True enough; however, I am surprised to hear that so many Americans think, that your national side is terrible - I would rather expect some optimism, maybe even too much of it. Canada is terrible and has little direction as of yet, but USMNT did well on last couple of World Cups and is able to compete with any team without fear of being humiliated. In addition, US has to play catch up game to countries where soccer has been no. 1 sport (and often more than just a sport!) for over 100 years, and those countries have plenty of resources available to develop the game as well, and it has been quite successful at doing so. I see no reason to worry about soccer in the US, and happy to see its progress and making through to the average American.
Unfortunately, there are still occasions, such as last year against Argentina, when it ends up getting humiliated by its failure to try to compete.
It's not surprising if you understand the psyche of a large number of Americans, and the belief that we need to be the best at EVERYTHING or else we're a total failure. These people seem to think that with our population and resources we should automatically be one of the world powers in the sport, despite the fact that soccer culture in this country is quite immature compared to most other places. It basically boils down to a certain kind of arrogance, "American exceptionalism" applied to soccer.
I'd argue that the relative success of the Women's team has skewed the perception of the Men's game. This isn't to denigrate the Women's accomplishments, but while the situation is apples-vs-oranges in terms of the relative depth and quality of the opposition they respectively face, there's a certain level of "what's wrong with the Men that they can't do as well as the Women" among many casual fans and general sports fans. That doesn't explain the sentiment among actual soccer fans, but it probably feeds into other factors, IMHO.
While you are probably mostly correct, it can be shocking at times how little reflection and connection with reality occurs among the soccer-playing community (even adults, who should know better). And that's not necessarily fans, but people who should intimately understand the requirements of the game, even if the gap is closer at rec levels.
Is US soccer really underachieving? If you think about where our pro league is and how weak our federation is in general, I would say we are right on track. Our performance is commensurate with the strength of our domestic league, our soccer culture and the strength of the soccer desert that is CONCACAF.
Yeah I think the team reflects soccer in this country. Popularity, youth development, coaching... You can make a case that we're overachieving.
My perception is the average age of our MNT members is higher than the countries who traditionally excel. We have a loyalty to and dependence on older players which provides a sense of comfort possibly, "well, we have a lot of experienced guys out there, we won't get undressed"? If it is the case that we simply don't have any young players ready to compete then that is an indictment of our development system. As for that system, most teams I'm aware of, including DA teams, bring in XX kids at a young age and the majority are still there 3-5 years later...there are not enough cuts and adds. Even the best teams carry players who used to be good but who didn't continue to develop through their mid-teens. Yet, they are there. Whether that is because of the investment to date, the lack of a proven method to find better players, the desire to avoid a tough situation, money etc I am not sure. Lastly, this country has an obsession with size and muscle. Articles are written like "Could you imagine if our best athletes played soccer?". I'd submit Pulisic already does and no, Lebron would not be a good soccer player. We gravitate towards big muscular players because the game is still largely direct in this country and then we can't figure out why Jozy doesn't score 100 goals in international competition. Those defenders love big, muscular attackers because they don't change direction as well and usually have fewer tricks in their bag because they have spent their life just bullying past people and kicking the ball in from 4 yards out. Ironically, I think US basketball has adapted to the European game better than soccer. Why? Because we lost. We believe we should win every game so when our 'And-one' players started losing to European and South American teams it was time to rethink our approach. In soccer we are happy to be in the conversation, lament our best athletes are playing other sports and hit the weight room to get ready for the next competition. That is my $.02.
I think the "best athletes" argument is deeper than just having big, muscular or super fast guys. To me it's really about athleticism, skill, and culture all intersecting in the manner you need them to. We simply don't have that in this country.
Not all of these teams "traditionally excel," but here's the average age of the 11 starters for the six teams that played in the Hexagonal on March 28: Panama: 31.1 USA: 29.2 Costa Rica: 28.9 Honduras: 28.2 Trinidad and Tobago: 27.2 Mexico: 26.8 The average is 28.6.
I think the age thing is more a result of our lack of depth rather than any institutional belief in older players. Our current manager does like his veterans but he is also the same guy that made teenagers Beasley and Donovan crucial members of his '02 team. Agree that we are reliant on athletes. But that's far from unique to us unfortunately.
In recent years we've also tended older for two reasons: 1) We lost a whole generation's worth of our most promising players to freak injuries in the two years leading into the 2010 World Cup. Because the games were so crucial, most of the players who were brought in to fill those positions were veterans, and that led in turn to having few young players with USMNT experience in the 2014 cycle. 2) Klinsmann de-emphasized the January camp where we tended to hand a lot of young players their debuts. He merged the senior USMNT and U-23 MNT camps, calling in both fewer senior players and fewer U-23 players. Unfortunately Arena hasn't had time to change this much -- he took over when we were already in a hole two games into the Hex, so the January camp had to focus on preparing for the next qualifiers rather than blooding new players.
Couldn't be more wrong about that. Klinsmann made it a mission to find European players eligible to an American passport which drew criticism from Tim Howard who felt that the heart of those players wasn't "all in". Also, he was notorious to criticize American players leaving Europe for MLS and didn't have much faith in the current pool; and system. As for MLS, you have too many teams where 70%+ of the salary is shared between 3 DPs. Remove those guys and those teams are heavily exposed. The disparity in salary (which is heavily documented) exposes the clear lack of depth of MLS teams, and that's why, they can't keep up with Mexican clubs in the CCL. MLS TV ratings are a distant 3rd after EPL and Liga MX there's a growing interest, yes, but could you define American soccer culture. CONCACAF is weak, but Costa Rica deserves a bit more credit. You do, but they choose other sports way ahead of soccer. I think there's some truth to that. For me, the USMNT has peaked during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. You could clearly see a decline in Copa America and these present WCQ. Unless the American system changes, it will be decades before the US will be as good as the 2014 WC team in comparison to their competition. Starting XI can only get you so far, you need depth to win it all
Your post was so inane I just assumed you were trolling and blocked you. Have a pleasant day and don't @ or quote me anymore please.
you need tougher skin. How can you improve if you're not aware of what could be improved? The 2014 USMNT actually gained tons of respect for their performance in Brazil, me first actually. That game against Germany was awesome, doesn't make my analysis any less true about having hit a ceiling. US medias say the same, I didn't came up with anything revolutionary...
Until recently, the last sentence of this paragraph was a pretty good explanation for why USMNT players tended to be older. Due to our crappy youth development system, US players simply developed later than players in other countries. That's largely changing now that MLS clubs are getting serious about player development and are starting to turn out more players that are ready to go directly to being professional players rather than going for a stint in college. I'm not really a follower of the youth national teams, but many of the people who are commented on how many of the players were already professionals and that it was higher than previous U20 WC teams. I would think that bodes well for further development of young national team caliber players going forward.
And I think I've pointed out in other threads that USSDA is still a very new thing. It only added age groups below U16 in 2012. The first U14 players to enter MLS academy systems are 18-19 today, and the first U12 players to enter the MLS academy systems are still in the academies. Every single truly academy-developed player in the US is still eligible for the U20 national team.
Americans, as a rule, are an impatient culture. Phrases like "I want it all. I want it now." or "Go big, or go home." are the most applicable here. Many US Soccer fans also are still paranoid that are other sports in the USA are trying to sabotage soccer in some way, so the inferiority complex is still very much alive in our soccer circles.
I don't know the ratios in other countries but for the several hundred players in US DA academies, not many have gone straight to the pros. My understanding is the primary focus for most of the players is to get a scholarship to college and many of them then go play HS soccer for their senior year. They may still end up in MLS but as long as the MLS is offering $40k/yr salaries and college scholarships for the high end players could be in that same ballpark I think you'll see most players taking the college path if they have a head on their shoulders.
True. Not entirely true.. This is actually at odds with the first goal. With USDA going to a year round calendar and prohibiting kids from playing high school soccer, colleges are increasingly focusing only on kids on USDA teams to give scholarships to. There are certainly kids that leave USDA teams to play high school soccer, but those are, generally, the depth players on the USDA teams and they are going to HS soccer in the hopes of getting more minutes and maybe catching the eye of a college, but that kid is becoming increasingly rare. Supplemental/Senior roster minimum is up to $65k now with reserve roster at $53k. MLS has also partnered with SNHU to offer scholarships to players for online degrees..
If you took the average salary of our National team and compared it to the other international teams in the top 25-30, I think it would show that we overachieve if anything. (people will poo-poo salary as metric for talent but the labor market is pretty efficient in Soccer salary wise). If anything, it's pretty ridiculous the U.S. is a top 25 team considering how young / how far our development system is/needs to go. While the imagine if Lebron James played soccer type articles are meme worthy, the insinuation that soccer being behind Football, Basketball, Baseball, & Hockey isn't the number one reason the U.S. isn't a top 5 team year in and year out is just as ridiculous. If there was more interest in soccer, we would have better development, and better players.
More generally, I think Americans simply expect to be the best, particularly in sports which is hugely culturally important. I think Americans feel entitled to winning the World Cup in a way only the best countries in the world do; even if we can't now, we think we will someday. So I think anything less than being the best is seen as underachieving for some.
If we think the US is underachieving, it could always be much, much worse... http://www.espncricinfo.com/usa/content/story/1105848.html Could you imagine if the clown above ran US Soccer?