Ethnic diversity on the MNT

Having culture and no infrastructure means you will not produce high-level athletes. But having little culture, but lots of infrastructure, will help you produce a lot of athletes.

The US Olympic teams do well, not because Americans watch swimming, running, or Women's gymnastics constantly, but because the USOC provides the infrastructure and oversight for thousands of elite athletes that practice what are fringe sports in the US.

Your points on Euro colleges are irrelevant. The fact is, here in the US, we have thousands of institutions of higher learning, from community colleges to full universities. Those universities do provide a large network of coaches and facilities in a large number of sports. This infrastructure produces world-class athletes in a wide array of sports. Just American athletes from Cal, Stanford, and other Bay Area colleges, won ~12 medals in Rio.

Girls . And baseball. But I can't hit a curveball, and I didn't make my HS team.

We're probably going to have to agree to disagree.

 

I think its more likely that things change in ways that level out competition. I think that the world will become more competitive.

 

Because the "infrastructure" surrounding the Men's and Women's games around the world is very different. Europe and South America have over a century of professional Men's soccer infrastructure, and billions of dollars poured into a system of men's professional leagues.

We have a fraction of that, poured unevenly into a pay-to-play system that suffers from a lack of scouting and coaching.

Compare that to the Women's side. Some countries don't even have Women's teams. Some, like Argentina and Brazil, simply don't pay for them. Here in the US, we've spent tens of millions of dollars building up the Women's game. Creating multiple Women's professional leagues in an attempt to get the sport going in the US. We have a pool that's larger than most of the rest of the world. How can that be? Is it because we have more Women? No, it's because the Women's soccer apparatus in this country can track and train hundreds of thousands of girls and women, from traveling teams, to pub leagues and professional teams.

I don't disagree that the "girlyness" perception pushes boys towards other sports, and girls towards soccer, but without infrastructure, nothing happens. The Argentinian women, growing up in soccer-mad Argentina, may be more passionate than any American Women's soccer player. But if they get no support and nobody in Argentina pays for a system for them to play in, they're still not going to compete.

 

Well, it is the question of: are we building the infrastructure for no one, and wait for people to get into sports because there is infrastructure, or we have someone already there (because of the culture), for whom we build the infrastructure, so that they can get better. Of course, without infrastructure you will not be able to become a top world athlete as well, but the thing is, that you must want to try sports and play them, before you are able to even use infrastructure.

Soccer is not comparable to other sports at all. Simply: in Europe every other sport in existence can be considered as a "niche" sport compared to MALE soccer: that is NO ONE REALLY CARES about other sports in the same way as they do about MALE soccer (I suggest to watch what is going on in Rotterdam today, and ask, if any of this would happen if someone from Rotterdam would win swimming event, or field hockey title). There are tiny exceptions (like RU in Wales), but to put it plainly: no track and field fan from Manchester is going to get beaten up in Leeds, if you know what I mean.

MALE Soccer is so big in Europe (and SA too), that it simply dwarfs anything else - it is so deeply embedded in culture, that people are ready to kill each other for their team (and I mean really kill...). USMNT is in competition vs. other MALE national football teams, and not vs female Olympic track and field teams. Having millions of Olympic gold medals in swimming or basketball does not help USMNT in any ways. Having excellent USWNT does not help men team in any way as well. Most of European soccer teams, and national teams, have infrastructure well better than USMNT, in addition to cultural advantage. It doesn't matter if Americans watch swimming (Europeans also don't), because Europeans not only watch, but also LIVE Male soccer EVERYDAY - and this is whom USMNT needs to compete against, and not compare yourselves to swimmers.

Poland basically massacred all its European opposition on last European Track and Field championships in Belgrade - there were couple of articles about it, people generally said something like "good job" and got on with their lives. And here: Lewandowski has a baby!!! OMG - tonnes of articles in every magazine, TV show, Internet portal! It is 10 days later now, and Lewandowski and his wife (btw. people only know that she is a multiple Karate champion, because she is Lewy's wife, and not because they care for Karate so much) and baby are still everywhere. This is the power of soccer.

The point I made about Euro collages is to show difference in sport perception and approach - surely US is more likely to have better college sports than Europe, since in USA college sports are main thing for many people at college, while in Europe they are just an addition, and not main activity of their college life. Nevertheless, this has no translation to male soccer. If you are 20 and you play college soccer, it is too late for you to become a world quality pro soccer player. You need to play pro team at that age, not college (like Pulisic for example).

 

Anyway, infrastructure and Olympic sport have nothing to do with Ethnic diversity on USMNT, seems we drifted off topic.

 

What I'm trying to get across is, since population doesn't matter, the "culture" aspect clearly turns out to be less important. Even now, we have enough kids playing to have a much more talented US soccer team... with a better soccer infrastructure.

We have ~3.2 million registered youth players, split evenly between boys and girls. That's plenty of potential Men's soccer players. But, those players are not pushed, sifted through, and coached up to become great soccer players. They play on teams that prioritize winning and registration fees, for coaches that teach no skills or tactical awareness, within a system that will more than likely miss their talent in favor of anyone with the cash to go to enough USSF scouting events in NYC/Chicago/LA.

Obviously, it'd be nice to have every kid wanting to grow up to be Messi/Ronaldo. But there are no dominant sports in the US anymore, and the major sports all fight for attention. It just won't ever reach the level of rioting/stabbings over soccer games, which has been presented as a bizarro world positive that only exists on BigSoccer ! It would help if soccer were more popular, but moreso because such popularity means more money, which means more infrastructure and incentive to play the game.

 

On BigSoccer? Never!

I can't really tell a USMNT player's ethnicity just by looking at them, and to me it doesn't really matter unless there's a cool story behind it. Obviously, it matters a lot more to a lot of other countries, and I hope that ethnicity never gains so much importance here. That's Old World stuff that I'd rather not have US society deal with. We have enough problems.

 

Exactly this is because culture is lacking... Kids play as a matter of pass time and physical activity, but neither for them, nor their parents soccer is a matter of life and death. Infrastructure will surely help to create decent players, but in a situation, like It is in Male soccer, where competition is enormous, and all the best have absolutely top infrastructure, you need something extra to win - and this "extra" can only arise from culture.

 

Here's an anecdotal example. My cousin is 16. Plays on his HS team. His HS team spends 70 percent of their practices running/in the weight room. I suggested that he work on his touch and dribbling to get better because those are definitely weak spots in his game. But instead, he insists that unless he gets his stamina as high as possible, he'll never get time.

It's not uncommon for kids in the US to spend lots of time and effort in their chosen sport. Many kids find a love for a particular sport, and are supported by their parents. But if my cousin spends hours every day jogging (he runs 5-10 miles a day, fast too, because he's 6'6" with long legs), he's not going to somehow become a great player. He may never have the elite skills to become a pro player regardless, but if you spend a lot of time around poor coaching doing things with limited usefulness, you won't get a great player out of that kid.

Competition at that top of US soccer is intense, but the problem is that the coaching is poor and the focus is on winning/making money. The kids spending $10k/year traveling clearly put time and effort in, and I can't imagine a parent/kid making that sort of monetary/time investment without loving the game. However, those teams are made up of people who can afford that price tag, and coached by people without much knowledge.

 

From my perspective and what I have seen (not a scientific viewpointr but I think fairly accurate) the involvement in soccer compared to basketball is largely divided along ethnic or racial lines. White females predominantly play soccer, latina females largely play soccer but there is a far lower level of participation due to cultural differences (latinas in suburban areas seem to have a higher level of participation and in inner city regions some of the latinas, especially those who's families have been in the country longer, play basketball. African American females in the inner city play basketball or run track (or both) with almost none playing soccer while some of the suburban African Americans play soccer.

 

I would say that Indian and Pakistani like Cricket and Field Hockey - these are predominate sports in these communities. I could think of Vikash Dhorhasoo for France NT, who I think was East Indian...

 

Those problems are still mostly endogenous to the problem of culture. For example(s):

1) The demand for excellent soccer coaches in the United States is low relative to both the demand in top soccer countries' and the demand for coaches in others sports in this country. The result is you don't have to go far down the pyramid to find guys who are coaching as a 2nd job. There is no doubt the people involved are committed, but many aspirant American coaches don't have the time and resources to invest in building proficiency in their field compared to their peers in other countries / sports. The demand (money) isn't always there, which is usually why pay-to-play exists to begin with -- parents are subsidizing the attainment of very specialized knowledge (about soccer) because there isn't much demand generally.

2) Coaches have to get knowledge from somewhere and while you can import knowledge via experts, it doesn't replace the knowledge agglomerations that come from having a highly developed soccer culture and having many communities of professionals aggregating experience and knowledge as coaches, trainers, doctors, referees, equipment managers etc etc on a day-to-day basis.

aaand 3) In the scenario you describe, you are expecting some organized instruction (in this case, a HS soccer team) to replace the kind of learning a player should be doing on his own and would be doing, even passively, if the culture was there.

For example, a HS baseball coach does not spend most of his time teaching players how to catch baseballs; they are basically learning the professional aspect of the game at that point and gaining experience. Accordingly, an American who has never played organized baseball (like myself) absorbs a great deal of technical and practical knowledge about the game again due to culture.

 

I would also add that the small pool of coaches available is spread among men and women in nearly equal proportion, something not seen in most other countries.

 

1. Yeah, that's true. Very few American coaches have the licenses, training, and knowledge of their European counterparts. And the demand isn't there for that. Because the demand is for coaches that win, not coaches that develop better soccer players, which is a systemic problem.

2. It has to start somewhere. I don't buy this idea that you innately know how to coach a sport. I grew up in the US. Doesn't mean that I can coach Hockey, despite being a big Sharks fan. The knowledge to coach comes from playing, not from "absorbing technical and practical knowledge" through some kind of magic osmosis. I just can't get behind that idea at the moment, maybe someone else can chip in in such a way that will make me understand/convince me.

3. I'm not expecting organized sports to replace individual skill-building. I'm expecting it to instill the basics. I expect that it will teach how to trap, position oneself in a formation, and other basics. The degree to which someone will be proficient at these skills does depend on individual effort. But the baseline in the US is not there. The foundation skills taught are extremely weak. I also expect it to provide visibility for players, so they can participate in a system that identifies talent earlier and more often than the current system.

I don't think there's a magic bullet, as if there's a single organization or structure that will churn out American Ronaldo's. But there's no magic "culture" bullet either. Kids choose to get absorbed in hobbies, and ultimately it will largely be up to them to take themselves to the heights required to be professional soccer players. But as long as our soccer infrastructure remains as it is, factors such as urban proximity, wealth, and poor coaching will continue to be large obstacles.

 

Soccer is so big, I remember Federer and Nadal cutting post-game interviews short in Wimbledon to run watch their NTs in the World Cup.

 

Actually, Switzerland was always one of my favorite teams...

 

I didn't say anything about innately knowing how to coach or absorbing knowledge through osmosis. What I'm saying is that soccer is not a sport like, say, gymnastics, where the US became a contender in a relatively short time by importing foreign experts to train athletes. Most Americans still don't really know a lot about gymnastics or pay a great deal of attention to it outside the Olympics. Soccer is fundamentally different and requires immersion in a robust soccer culture. This doesn't mean that coaches shouldn't receive technical training; they absolutely should, but that isn't a substitute for the knowledge and rigor gained from being immersed in a soccer culture.

For instance: I've never played organized baseball, yet I can catch a baseball, throw one, swing a bat etc. I know the rules of the game, the terminology, even a good deal about the history and legendary players. Hell, I'm not even particularly a fan of baseball. How did I learn those things without organized instruction? Culture. The proper way to trap a soccer ball should be just as common knowledge as catching a baseball; it's something you'd have done 10000 times with your dad and your buddies and stuff before age 8, not something we expect an institution to teach.

Kids choose hobbies, but there are things that affect those choices. What are the chances any given American kid's dad is a huge fan of soccer and imbues his son with his love of it versus a fan of 1 of the other top 4 sports? How often are kids seeing top soccer players, American or otherwise, on TV versus an athlete from one of the top 4 sports? How much does it pay to coach / play soccer domestically, versus coach / play one of the top 4 sports? All these things influence the choice to get involved with soccer and they are all related to culture.

It's true, there's no magic bullet; it's just going to take time. But no one manufactured Ronaldo like no one manufactured Donovan. Academies and youth instruction is a refinement and identification process; it doesn't turn bad raw materials into great ones. One of the biggest impediments in the US is that there's stiff competition for the best "raw materials" -- that is, our most gifted and achieving athletes (and I don't just mean being fast and strong, though those are certainly assets, but having reflexes, stamina, intelligence, coordination, balance, physical resilience and a high degree of determination / competitiveness to achieve at a high level) would earn more money playing other domestic sports rather than pursuing soccer.

 

This. My brother never played organized baseball until high school but knew the basics and made his HS team. I once coached a group of kids (13 age range) in several sports. They knew how to at least dribble a basketball and make a layup, yet the ones that had never played soccer struggled with the most basic of soccer techniques. Culture makes a kid pick up a soccer ball before age 10 and dribble, kick, trap... There are kids who only kick a ball when their mothers drop them off at practice and kids who set up target practice in their backyards, not because it's practice but because they genuinely love it. we're not completely there but it'll take some time.

 

...Except, if we agree that population doesn't matter, and that Americans have a poor soccer "refinement system", then how is it that you can point to a lack of "culture" as the reason we're not particularly good at soccer?

You know about baseball. So do I. Neither one of us is going to be playing in a professional baseball league. We know that there are kids here that live and breathe soccer. It's an oft-talked about anecdotal point that immigrant families tend to produce a lot of players for the NT. They come to the US, and the culture in the home is all about soccer. We all know that we're not getting our "best" athletes. We're not getting anywhere close to a "majority", or even an even "share" compared to the top sports in this country.

But all you need are a few people who have that love of the game. We have more young people playing soccer than countries like Uruguay and Costa Rica have people. Not everyone playing is a top athlete. Not every one of those athletes is going to choose soccer, but if even 10 percent, of the top 1 percent of athletes, chose soccer, that's still, 50,000 top athletes every 10 years (split 50/50 between the genders, so 25,000 boys). That should be enough raw materiel that, over the course of a decade or two, should produce higher quality players than historical evidence would suggest. Yes, having a soccer "culture", that perhaps gives us an equal share of the top talent (say, 20 percent, the other 4 sports split the remaining 80 percent of the top 1 percent of athletes) would help.

But we have the benefit of hindsight. These two forces, infrastructure and culture, produce players. We've have seen what we can get from generations of little-to-no infrastructure. It's amateur players, and a 40 year WC-qualifying drought. No amount of "love" gets you to the World Cup. Back when we had love, no infrastructure, and nobody else had any infrastructure, we got 3rd place in the 30's. And at once, our lack of infrastructure began to tell, snuffing our soccer talent for multiple generations.

Now we're back on the upswing, thanks to the sport's increased visibility through the 1990 WC, and hosting the '94 WC. With an established and stable professional soccer league, we're here to stay. But until the infrastructure gets better, we're not going to produce many players like Landon and CP, and not very often.

 

The problem is density. If you're a good kid soccer player, but the next good kid soccer player is 300 miles away, you're never going to compete. Competition breeds excellence.

 

Competition is also brought together through infrastructure. Scouting, available teams, affordable coaching.

If you're a good soccer player, but the next good soccer players play for a 25K/year traveling team because your soccer infrastructure relies on pay-to-play, then you get the same result. You could also be good, but live in Nebraska, Iowa, or Montana. Nowhere near the scouting centers of the US, so no USYNT for you.