It’s not brilliant for football and basketball either. We are a sports mad nation and over 300 million people, so we will find talent for those two sports since a large chunk of the nation is playing them. Not true for soccer. Our sport development system is wildly inefficient and caters to affluent kids.
I was part of that system. There are clubs, like the one I was part of, that look to keep the costs down and offer scholarships. But the big clubs travel extensively and pay "professional" coaches, so families can spend thousands of dollars on travel and training. As a result, the talent pool from the youth system is skewed to affluent white kids. By contrast on the boys side, my former club is 90% hispanic, but its not a club that catches the attention of scouts. I actually got involved before youth soccer became a big "business", so I have thought about the problem a lot. The MLS has invested in academies, but its a big country with a limited number of professional teams and the MLS academies don't help the girls side. Ideally the US Soccer Federation would invest in a series of academies across the country (50 to 100 might do), but it would be very expensive.
All of this is true of basketball and football too. We have a backward sports system. It just shows in soccer because it doesn’t have the participation levels of the other two.
I've been conflicted about a number of aspects of our youth sports program. The trend in the last 15 to 20 years to year round play all sports is burning kids out. I saw it with my oldest daughter. When she was in high school, between high school and club soccer she was playing approximately 60 games a year and by the time she got to college she admitted she was burned out. In many cases, we're asking kids to play more games than pros play. I didn't coach her, but I did coach another player that I suspect suffered from burnout. I retired from youth soccer two years ago and the year before I retired I lost a very good player to one of the bigger clubs in the area. She ended up traveling extensively over the last three years. She's entering high school this coming fall and has decided to go to Thatcher, a small private boarding school in southern California that doesn't offer soccer, but does have a horse program. She was a player that I thought I would be able to watch play in a big time college program, but that's not happening now. Soccer might have lost her to horses anyway, but burnout probably played a role. Soccer is not the only sport suffering from this trend. Recently I saw an article on the increase in overuse injuries among young players entering the NBA.
I definitely think it's a trend of earlier and earlier organized play that is contributing to burnout, and macroeconomic forces. When 80% of the kids aren't playing before they are 8 or 9. Well it's free to kick a ball at a wall with some mates, and you play when it's fun. On the other hand throw in drills almost killed football for me a 10. I definitely think we over value results in youth sports, Club youth sports doesn't have any other metrics or methods. Which is probably why Spain, France and Germany all nationalized development.
Zidane on Bale: Definitely channeling his inner-Mourinho there. I wonder if there will be any knock-on effects for us. Bale can pretty much only join PSG or United give his wages.
I want Bale to show up for training with a beach chair in a Hawaiian shirt, flip flops and a hat that says “pay me my $$$”.
if that's some kind of veiled criticism of Ralph Coates, I'm going to have to ask you to step outside.
I remember watching a match where Bale spent what felt like 5 minutes fixing his ********ing top knot to either cover the bald spot/keep up the ninja image. All while the opposite team had the ball. No wonder the fans want him out.
By the way, who's that kid who missed the deciding penalty for you against Real? When I saw him, all I could think was: