https://theathletic.com/1302170/201...-u-s-soccer-needs-to-improve-latino-outreach/ This is a paid article but worth a read if anyone has The Athletic. But nothing shattering. Biggest takeaway is he said he know the people working there and they are not equipped to deal with different cultures. So they miss out on a lot of small things that make younger players want to stay with the us and feel as if they are wanted. And the lack of full time scouts. 1 full time scout with part time scouts rounding it out. Mentions how Alvarez said he and a few others were not treated well at a US camp. And that's why he chose Mexico. Anyway the guy who was scouting some of our best talents now works for Mexico and pulling youth prospects from the underscouted parts of the US. Ringing endorsement for Earnie and the USSF.
Fu...Fu...Fu..Fu..%&*$#Y&(*$#&% After the past couple of years, I didn't think that I could be more pissed about the current state of USSF. I was wrong. This is a cherry on top of a sh!t sunday. I don' t know if Hugo is the end-all-to-be all around scouting, but the optics are just poor...especially for an ex-USMNT player. I haven't felt this bad about soccer since the 80s.
This seems an appropriate place to say again that Thomas Rongen is a self admitted liar and he was kept around forever as one of the boys and then they closed ranks to defend his obvious incompetence. Meanwhile a legend like Hugo was ran out of town.
The way USSF has treated Hugo is astonishingly poor, a travesty. They fully deserve any negative fall out from it. Just sad it also affects innocent fans and those who had nothing to do with it.
We can't blame Earnie's lack of understanding of "soccer culture." USSF at this point is just a nepotistic bro circle-jerk, a closed circle.
houston dynamo have also lost a couple hgp types to mexican teams' age group sides. this to me basically takes advantage of the blindspot in our system where if you're not in country club select you don't exist. there is plenty of ball played outside that system.*** but before it basically went nowhere. maybe a blip in high school soccer. but this is basically like if you aren't going to chase these kids i will put in a pump-jack and take your own oil. that being said, i would separate out scouting the unnoticed from poaching the identified. you don't make ODP locally much less state/region/YNT "unnoticed." this is not the kids who we put soccer goals on basketball courts and they start the sport. this is our system kids who have probably played as long as the country club select players and perhaps even on the same teams. this is they have tapped into a system failure and are poaching kids right off our YNT or the like. not to be controlling but one side effect of blowing Bradenton to hell is your HS age kids are no longer in residence together but rather off with their various academies and club teams around the world, not bleeding national colors every day but instead meeting up for camp every so often each year. strikes me the same availability to professional teams and environments also might make their country status into a similar market contest. ***i think people conflate low black involvement in the sport with hispanic involvement in the sport in poorer areas -- which is strong as heck but often not pipelined into the select/ODP/academy/college/pro pathways. those are two distinct issues, ie, areas not into soccer, and then areas into soccer but ignored by the pyramid. Bears noting the new MX team FC Juarez has a kid from across the river in El Paso, who went to HS here and still lives here and commutes cross border, as a backup keeper. El Paso rarely participated in Texas club soccer.
I hate that Mexico tries to poach our players... but it hasn't hit us that hard so far. Many of our most talented U23 players have the option of defecting and I have no faith that GB will help matters out by cap-locking them... The Olympic U23 squad could provide a needed buffer for some of these players... but if they perform then they need to be rewarded. Especially a player like Uly who is owning U19 Bundesliga.
i get the idea this effort is not new but is grander and more systematic. gringo torres was born in texas, played HS ball here, and was recruited to Pachuca from here at 16 (c. 2003). i would assume the difference now would be the extent.
im not going to go full kanye and say "us soccer doesnt care about latin/hispanic players"...but id say us soccer cares very, very, VERY little about latin/hispanic players and makes zero effort to accomodate them/their recruitments in any meaningful way, which is the same level they put into our latin/hispanic fanbase.
FC Dallas has a FCD affiliate team there and have had players move from the affiliate to the full team including Ricardo Pepi. they are very aware of the talent there.
The reason they are now starting to poach our players is that our youth players are getting better (or that Mexico's are getting worse). That's a good thing overall. This competition just comes with the territory - marketing to dual nationals needs to be a USSF core competency for us to reach our maximum potential going forward. I'm wiping tears from my eyes just writing and thinking about that concept - core competency from the USSF.
That explains one segment of demand. It doesn't explain how our segment of demand for them is handled and why people from/living here choose to play there, for either club or country. Like I said, I think one reason we are losing them at the country level is we basically decentralized development. It would be a shock if someone did a residence like Bradenton, bonded, and then flipped. It is less shocking if someone who is brought up in the compete-for-services baby pro atmosphere of a MLS academy, where when you turn pro you can sign anywhere, might start viewing their international choice as akin to picking where they will play pro ball. For non-resident passport players like Dest there was always this element. But now even if you live here U17 is just a periodic camp experience. I'd be curious how often a year they meet. I am sure the numbers are kept limited so as not to step on the feet of the club sides. In essence we have reverted to pre-Bradenton but with a stronger league. I see some of the seed of this in them being left more to be market actors. Snobs love it since they want to xerox libertarian aspects of England or Germany structures but some countries like France in fact have centralized development. France has won 2 titles in the past 20 years. Not that we seem to care how successful the countries are that we imitate. Among the reasons I don't think this works for us, is few of our academies have shown any particular knack for development. We kind of went political and cleared the field for them. In the process not only do we have hit or miss development led by maybe 3 teams, but with many who suck at it, we also IMO have opened up our own academicians -- who before would have been residents -- to not just the snob-desired club overtures, but also second-country scouting and recruitment.
IMO, that is a full Kanye statement. Should the USSF make special accommodations for Hispanic players? What are those accommodations? I think the USSF treats the whole process like it is an honor to play for the USMNT and that they shouldn't have to accommodate or cater to any of the players. This is pure in theory... but if Mexico treats it more like a business where they will do/say roughly anything to maximize their talent pool then perhaps the fed needs to change its tune? I dunno.
I would disagree in three ways: 1. You might want to carve out some room at the local ODP level for projects who are unusually talented but have bad/no traditional club situations. Just like an ODP program should be looking for tall players, fast players. Development is not just the best current players you can find. Some of it is anticipating how a player might grow and be useful by 18 or 20. You know, like, this kid is raw and plays outside the select system but our scout thinks the sky is the limit. I want the ODP at the local level taking some risks with their last choices and not just picking the 25th or 30th next best. I realize this offends ideas of pure merit but developmental teams should have a chunk of the team dedicated to high ceiling projects. Some of those projects could be kids who flash talent but are from a hispanic league and raw in the team game. I would see kids like this all the time in HS soccer. You'd be like wow this kid is good how have I never seen him before. And then you'd see them less than 100% fit, or making mental errors select kids wouldn't. And you'd talk to them after about trying out for club and they'd be like I am broke. But those would be precisely the kids who would benefit from ODP level training. 2. I wouldn't perpetuate that up to the state, regional, and national level until they are truly ready. That's where I'd kick in merit. 3. However, at the senior level I would make some accommodation for cap tying dual nationals early. The Cuba games are perfect for it. Fast track players to the team, secure their services, and then worry about how they fit in. I feel like we are getting very lackidaisical about dual nationals and are about to get our lunch eaten. It's odd that our approach to dual nationals seems dictated by merit absolutism while the actual 23/XI on the senior team field seem haphazardly chosen and favoritism.
The Fed's Spanish language twitter account hasn't been used in 3 years. Re-engaging with that would be a baby step.
"Speaking for the first time publicly on the topic, (Hugo Perez) said he was told more than once not to speak Spanish to Latino players, and that his continued use of Spanish on the field may have contributed to him being let go." https://t.co/GHiYD4cK5o— scuffed (@scuffedpod) October 21, 2019
If true, this is the worst thing that the USSF has done (and that's quite an accomplishment). @wixson7 - does the USSF fan council get to discuss/chime in on things like this?
I would say that allowing USSF players and staff to speak Spanish, if they desire, would be a "realistic small change" that could improve the U.S. national team.
A lot of good ideas here... including the posts after yours. I am totally in favor of #3.... Uly was injured at the time but he came back right where he left off... 8 goals in 5 games for U19 Bundesliga... it isn't a top league... but it is still impressive and he would be a far better wing option coming off the bench than just about everyone else GB has thrown out there. I have to assume they envision him as part of the U23 Olympic Team... but the USMNT desperately needs attacking options at the wings besides CP and Morris. Weah and Uly would be intriguing late game subs for those players. Regarding speaking Spanish... it does seem like a pretty small thing that could be done to improve relations... but the dual nationals in question were all born and raised here. Are Uly and Ledezma tweeting in Spanish? I seriously don't know as I don't have a twitter account... but I have seen some of their tweets posted on this forum and they are in English. One has to think that there is a balancing act between accommodating Dual US/Mexican Nationals at the risk of alienating other players.
I bet if Mendez, Ledezma and Uly can't speak spanish that the FMF would 100% let their coaches speak English to them. USSF's decision making at seemingly every point is shocking bad. I mean what the heck do they do all day? Like, when Earnie (or any of these execs) comes into the office in the morning, what is he actually freaking doing? They have no transparency, no accoutability, nepotism, shockingly stupid decision making, no creativity..... I could go on.... Just wish more people cared.
it bears reminding we're talking schoolkids here. there would be limited scenarios i can think of where you would have a U19 player who isn't at minimum in school being taught the language. fresh off the boat so to speak. maybe scouting or parent/community interactions scenarios. perhaps passport players but that could as easily be dutch or german or the like. in terms of requiring it. that being said, it would be a bonus. one thing i'd toss out there is i loathed the "check box" approach that led to berhalter. i think that tends to be done with people in mind. i think it's used more to get rid of threats than to land on the best candidate. the approach i want is you are graded out on what you offer in a variety of areas, and one area might be how well you speak english, but also foreign languages. but if you are a good coach in other areas and have managed to work here successfully maybe the system is wrong if you don't grade out ahead even if your english isn't perfect. i had a coach or two with less than perfect english. one of them i'd say was the best coach i had. to underline something from that, i think throwing out people who don't perfectly check a box but still kind of do, who are otherwise great choices, can be manipulated. tata comes to mind. he was already working here and highly successful. that means his english was good enough. but we made a check box of that issue. zap. threat to berhalter gone. if it was instead an element of a holistic grade, one guy won the title the other never has, with a high number of points, and a better past CV too. lesser english or not, would he have graded out better if given the chance? i also think GB tends to speak system jargon like a stereotype college professor which can almost hide as much as it renders transparent. for the purposes of fans/press/PR i think it's used to avoid critique and accountability. this is too complicated for your brain. let me toss you some buzzwords. for the players, whatever he's teaching, they often look confused. so either what he is teaching isn't getting across, or it just doesn't work, or maybe both. so he speaks english but is anything actually getting across and working. which wanders into that the key is not so much "english" as "communication." wanders into "teach people one thing at a time." i played another sport for a while to the point i competed some on the international circuit. i had people who tried the fire hose approach. you didn't assimilate much from that. what i found worked was "we're teaching you this one thing today." the US plays like they got a fire hose, are overwhelmed, and no longer process the game at a competitive speed. that and the selection itself sucks, and it's questionable if we have personnel for tactics. but i digress. my point is a coach with decent ideas who can get them across if in broken english might be more useful than a poor communicator on a "change everything" trip who was born here and speaks perfect english.