That's a great idea. And she represents the part of US Soccer that has actually accomplished something, instead of just talking about it or coming up with stupid marketing chants.
Do not allow sentimentality and politics to influence action. That team was screwed the second it posed for the photo with Mexico in Columbus. Michael Bradley's subsequent RFK-inspired tweets didn't help.
This makes us Philadelphia Union fans throw up in our collective mouths a little bit. His limitations as manager on match day are significant.
You can't have pro/rel with a "single entity" league. First MLS has to take off the training (or restraining) wheels and become a league of independent clubs. Until that happens the league will remain mediocre even in regional competitions.
I'd hire a Colombian Coach. They seem to get the job done consistently in this region. (Even though I thought they would fail in Central America this week.) Do what Venezuela has done and go with a youth movement. Base the team spine with the U20 and U17 teams that seem to have special talents coming in. Pray that defenders and keepers find a way to become good.
That's true and it points out that there are a lot of American players who just not good enough to get a roster spot. Stuff happens and sometimes NTs don't qualify. The Dutch, whom I've supported going back to the Cruyff days in the early 1970s, failed to qualify despite making it to WC final and semi-final in the past two Cups. Lots of finger pointing going on there as well and the Dutch FA will be reorganized because of this. MLS is too unwieldy the way it is growing. A lot of the teams are just very average in terms of tactics and player ability; a mid-table Dutch team would challenge for the title this season. US needs to have a professional league where games mean something. there should be a hierarchical system of leagues with promotion and relegation (I go to DC United games and this season they are just awful; let them fight off relegation!!!). The current youth system needs to be changed with less emphasis on traveling teams which some kids/families cannot afford to participate on. Focus on regional development and identification of promising players. Ideally, one would like to see a European academy model run by professional teams but that's not going to happen. the current college system is a waste of time for top young players. the season is too short and the competition is spotty, Klinsman was correct in saying that good US players should move to Europe ASAP.
The younger crop of players looks promising. We just need to paly them. I would usggest some sor tofo mandate in MLS for playing younge Americans but there might be legal issues with such a mandate. Also we need ot get a coach who is no beholden to players unless tehy continually prove it on the field. Bradley should not have gotten Dempsey/Donovan treatment from Arena/Klinsmann, he never earned that.
You guys realize your looking too far up the tree, right? If you want to do things the European way, what you need to do is dismantle the pay-for-play system that bilks parents out of thousands of dollars, subsidize development of the sport among all kids to find the diamonds in the rough and develop a standardized methodology of coaching that is applied across the nation that doesn't let coach egos or grassroots club politics get in the way of developing the best players possible.
A sure recipe for continued failure. Do you wonder why a player such as Jermain Jones becomes an integral part of the US NT?
We have so many technically gifted players coming through our youth system, we need the right coaches for them. USL has really helped us in giving these players experience and helping us identify young talent but we have to keep improving.
Because his father is American? Why do the Dutch fail so much? We have to and we will fix our own problems.
Pro/Rel doesn't do anything. So a club with CONCACAF talent goes down and is replaced with another club with CONCACAF talent, now what? In the end no matter what anyone does, England, Italy, Germany, and Spain will continue to have the best pro leagues while Germany, Italy, Brazil, and Argentina will continue to remain the best national teams.
Pay-to-play is not a good system, but I haven't heard anyone suggest a viable alternative yet. Who pays for the fulltime coach, the groundskeeper, the admin making sure that people get paid and that the kids are who they say they are, the refs, etc.?
This is something we really need to figure out. Somehow those teams need to be supported by the fed or somebody else.
Bigger problem than pay to play is that enough kids don't play soccer for fun on their own time in this country. Dropping Bradley forever and implementing pro/rel in MLS isn't going to change that.
I wonder if the number of kids that do play for fun is more or less than the ones in Iceland? Might be irrelevant but I am curious.
Instead of focusing on sending our best players to Europe we should invest all that effort and energy on preparing coaches and training camps to be equal or better than them. Don't get me wrong, we should send them to Europe but the ultimate goal should be to develop them ourselves. We have the money to do it. I never got the point of countries like us and Mexico who invest so much money in this sport have never invested in trying to equal the teachings they do in England, Germany, Italy and Spain. What do they have that we can't? It's a long process but it's the only way to develop our talent without the need to send them to Europe.
Heck, we went to the World Cup in 1950 with all but one of the players coming from St. Louis. We should have been able to beat T&T last night with all but one of our players coming from St. Louis. Disgraceful!
I believe that we have guys that are good enough to take some of these spots. MLS paychecks look pretty good to Central American youth, but not to Americans (most of whom come from wealthy families) who would rather ride a bench in Europe for a little more dough. Agree with the rest of your post. Travel Teams are a joke and a massive hindrance to developing talent. USSF could do more investing in youth development, but that's a difficult chore with the size of this country. That's not the best answer. The league structure needs overhauled NOW! The answer is and has always been to create a national structure including Pro/Rel. End single entity bullshit where owners do not have to risk anything. The best Pro/Rel argument isn't about giving us exciting games with bottom feeders at the end of every season. It's about teams having an incentive to compete and fight for young talent and invest more in scouting and academies. The naysayers can say it will never happen, but if all soccer fans in this country united for it, it would happen. The Rochesters, The Charlestons, The Harrisburgs, The Cincinnatis, The Pittsburghs, The Tulsas, The Sacramentos would all have incentive to go out and find and develop players that would be their golden goose. They would find the athletic kids that are torn between two sports and invest in their soccer careers. Until all of this happens we will always be shorting ourselves in youth development and not realizing our full potential. Teams that don't invest will die. WE NEED TO UNITE FOR THIS TO HAPPEN. QUIT MAKING F'N EXCUSES. THIS FAILURE IS A ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY TO FIX THIS GARBAGE! LETS DO IT! It's time to STAND UP. Stop going to games, buying jerseys and supporting your local club. Your money supports the MLS Monopoly that resulted in last night's disaster!! If you want to keep feeling the sensation of losing to the B-team of an island country, keep going to your games on Saturday. The next time it'll be Barbados eliminating us before we get to the Hex.
Exactly! Pay to play exist even in Mexico and Argentina. Here in South Texas Mexican clubs such as Monterrey and Atlas have "academies " and it cost you to have your kids there. Same thing in Tamaulipas or Nuevo Leon, Mexico, you want to be in an academy with Tigres, Rayados or Chivas, it will cost you.
I think we have been doing this a little already. We've hired people from Spain, Netherlands and France recently. This country is more than capable of being one of the best in the world. Not all of our problems can be solved by trying to emulate the europeans though. Our situation is different here but we can work around those problems
Unfortunately, soccer in the US is a business at the youth level. It's a money making machine. As for development, the only emphasis is to get some kids to college. The most important attributes valued in college soccer isn't soccer acumen or technical abilities, it's brute force athleticism. Anyway, no real change will happen - too much money and too many egos. Dudes running around in addidas capri pants will always lure in sheeple parents that will consume their accented lingo with great vigor as if they were Jesus himself preaching from the Mount. Our only hope to qualify for the WC and do well is in Fifa18. To all the lemming parents forking up $10,000 + a year for ECNL, DA, etc.. the coaches union of America, thank you.
LOL! Calm down. If you want to talk about topics like this I would say the bigger problem is maybe over expansion. More teams give more players a chance to play, but it also spreads out the best players.