Recent countries that have been successful in international soccer: ICELAND - population: 334k CHILE - population: 17.9 Million Croatia - 4.1 million Belgium - 11.3 million Uruguay - 3.44 million i think the USMNT and US Soccer can take some things from this. My big takeaway is this: I think as time has gone by, more players in the USA are falling through the cracks and not being given a chance to truly play at the highest level. I think in early 2000's was the "sweet spot" for USA. It was a time when a high % of the talent that was coming through - importantly - was actually getting a true shot on the field. More talent was coming through than ever before...but almost all of that talent was actually getting onto the field and either making it or not - based on on-field performance. There wasnt more talent than they were spots in MLS for that talent. Now there is more talent than there is spots and the players who stick arent necessarily more likely to be better than the ones who dont (in the long run).....in other words, the player pool is now subject to more vagaries of talent identification than ever before...and that this is a big problem in the US soccer landscape. I think that despite MLS improving - my sense is that the talent that is coming through in the US is not getting onto the field at the same high % that it used to. In the long run, this shouldnt be a problem. the better MLS gets, the better the USMNT should become...but actually the opposite seems to be happening. As teams bring in more and better imports...more talented Americans who used to be able to play in MLS are simply never getting decent minutes. In other words, the US is wasting more talent than ever despite MLS being at an all-time high in terms of quality. It's a pardox that will probably sort itself out eventually.... For now, I think it is important to realize that perhaps the smaller countries do well because they give ALL of their decent players a chance. They "turn over every rock" - they are forced to.....and in the end it benefits them because they don't fall victim to wasted talent. How can they US not waste its talent? How can the US "turn over every rock"? I think there are several ways, (including): 1. MLS needs to start actively pushing more americans to leave the USA (and thus open more domestic spots for other americans)....i think the MLS move to bring back as many americans and USMNT "stars" was bad not only for those individuao players' form but also b/c that means less slots for unproven americans to get onto the field. 2. MLS should play more games against lower level - USL - teams. 3. MLS should allow for players in MLS to get into optimal club teams - allow them more freedom of movement. 4. Perhaps MLS should reduce the # of Intl slots.
Youth development, field availability, and coach development. I like the Iceland example of providing LOTS of places to play, far more per capita than most cities and towns in the US have and having a ridiculous number of certified coaches. I think it the per capita rate would result in 400,000 certified coaches nationwide. Also, fields are limited and expensive and go to rich kids mostly. We need enough that it doesn’t have to take thousands of dollars to play
I'd like to see MLS limit teams to 5 international players on the field at a time. You can have as many as you want on your roster, but maximum 5 on the field. You may even be able to count green card holders and dual citizens cap tied to other countries as foreign players this way, as you're not actually restricting their employment. Not sure if that would fly legally, but it might.
I play tennis in the DC/VA area...and you should see how often soccer players try to take over tennis courts. I've never understood why a club like DC united doesnt build futsal courts/fields for players...the interest is there!! if i had enough money, i would make a business out of it...and it would be popular. if anything it would be great marketing for Dc united and i'm sure it would make a lot of fans out of local players...not to mention help the development of the sport big time.
These two points would counteract each other. If MLS teams were forced to field more USA players, then they're not going to let their top American stars go. You might speculate that these circumstances would encourage clubs to field younger and less-proven American talents, but clubs have overriding imperatives to (a) win games and (b) make money - keeping their top American players meets both those goals. They'll resist any measures to send those players abroad and especially if they were forced to field fewer foreign players. If anything, you might want the reverse - to encourage younger and unproven players to go abroad. Dunno how you'd do that - maybe try to draw more youth talent scouts to America?
Bad idea. Here's why. Team has 5 Internationals on the field. US Player gets injured, needs a sub, but the most logical sub is an international...or worse, the only available subs are internationals. What then?
the limit would have to be on roster slots...not on players actually playing. personally, i think it could easily be reduced from the current 8 per team to 7 without anyone really noticing a difference.
And NYCFC are building 50 in the city with NYC and USSF. Glad that the Red Bulls have finally acknowledged they're a New Jersey team [emoji6] Just kiddin'
What about small countries lack of success? Finland, Slovakia, Guyana, Vanatu, none of them got anywhere near to qualifying for this World Cup? Size doesn't matter. At the end of the day it's eleven vs. eleven. 20 most populus countries and FIFA ranking. 1 China 75 2 India 97 3 U.S. 25 4 Indonesia 174 5 Brazil 2 6 Pakistan 201 7 Nigeria 48 8 Bangladesh 197 9 Russia 70 10 Mexico 15 11 Japan 61 12 Ethiopia 151 13 Philippines 115 14 Egypt 45 15 Viet Nam 102 16 DR Congo 83 17 Germany 1 18 Iran 37 19 Turkey 38 20 Thailand 122 And yes, I'm going off at a bit of a tangent.
I've always held that if you're trying to build a program from the top down, it's a hell of a lot easier to do as a small population/size country, at least to the point where the level of success is above proportion to your size. Scaling up is difficult. I've also held that the sheer size of the USA is a hinderance to the development of our best players. Getting our top talent to play against each other is a huge chore. The Mid-America division of the Dev Academy has teams stretching all the way from Minneapolis to Toronto. By car that's a 930 mile drive. We can theoretically keep expanding the DA, but quality-trained coaching staffs don't grow on trees.
5 to start the game, then. If teams want to waste early subs to get more internationals on the field then that's on them.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why you want to stock the NT with players that can't make it onto the field by virtue of being better than the other players at that position.
Too much like Calvinball. Roster spots is a lot easier thing to manager...and if a club wants to start all 8 of their internationals? That's their deal. US talent will know which clubs where they're more likely to get a chance. Give the market a chance to work.
I guess it just doesn't seem like the international player rule is even being enforced in any meaningful way. Looking at Portland's roster on Wikipedia, they seem to have 23 international players. NYCFC has 15. Atlanta has 14. LAFC has 17. Even Columbus has 13, SJ has 11, Dallas has 13, Houston has 14, Philly has 14, and RSL has 13. I get that international spots are tradeable (which in my informal survey I tried to control for by looking at a few teams that I expected to have among the fewest number of international players in the league). And I get that green card holders, dual citizens, and most HGPs don't count as internationals. But that's still every team I looked at, including several with a reputation for playing Americans, exceeding the limit of 8 and in all but one case by more than 50%. Is anyone at the league actually tracking or auditing this stuff on a day-to-day basis? Maybe they are and there's an explanation for all of this, but it sure doesn't seem like it. If you don't want to go to a "maximum X players on the field" rule, maybe the answer is to lower the number of international spots per team to 7 and to remove the exemption for international HGPs (unless they are dual citizens or have a green card/Canadian equivalent). The latter in particular would not only give teams more incentive to sign US HGPs at the pro level but also to bring more US citizens into their academies at younger age groups. I'd also give serious consideration to not allowing teams to trade their international spots.
Scanning the starting lineups for last weekend's games, there seemed to be a average of just over 7 domestic starters per team. That's higher than I would have thought. Maybe someone can double check.
Hate to say it, but this has been addressed in discussions before with focus on how the sport is being built out across the country. There isn't a lot of work being put into building out at the grassroots level beyond coaching certification and having a clear path of increased play on purely sporting terms. There are reasons and excuses for this, but the top brass have chosen the top down and exclusive approach to hypothetically move things along faster to mirror the traditional American sports model. There are numerous uncertainties that make the traditional American model challenging and potentially a big misstep. One major one would be the NCAA. We still have a vast majority of kids doing the recreational/select leagues --> high school --> college (which can be a financial mess) --> "something else" route, which can produce some gems, but will lead most to becoming fans. State associations don't seem to have the ability to establish state or partnered regional leagues that can provide alternative playing opportunities for a level equal or above high school/college and have it be viable. There might just not be the interest in the American public to see anything other than the highest level of this sport. I won't pretend to have the answers, but there are a lot of complex reasons why we just can't streamline it in the United States. Fundamentally, it does come down to opportunities and options being funded. American's have an aversion to taxes and sponsorship is not at all consistent from region to region or at local, state, and national level. So exactly what @waltlantz said with a lot more brevity.