Boys high school soccer participation has increased from 391,839 in 2009/10 to 459,077 in 2018/19. That's up 17% in 9 years despite a fall in overall enrollment. Also in that time the number of free to play programs has risen dramatically and academies tend to discourage their students from playing at high school. Dempsey turned professional after being drafted in 2004 at the age of 21. Foreigners can't sign contracts in Holland or Germany until they are 18.
is your thinking that MLS is mostly responsible for the uptick in high school soccer's increase? I believe you mentioned higher compensation at an earlier age as a driving influence.
It's a combination of many factors. I'll have a stab at some. - a flourishing domestic soccer scene at pro and amateur level; - the availability of European soccer on network TV and basic cable; - 2010 and 2014 Men's World Cup; - the success of the US women's team; - the popularity of FIFA and Pro Evolution video games (and maybe Football Manager) - CTE and parents' concerns about the safety of football; - etc.
I think one key difference between the landscape now and then is that there are far more quality programs than in the past. As a result, there is far more competition now than the past. The soccer density is greater now than in hte past.
Is this really true? What statistics do they use to make that determination? It is not what seems to be true in my eyes. I now see more kids playing unorganized soccer than I did in the recent past (3-10 years ago). I see far more kids playing now than 10-20 years ago. I mention unorganized soccer because I believe the organized stats can be a bit misleading because it counts so heavily AYSO where kids play for 3 months in a year and stop the rest of the year. The level of AYSO participation has been astronomical for decades. my guess is that it has risen steadily but doesn't do a good job of measuring actual immersion in the sport. The kids playing on their own with 2 or 10 other kids in a playground give a better measure of the health of the sport. Also, as imperfect as it is, the growth of club soccer is probably a good measure. I believe many of the ethnic inner city leagues are unaffiliated, so those kids would be under counted also.
Two quick responses: 1. the first bolded is very subjective and two people can have a far different answer depending upon how "higher level" is defined. 2. If we are looking at a baseline wouldn't we want to compare with the level before MLS? (if we are looking at MLS overall impacat) or approx 10yrs ago if we are looking at the impact of the academies.If we are looking at a baseline to evaluate changes to the academy system or any other changes to MLS we would want to have something stable and current and I suppose 5 yrs ago is ok
I think there's some overhype there based on one stat. You walk around Manhattan on Saturday mornings these days and you see young kids of various ethnicities, usually mixed, playing organized soccer in basketball courts and other places you would never have seen them 10 years ago.
Exactly this. The answer to the question is far from binary. There is a broad spectrum between ideal and horrible. MLS, in my opinion, is very comfortably on the positive side of the spectrum. Not ideal but improving.
There is always the possibility that those kids choose to play their soccer elsewhere. The New York Club Soccer League was formed in 2009 and has hundreds of teams from U9s to U19s. https://www.nyclubsoccerleague.com/html/home/about_us.asp
I was simply answering the first question of how we did in the world cup prior to MLS. None of those players played in the NASL but grew up with it. The NASL had a very big indirect impact on that generation of soccer players. It was the first and in many cases the only way that people saw high level soccer. It also brought a lot of foreign players who stayed to be involved in the game and have children who played. The NASL did virtually nothing to directly develop players. MLS hasnt had the indirect impact due to a number of reasons. The two biggest reasons were that the level was initially so poor and still way off the top level and there is easy access to the best soccer around the world. Our top players dont dream of playing in MLS... they want to play in europe. We may be starting to see an improvement in youth talent due to academies, but it hasnt made it to the USMNT. Tyler Adam's is probably the biggest success to date, but so far he is an anomaly. Perhaps a player like Miazga uses his polish passport to go abroad much earlier and learns things as a teenager that he has been learning while in his early 20s. I never claimed MLS hurt the growth of soccer, but do believe we could be much further along with a different system. I did say that they have harmed the USMNT. They havent produced better players, most of those who passed through MLS were high enough profile that they would of had overseas options, and have over paid to bring players back whose performances subsequently fell off. If MLS hadnt been started, the others leagues would have grown much more than they did. The interest from foreign teams would have continued to grow for American players.
The wasteland that came before MLS produced a lot of very good players that were on par with those that came after them. Producing more players that are at or below the standard of 1994 team after almost 25 years is enough to question whether they have been detrimental to player development. I think things have gotten better at the youth level over the last 5ish years, but not really seeing it at the 18 to 22 year old age group. Things could definitely change with kids in that age group in the near future though. This also ignores the power and control that MLS has. Would youth soccer been further along without MLS having a monopoly on the game?
I would say we are in complete agreement on the first part. The second, we are in agreement in the sense that we both agree MLS has not had the same indirect impact but i see it more as NASL going from nothing to something as a huge and revolutonary impact while I see MLS going from something to a bit more as not nearly as impactful.
Apparently I misunderstood what you said and took it far more broadly than you intended. Agree that MLS could have done a better job but they also could have done a worse job. If MLS had not started, I am sure we would have a league in place by now...or two leagues competing to be top dog. Would it be better? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Do you really think that NASL had that big an impact? The highest average attendance was 14,440, in 1980, and there was what, one game per week on TV? There was a bump in high school participation between 1995 and 2003, which I assume was the legacy of the World Cup.
Given that every previous attempt had failed, and MLS was still in the financial dumpster in 2006, so I'm not sure we'd have a first division worth crowing about. MLS set out to try and attract big investors and it ultimately did that by making sure their money was secure.
What is the quality of the college soccer coaching? Do colleges demand certain qualifications like Euro or FIFA bulls? Edit: How is it a fall back, as it's a no pay for the player system?
You dont seem to know a lot about the NASL. I experienced the huge impact it had on the game. You keep missing that we havent developed materially better players than we had in 1994. MLS has helped deepen the pool with more Steve Ralstons.
There may be some decent coaches, but overall the level of play and coaching is very poor compared to the Jong teams you are used to watching. The coaching licenses required are usually from our federation or the NSCAA. I dont know much about the National Soccer Coaches Association of America and the USSF curriculum is expensive and is constantly changing. The idea that college soccer is a "wonderful fall back" is just crazy. Someone would only make that comment if they were looking for ways to say are system isnt completely fucckked. Until recently is was just the alternative to second teams and I wouldn't call playing 20 games over a few months a good alternative. The style of play in college has improved but focus more on athleticism than other factors so players lack the technical ability needed and arent learning the tactical part of the game. The substitution rule that a player cant return in the same half only contributes to frantic nature of the game. I recall coaches that would plan to rotate players where one would play the first 20-25 mins of the half and another the second. This allowed players to run like crazy knowing they would get a break shortly.
It is possible that we wouldn't have a league by now, but I doubt it. The growth of soccer in this country was huge from 1994 to 2014. If they had created lower budget league a step or two up from the A-league at the time and focused on player development and selling players, I think they would easily seen rapid improvement after about ten years. Also, if the federation had shown some leadership in helping developed a multi-tier system we would have many more teams than we do today. If we had followed this approach, I think the interest from Euro teams would have grown much faster and would be even bigger today than it is. I have no idea if the league would be better and dont really care. I do believe the improvement in our top players and the USMNT would have been much greater. The whole quest to be "better" has created a horrible style of play that really hinders player development. MLS fans also seem to miss how the league's monopoly really stifles growth of the game outside of them. So the game is primarily being driven by 20 to 30 franchises. These fans are so happy that they have billionaire owners, but miss there are only 30ish of them. I'd much rather have 300 owners who are worth a tenth of the current group.
The first part is a big if. If they had, it is possible that you are right. Not sure that was a practical plan at the time. For one thing, the "raw material" at the time wasn't as good as it is today. The overall baseline is much higher now (IMO). To develop players that would allow a developmental league to survive would require a sufficient level of income from those sales. I'm not sure we would have had the supply of players at that level of quality to drive those sales. The other thing is that for a league like that to happen, you need a constant supply of players to make it work...some of whom would never be sold but are needed to make the league itself work. The salary would have to be high enough to make it worth the while of the players. One of the big issues that I believe prevented leagues like the A-league from flourishing and growing is that lower salaries that led players to spend a year or three in the league before getting a "real job". For the second....Maybe. Maybe not. That is a matter of opinion and I can't argue against or for it.
When I said the alternative to MLS could be better or worse, I was not referring to the quality of play. I was speaking in generalities. The overall conversation had little to do with the quality of play but about the overall level of benefit the league provides soccer in general. (at least that is how I interpreted it). I was saying that if MLS were not in existence, we would likely have a "relatively high level" league in place (level of play could range anywhere from USL to better than MLS...I don't know). I don't know what the quality of development would be, I don't know what the footprint of the league would be, don't know the impact it would have on young kids...all of which and more are factors in determining how beneficial the league is to US soccer on the whole.