Elections are coming up, Gulati is stepping down, and change is on the horizon, especially considering the WCQ failure. Obviously, something went wrong. We all have our opinions on how to fix it. What is expected of the new president? In my opinion, I want to see: Work closely with MLS for a joint mission of building the national team and building the domestic league. Better organization and improved infrastructure of the lower and reserve leagues. This includes a solid stadium plan and youth academies. More so, mandate every MLS team must field a reserve team. In addition, there needs to be a coherent plan for how all the leagues work together to improve US soccer. Note, my proposal for countering pay for play... when every MLS, NASL, USL, future D3 team have a full fledge academies... we’ll better be able to cover the national map and offer tuition to the best players. Establish an u23 national collegiate league to facilitate a more coherent plan than the PDL, with the focus of expansion in major college towns and u21 MLS teams. This is to understand that college soccer is not going away, and we will need these clubs to catch the u18 players that fall through the cracks. The alternative, if this is completely not doable, is offer full college scholarships as part of the minimum salary. Push for more HGP initiatives. This can be a page on its own in explaining those initiatives, but the focus of the league needs to change to, parity ends, where youth development begins. Meaning, we need to allow clubs that are motivated to better themselves and the league the tools to do so, and the main tool for that to happen is through youth development. And clubs that aren’t willing to invest in youth development will fall behind. To be specific, team should be able to field a whole teams of HGP, theoretically, and not one player should count towards the salary cap throughout all of those player’s careers. Simply the DP process. Every team has 4 DPs which count simply as cap exempt players, meaning not one cent counts towards the salary cap. Improve access to soccer, both on and off the field. This includes more soccer fields, soccer in the streets programs, ability to watch games, and even more involvement with soccer games. This is how we improve the “soccer culture”. For instance, even if the games cannot be viewed live due to cable company restrictions, ussoccer should televise on their website ALL of their games. Worst case...do it the day after, like Amazon Prime. That said, the sport will not grow if people aren’t able to watch the games. Improve coaching. Create a regional HQ in the different youth regions, and allow coaches to have better access to improve coaching and receive coaching licenses. Lobby for MLS schedule to be extended and for also summer tournaments to be held. We have too long of an offseason and we should consider moving the US Open Cup to a summer tournament during a “break”, as well as promoting the “World Football Challenge”( or whatever you choose to call it) where MLS clubs will have a chance to play the top international teams in a competitive format. In addition, push to respect the FIFA calendar. Field a full time u23/B team. We need a bridge from the u20s to the senior team, that also grooms the Olympic team. This is also designed for the senior coach to be able call some players to be looked at, whereas, in the past some players never got looked at because the senior coach got too comfortable with “his guys.” Bring back the residency program, and instead focus it as a a youth team for players who have interest playing abroad. Think of this as the Josh Sargent situation, where players can stay sharp until they turn 18. The idea is to get these players to play abroad. More so, think of this as the alternative solution to what Pulisic was talking about. Work towards helping struggling clubs to get downtown settings, improved stadium plans, and better market exposure. The best example of this may not just be the Crew but FC Dallas. Dallas has one of the best youth set ups in the league but their attendance is trash. Helped to push them to get a downtown stadium, and use Frisco stadium for the reserves. Seattle and Atlanta are the standard bearers for what a club should look like, and we need to put pressure on the MLS 1.0 types to get their act together. Allow free agency and do away with the current trade system we have in MLS. Situations like what happened to Ciman is a stain on the league.
So, you are optimist. Some good items on your list, but many of them are just not going to happen for political, cost, or other reasons. From my perspective, the priority should be: 1) Youth Development 2) Youth Development 3) Youth Development. The problem is that there are too many youth organizations with too many voices and too many focused on themselves. Big problem which has existed for a long time and no one has been able to crack it.
I want the president of us soccer to be the president of us soccer. He shouldn't be picking the national team or working with mls to fix the national team or any of the above listed craziness. The presidents job is to oversee us soccer. 1)he needs to identify the different parts of us soccer and put people in charge of those areas that will lead those areas to be successful.
you do understand that....money is a finite object right? -not the presidents job to fix the national team or grow the domestic league and absolutely can't and should not attempt to force mls to do anything. -where will that money come from ? teams that can barely function year to year will now be adding reserve teams and giving 'scholarships' to college kids(the ncaa would end that quickly pro teams can't pay college kids tuition). you also can't have structure when there isn't a structure to be had. NASL is barely alive at this point(and likely to die soon) usl is for the most part mls reserve teams. stadium plans? you understand most the teams barely have the cash to function right now right? -so pdl..another league barely alive...you want it to expand and grow...where will that money come from? us soccer will just force coaches to coach for free and fields to be used for free refs will be free ??? even better idea...pdl...grow and expand with money and players that don't exist...then create a new league too on top of that lol. you understand new leagues don't just appear overnight and survive right? -you can't tell a league to focus on hgp/youth players..then say...we'll give you more dp's to spend money on...its one or the other. -only good idea of the bunch and only one that is actually the job of the president of us soccer that you had....spread soccer everywhere. Just and FYI you can't just make it more available to watch that comes with networks/web deals its not that simple. Its also why columbus is going to austin because they can't get a decent deal there. -oh and by the way...the rights to games are sold just so you know. I think all mls matches are available either national/local or mls live. however what you can't do is stream a game on us soccer that you don't have permission for within the tv deal. networks want people to watch the game on tv if they have it on thats how they get ad revenue and thats why they pay for them. -the mls schedule idea makes very little sense. You do know that mls plays during the summer right? so you can't move the us open cup to the summer...its already there lol. you want more games in cold weather? great idea. summer tournaments? you do understand...THEY PLAY DURING THE SUMMER. Thats also when other teams are off and there are international tournaments...so no european clubs are not going to play in a serious tourney with mls teams during their break..in fact...they can't. Chelsea can't say 'oh we are playing a tournament in the us in june/july this year. I will stop tearing apart all of your ideas and end with one simple point. I think you are confusing the jobs of the president of us soccer and the commish of MLS. most of what you talk about isn't us soccers job and falls under mls's umbrella.
To get to the point of your last paragraph... The president’s responsibility is to build the relationship between he and MLS. Garber said he wants to help to make US soccer succeed after failure of WC qualifying...presidents steps in to tell him what he needs. There’s a 150 million dollar surplus, some of the ideas may be long term goals and others may be short term goals. But instead of “tearing every idea apart” as you boast to claim; why don’t you come up with some ideas of what you want to see from the president in the way of what can lead US soccer to grow. Otherwise, you’re just trolling.
I did give my ideas its not the presidents job to make the usmnt and mls buddy buddy or the presidents job to specifically help mls. its the presidents job to help the sport across the us for everyone, every league, every sex etc... garber said that because the heat mls took because of the number us usmnt players that are in mls who played poorly in wcq. 150 million isn't nearly as much as you think it is. so my answer again is grow the sport...adding a bunch of u23 teams and somehow making a usmnt u23 team full time is crazy. The idea of pulling kids away from clubs its so dumb its hardly worth laughing at and the same goes for a 'b' team. its called a player pool and that is the job of the usmnt gm and coach...not the pres.
it includes everything that us soccer is responsible. coaching licen fixing $ for play finding the best way to allow as many clubs as possible to grow(that doesn't mean adding random age group leagues or leagues in general, it does include the idea of pro/rel in 10/15 years. the basic stuff there is no need to get fancy or to burn anything down.
I can agree with this. This is my pie in the sky wishlist. Much of which may be long term goals, but I do believe we need to define what are our long term goals and then start identifying what are our short term objectives to reach this point. Ultimately, we agree, if I had a say in how $150m was spent, I’d wager it all on youth development. The question being, how is that accomplished?
I would start by trying to reduce the number of national soccer organizations. AYSO, USSoccer, etc. have a lot of overlap between goals and objectives, but over the past 20 year of coaching and as board member at the regional level for multiple orgs, the difference has started to blur to the point that it makes no sense to have different orgs. By being separate, you have to split all of the coaches and administrative resources. We should look at trying to get to one organization and break down into a regional structure. Rather than traveling to tournaments on the other side of the country, keep development regional except at the highest level. Money would/could be a problem. Some regions won't have the resources of other regions. Where is the money going to come from? Parents - apparently that is the root cause of a lot of problems today, but who fills the vacuum. MLS? Corporate? USSF?
well as I listed they need to subsidize the cost of gettting coaching licenses they need to deal with the cost of playing the sporting in lower income areas. finding a way to come allow as many possible clubs to grow...and by grow it doesn't mean add a bunch of clubs that will go bankrupt in two years. They need to solidify the base before down the road years and years away they can look at pro/rel.
One major thing needs to be determined first: what are the new powers of the president. It has been rumored that there will be a completely different approach where the president has less unilateral power and there will be a new position (A GM type of postion). Assuming the new president has less actual power, his/her job will be to set an overall course for the USSF keeping in mind the different groups that are served by the USSF. The most visible are professional soccer and international soccer but there are many, many more groups (as I am sure you all realize). The president will have to be a good delegator and will have t be a part of the process of determining exactly what the job of each position will be and choosing people to do the job.
So, in reality, it seems, what I said was not that far off from what you pointed out. I mentioned coaching licensing and making that easier. I offered my plan for achieving improving access to lower income areas, by encouraging the clubs to invest in youth development and having incentive to do so. What is your plan? I don’t see where I promoted expansion to weak markets. I have mentioned before I’m an expansion advocate in that yes, expansion expands the national footprint. But, without question, it should be done appropriately, with teams motivated to build a solid infrastructure (stadium, training, youth, etc.) On reserve/PDL/NASL/U23 league, this is a long term goal. However, MLS teams are reaching a point where most can support a u21/u23 team. Offering scholarships is really not that unrealistic. Regarding the PDL, I made the argument that the PDL is incoherent and it’s not set up to succeed because the choice of market expansion is terrible. These clubs need to be focused in the major college towns not random places. . Hence, the reason why PDL has struggled. Where will the players come from? From the college. That’s not rocket science. Thus, we need a league for 18-23 y/o with a coherent plan. Lastly, as a long term goal, you meet your short term objectives (MLS teams to start fielding u21 or u23 teams) and you go from there. I can write out a model if needed, to explain. So, you disagree with the U23/B team. Okay, that’s fine. However, the president would have some say in that considering that requires some logistics to make happen. The benefit of this program is to help introduce new players into the team...something that was sorely lacking in the 2018 cycle. But again, you can disagree, that’s fine, but I don’t see any alternatives you offered to improving both the u23 teams (which when again have we qualified for the Olympics?) and introducing new players into the senior team. On TV and media, have you read the contract? I’ll be honest, I have not read the word for word contract. Maybe you have, and you’ve seen where USsoccer cannot play on their website the games, even if they weren’t live. I’m simply making the argument, if I were president, that I would push to make the games more accessible, because sometimes the exposure is very limited, in today’s world. If the sport is expecting to grow, it needs to grow in viewership. I’d like to know what you propose to boost viewership. You disagreed on extending the schedule... is that a Garber’s decision? Yes, but would the president make his opinion known to Garber. I’m sure he would. The fact is that 4 consecutive months off is too long of a break. Players stagnate and regress with that much time off, all at one time. Instead, they would benefit from having a break in the summer. You can disagree with that... but regardless, it’s a valid argument. I don’t even know why you argue on what I said about the HGP and DPs. 4 players doesn’t field a whole team. In actuality, a team that produces really stellar HGPs and can field a whole roster, could actually snag 1 or 2 more DP quality players in the salary cap restrictions because, as I make the argument, HGP should be permanently cap exempt players. If that’s unclear, I could go in more detail. More, European teams already play in the US. The idea is to try and promote this better than it is now. As, the only way to be the best, is to play the best. Nonetheless, you make the argument the president doesn’t influence MLS, yet you promote promotion/relegation, as your long term solution. Which, it’s amusing for anyone to be accusing people of dumb ideas and then throw out their whole solution to everything is pro/relegation. More, the problem I have is you came across as very smug and failed to seek sort of clarity on any point and offered very little of substance in return. Telling me, you tore my ideas apart and say this and that is dumb, that’s not how people talk to one another, and it’s not too much to ask for you to speak to me in a way you would if we were face to face. Sure, there are some things people will disagree with, but there’s a certain level of tact, which you lacked in your previous posts, in conveying that. More, for the life of me, I struggle to comprehend what offended you so much, which prompted you to come across that way. To sum up, you can communicate in a way you would want someone to confront you if they disagreed with your points.
I don't see how bringing back the residency program (especially with that stated goal) will work when coupled with the first goal of working with MLS to build the national team. For MLS, building the national team is secondary (at best) and is valuable only to the extent that it benefits profitiability. I don't see how giving the best players added incentive and making it easier for them to avoid signing with MLS will be taken as a benefit to MLS. Something like this would go againsts the goal of building the domestic league and deter MLS from cooperating with USSF. What needs to be done is to find a way for MLS teams to sign young players to contracts that give the players options at an early age and still benefits MLS by guaranteeing a financial benefit of some kind. It would have to be something written into the contracts of the players so they could get the benefit of being paid earlier than they would otherwise be able to get paid while still allowing reasonable freedom at an early age (say 19 or 20). The contract language would have to guarantee, somehow, that the club will be compensated for a transfer before that time and leave on a free at 20 (unless, of course, the contract is extended.) I am not a lawyer, so don't know anything about how that language would be written but my guess is that it can be done. If it Adams had a contract like that, for instance, his window for moving with a fee would be right about now and if he wasn't able to move until later, he would go for free. Here is a random off the top of my head example of the type of contract I would like to see. (again, I am not a lawyer so take it for what it's worth....nothing) Player can be put under contract at 15, 16 or whatever like now. contract includes a set transfer fee that the club must honor during from the ages of 19-20. The transfer fee could be determined by a set scale based upon the amount of the contract offered to the player. For example a player signed at 16 for $100k would have a transfer fee of $5M at ages 19 or 20 and go on a free at 21 unless the contract is renegotiated before then. A player signed at $50k might have a transfer fee of $1M. (numbers, of course, are for demonstration purposes only). Another alternative might be to allow the club to raise the transfer fee requested (but still give a deadline for sale) but also force the club to raise the salary by a pretermined rate. (ie a $1M raise in transfer fee = $100k raise in salary. A 16 year old player signs for $50k....Club decides at 17 he is worth more and raises his fee to $2M so player gets a $100k raise. I am sure there are a lot of issues with what I am proposing but there needs to be a way to maximize the incentive and reward both for the player and MLS if MLS is to be willing to go all in on promoting youth for the national team. For a player any course has rewards and negative consequences. just a few: Wait to sign in Europe: sign early in MLS: no pay until 18 Get paid right away (could largely offset pay increase for some potential pay much greater (especially for top players) European players that spend more time in youth teams) Pay may be less or significantly less may have trouble keeping sharp and may stagnate. Training continues uninterrupted. Depending upon club development may not be top notch. If goal is Europe, it may be difficult to obtain a transfer. Hopefully I'm not just talking out of my ^$$
totally agree with this. I am even more worried about wynalda now. He was clearly upset by the news that the president of us soccer won't be a dictator. Its ironic he complained about the president needing soccer minds around to help make decisions. Now they created a gm role which will be a soccer mind who will make soccer decisions...and he is unhappy and he even commented on twitter that the gm needs to make sure that they listen to the president...ironic how quick his mind changed about having shared responsibilities when it comes to him sharing. what scares me even more is that wynalda/trump comparisons are getting even more serious. I am sure some of you saw the twitter account that clearly has some sort of tie to wynalda as it seems to agree with him on everything. Came out with a 'source' this yesterday that said that Donovan, Mia Hamm and Kyle Martino having been calling people to stump for Carter the head of SUM who is running. To me either someone in the wynalda camp gave them that idea or told them they had a source that it was going on. This was done obviously because the fact is that carter and wynalda are clearly the top two candidates. The three all came out and very much denied doing so. Donovan and Hamm both said they wouldn't do it if asked either. This campaign is already ugly at this point feb can't get here soon enough.
I agree with the youth angle as well. It's tough to get the little ones involved with how many options we have here for sports.
I want to reiterate, my proposal to Pulisic’s proposal (considering that’s a hard thing to leverage)... Revamp the residency program for players with ambitions to play abroad. In fact, schedule games against u18 teams across Europe for exposure sake. But we should be able to offer a “Euro environment” for players with aspirations to play abroad.
who pays for it? how many? who picks them? who coaches them? etc its an idea but the details are what make it work/not work.
Same way the residency program was funded, coached, and scouted... with a somewhat different mission of trying to reach the best players, but mainly to prepare these players for the European game. Program could be smaller; 23? That’s debatable, as some of the details would be. Nonetheless, retrospectively thinking, this could of been last cycle’s team...note this would be impossible to be exact, it’s best guess: GK Alexander Budnik, Quantrell Jones, one more keeper DF Arturo Vasquez, Tristan Weber, Carlo Ritacco, Ethan Bartlow, Tyler Shaver, 3 more defenders MF Indiana Vassilev, George Acosta, Blaine Ferri, Akil Watts, 4 more midfielders FW Josh Sargent, Tony Temple, Matt Hundley, one more forward Would that be exact? No, I know a 100% it wouldn’t. However, there may be 1-2 more players who signed with MLS who may have decided to sign here first too. The idea is to groom these players and help them find contracts, such as Josh Sargent, for Werder Bremen...but give him a good environment until he turns 18 and able to play for his club. Would every player sign for a European team? Of course not. But even if we could better prepare say, 2-4 players each year, then that’s a success. In order to measure that success, are players more ready for Europe, competitive with their peers than previous years. Of course, some players may turn around and sign for MLS. But the focus here, is to simulate, as best as possible, the development the best European players get in that 14-18 range.
read for europe? so this would be unconnected to us soccer/usmnt/uswnt just with a goal to get kids out of the us system...that is a great idea. but the simple question is still...who will pick these kids will they be the best player? how old? best players with families with money? it doesn't solve any issues...we need problems that solve issues. trying to pick four forwards randomly to 'get ready for europe'...who does that help if it works?
the irony is this isn't a sign of the fix being in; its just a bad look to do when you say you aren't endorsing a candidate.