies. But I expect MLS and the Nats will continue to get value from late bloomers and remarkable characters coming through the college game. I hope there won't be too strong a bias against those guys.
Btw, this is funny from Sacho, a College Cup champion. But a good interview: "The College Cup is a joke." https://www.socceramerica.com/publi...rovski-we-need-to-define-an-american-way.html
Hello fellow traveler! I once joked (not really, I was serious) that Cirovski should replace Klinsmann while writing on the MLS.com message boards. He is remarkably original in the same way Arena is: they believe that the American way can be better than the German or Brasilian way. Not through imitation (which is suicide) but by boldly striking our own path. PS: I think Balzac said something like this, but an American: Ralph Waldo Emerson said it better than any euro-genius Frenchman ever could. cheers!
Ralph Waldo Emerson talked a lot of shit. But Cirovski has a decent argument that a lot of folks in US coaching circles, including himself, should at least be considered for the job. He sees a similarity between Nats and college coaching: You get a short amount of time with the players together to get everybody on the same page and firing, then playoffs.
OK - I just found out, that in Warsaw alone we have 38 Football Clubs playing senior Football through various levels of Polish leagues... Warsaw has 2.5 million people. Enough place for late bloomers, if any of these clubs will ever get high enough in cup competition to get noticed...
Which is cool. US participation numbers are pretty amazing, btw. College soccer is just a different, more vast and developed institution than many countries have. So the debate is: does it siphon talent off into a dead end or dismal detour for talented prospects? I can see both sides for sure.
So, try this exercise. Make up a realistic USMNT roster for now or 2019 or 2022. The latter two obviously involve speculation but, hey, we got 5 years to kill around here. Now, once you've made that roster(s), note how many of those players played college soccer and how many seasons of college soccer they played. Just to show you I'm not asking you to do something you haven't done yourself, here's a potential Gold Cup roster for 2019, with alternates. GK – Jesse Gonzalez, Bill Hamid, Zack Steffen (Maryland, 2) CB – John Brooks, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Matt Miazga, Erick Palmer-Brown FB – Shaq Moore, Antonee Robinson, Brandon Vincent (Stanford, 4), DeAndre Yedlin (Akron, 2) MF – Kellyn Acosta, Tyler Adams, Paul Arriola, Jonathan Gonzalez, Lynden Gooch, Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Kenny Saieff F – Jozy Altidore, Josh Sargent, Bobby Wood (Note: No one on this team will be older than 29 at the 2022 GC and only Jozy Altidore, who will be 32, will be over 30 at the 2022 WC.) ALTERNATES: GK – Ethan Horvath CB – Justen Glad FB – Danilo Acosta CMF – Christian Roldan (Washington, 2) WMF - Jonathan Lewis (Akron, 1) F – Jordan Siebatcheu Obviously we can quibble about the particulars of the roster and it's entirely possible to build one with the likes of Jordan Morris, Walker Zimmerman, Marlon Hairston, Alex Bono, Tommy Thompson, Matt Polster or Wil Trapp in it and had a few more college players. But not too many. Not realistically. And almost all of them will have played only a couple of seasons of college soccer. And there's a reason for that. Because college soccer doesn't adequately serve as a developmental vehicle for our elite prospects. Sure, it helps some players mature, especially off the field. And there is certainly something to be said about the fighting spirit and mind-over-skill mentality that college soccer has brought to past national teams that gave the USMNT a level of bite and fight that often helped it hang with and often beat teams with more talent. And a good case could be made that such an attitude was sorely lacking on the team the past couple of years. But the reality is a team of mostly former college soccer players is only ever going to take us so far and we have pretty much maxed that out. College soccer is great for cranking out the kind of players you need to win with a salary cap. Affordable players in the grunt roles with the occasional skill player like Dempsey or Wondo. But for the national team, it just doesn't cut it. And it's damn sure not a weapon, secret or otherwise. And, it's influence on the USMNT will be minimalist going forward.
Good post. I agree that NCAA talent circa 2017 seems weak. But who knows who is at Furman, Boston College, UCLA or Maryland right now? I see Clint Dempseys and Vedad Ibesivics everywhere. Also, while I agree that professionals have recently become our only options for USA youth teams (and finally now our Men's team). I bemoan this change from college to academy players...and am not happy we have painted ourselves into a corner. We are 0-2 in the last two Olympic qualifying cycles. We have no notable u-17 u-18 or u-20 successes since 2007. Bluntly put: phasing out college players has phased in a new era of american youth and senior team suck.
College soccer could help a little if; 1. Longer season 2. More scholarships 3. Less foreigners, some college programs have way too many foreigners, that’s not helping our “late boomers.” Too many changes have to be changed for college soccer to help a little.
1. I agree on a longer season. Perhaps in colder climates, futsal/indoor could be utilized to bridge the gaps between fall and spring. 2. This is a title IX issue. And it's not going away anytime soon. Unless American Football dies. And that is not completely out of the realm of possibility. 3. There are a lot of Universities that play sports. Literally hundreds at the D1 level. More, better coaching could help here. Look at what Caleb Porter did at Akron. Freaking Akron. Having the success he did there means you don't have to be a big time sports University to follow suit.
I'm going to help your journalism career. Fewer foreigners. You use "fewer" when talking about numbers, a plural. Fewer dollars. You use "less" when talking about a whole. Less money. You're welcome.
For Polish game even three years ago is ancient history... Anyway, I am not discounting it, it was a friendly, which is always pretty experimental, that's all (but I agree 0:3 was an embarrassment looking at Polish players who participated, I again must suspect alcohol being the cause). How does this relate to college game? Bocanegra was at Fulham, Onyewu was Standard Liege Lewis was at Derby County They had played professionally at European clubs for many years already, when the game was taking place...
College experience having not hurt any of these three in the least? Bocanegra with 4 goals for Fulham (2005? second most on team behind St. Louis Billiken Brian McBride? good times . Good EPL times. Cookie Coleman for USMNT coach? Signing McBride and then Dempsey indicates he knows US talent (or talent period?)
I'm still waiting for you to accept my challenge. Put together a US team roster for 2019 or 2022. Show me how many of them played college soccer, and for how long.