I see pick up soccer & basketball games all the time here in Chicago. What I never see are NFL, baseball or pick up hockey games ever ! The numbers are there, the difference might be scouting & development or the problem might be hunger & heart. How bad do you want it. Those kids in Panama & Honduras wanted it more than our pros !
Not sure about other parts of the country but as a rule in Northern California, I've never seen a bunch of American born players younger or older playing pick up. I remember playing throughout the 80's 90's and 00's at a local high school on a Friday night, Saturday or Sunday morning and it was always with the foreigners. Maybe there were one or two American born players but never more than that.They were usually playing softball or basketball and touch football but never saw anyone playing soccer. I still don't see many even though the game has somewhat of a culture in North America. As a matter of fact, despite the year around great weather and an abundance or grass fields , if it isn't organized with clubs, youth, amateur , HS or college, no one plays just for fun.
You might have a point, most of those kids playing pick up games are first generation Americans. Dempsey grew up playing pick up games with Latino kids. Until American kids want it as much as other kids around the world all the scouting and academies won't make that much of a difference. You need to eat, sleep and live the game to compete at a world class level. Our kids play but don't sleep & study the game day in and day out. They're too busy being distracted , I am not judging anyone , but this goes back to Hunger and options in life.
I watched 2 EPL games this morning and currently watching Tyler Adams vs Atlanta. How many American kids are watching soccer today vs NFL MLB or just trying to be cool on Facebook or YouTube ?
Seriously, other than all of us posting on BS and Alexi Lalas talking at halftime of the the NYRB -Atlanta game, who has spoken publicly about the USMNT getting eliminated from the WC? In any other country on earth, this would be a 24 sports talk topic but here its all over in a day or so. No one other than a select few soccer fans care. The big news is whether the NFL players are kneeling for the national anthem or not.
Other than this pool & a few other soccer places no one else in America cares or worry about whether USA failed to reach the WC or lose sleep over it.
Well that's good, but it is actual pick up games not just training or playing organized soccer... Playing in the streets and having to stop because cars are coming by... playing in the park without adults It's hard to come by finding straight street games or kids playing out in the parks... However @Sounders78 has mentioned seeing this.... I was lucky enough to have played a lot of soccer just for fun when I lived in Montreal... Was lucky as well to have gotten to play in NY.... however all this was done during school recess which still sort of counts. When it came to playing a sport out of school well it was football got lots of pain from that sport damn... Basketball which I rolled my both ankles several time playing... Well that's good, but it is actual pick up games not just training or playing organized soccer... Playing in the streets and having to stop because cars are coming by... playing in the park without adults telling kids how to play or what to do....
Yeah I didn't read it. Could anyone make the same mistake twice in such a short span of time? We organized an amateur club team in my area with a bunch of my American wannabe soccer players after the 1994 World Cup as everyone was getting into the game after watching the tournament. No one talked and you could hear a pin drop on the field and it was kind of funny. I was trying to encourage everyone to yell and scream and no one would. I had been used to playing pickup games on weekends with the foreigners , Africans , Middle Eastern, Mexican, Central and South Americans, Portuguese, Italian, German and British players for years and had so much fun but it wasn't the same while playing with the Americans. All the foreigners wanted was to throw a ball into the mix , set up cones , get their cleats on and a looked for a nice field to play on and played seriously, relying on their individual skills they had learned in their respective countries. The Americans on the other hand had to have an organized league with referees, flashy captains armbands and expensive cleats and warmups were running north and south all day. The difference was like night and day.
It's kids in the park without adults playing soccer for fun, doing target practice, etc. - no refs, no organization ...
Looks like Gulati guessed correctly. Once the initial furor dies down, no one will care and we'll be irrelevant for the next 4 years. Great.
Another reason why these guys have job security. No one cares about who runs the USSF. The thing is we all know change is needed but when will that be? I doubt anything will change much in the next 4 or 5 years.
What's the beef? Sunil gets richer, the Flynnsters of Chicago House get richer, and year after year of richly earned "We Suck Again" ....again. It's Winning, duh! Now how Fox likes all that money shelled out going to nothing good on the field at the WC I don't know....but the I don't see Gulati & Co. sweating over it.
I would agree to an extent. In the other sports, the domestic professional leagues seem to drive conversation and not international competition. Baseball fans are probably more interested in if the Chicago Cubs can repeat as World Series champs than if the U.S. participates in the World Baseball Classic.
While it isn't kids... When I was just out of highschool there was this old indoor soccer place that used to be a roller skating rink. They put down carpet. Put in goals and netting around the outside... One night a week it was just pickup with whoever showed up. Counted off and made random teams. Still payed a little at the door just to cover costs. Just a bunch of guys out playing soccer for fun late at night. There were a bunch of Russians who would show up and then go smoke when their team wasn't up. Sad when that place closed.
******** off Jermaine Jones. You and your egotism and self-serving eurocentrism were partly what disconnected us from our mojo. You were Klinsmann on the field. GET IT STRAIGHT EVERYONE. We were way more talented than Honduras, Panama, Trinidad... even Costa Rica relied on the heroics of B and C tier MLS players!!! So "pay to play" is not why we didn't qualify and it's not because our guys don't go to Europe. Geoff Cameron and Tim Ream fed Marco Urena while Fabian Johnson sat on his ass and watched. I find it easier to fault that than Omar's clumsy touch finding its improbable way into the goal. And Matt Besler was better than all of you. Sure we want to raise our game and we're doing it. But our failure had as much to do with buying into the Eurocentric bullshjt of a "big name" international coach, making million$ off our insecurities, as it did anything else.
I see pick up hockey, football (flag, tackle) along with soccer/hoops all the time in Calgary. Saw it when I lived in Toronto, Kelowna and Edmonton as well.
How do you know whether or not the kids you see playing pick up soccer are "American born"? I see kids playing pick-up soccer in my downtown area neighborhood parks all the time. Can only recall one time in 23 years seeing kids playing street hockey, even though San Jose has a pro hockey team, too.