One last rant: a player will play wherever they can for whatever they can. Money is a monor factor. There are so many threads that discuss on why Klinsmann is just so wrong about US Youth soccer. His premise about college is bogus. I am sure most of us know that college futbol is run by the NCAA and not FIFA. The NCAA is run by US Football and such there are scholarship limits that prohibits a school from >9 rides. If "poor" parent really chases an athletic scholarship as a goal instead of an education they really doing a disservice to thier child.
not sure that high school sports are the answer.....maybe for american football and baseball, but for many other sports (soccer, basketball, volleyball....) the scouts tend to go the club tournaments to look for talent...
he's right. to the observant this isn't a surprise. American soccer at most levels just isn't interested in making the changes of focusing on the aspects of the game that winning teams do. Often we'd rather emulate the English which are not winning anything either. And though Alexi is not a complete idiot it's the absolute ton of Americans just like him that take any criticism to heart and therefore are defiant that holds us back. When someone is critical it's likeythey've insulted all of America to some people and they close up. It's constructive and we really should evaluate it for its merit. We need to take the things the elite, not teams do, (england's not one just cause they got a good league), and add that to our game and focus on it.
Yes, but increased popularity of soccer at the high school level would drive more demand for privately financed youth clubs and would turn focus from "participation for everyone" to "developing the best local talent". The USSF simply can't finance a 10X increase of youth development programs by itself.
high school football and basketball are only popular because schools have the money to support it. Where does the money to support it come from? From the booster club. Unless a majority of schoolls start giving soccer scholarships to build a program, pimping the high school system is unrealistic and unprofitable.
HS is not the answer, someone said it already. There isnt enoguh coaching and talent at that level to make the good players better. Look how friggin' HS coaches get hired! They look at teachers FIRST, and ask who has experience playing/would want to coach soccer? So a History teacher you maybe used to play HS and watches an ok amount will end up coaching your varsity team. It would never work, because HS for soccer at least heck even football for alot of schools( the coaches at my HS were dumb, and had no idea what they were doing)... is crap! The best coaching, and competitve leagues are travel teams. You can hire good chaches with credentials. Sometimes that is their job, and that is their life. Not to mention the opportunity to play the best kids in the country, to travel across the country, every other weekend entering tournaments. HS can't do that. The real question is, how to get soccer into the inner cities, and out of the suburbs so all kids can play. Soccer is probably the EASIEST sport ot play, all you need really is some form of a ball, and people! No nets, not a TON of people, you cna play with 4 people 1v1, 3v3, etc. We need to bring the sport to the inner city, like in all the inner cities of all places, like argentina or the favelas of Brasil were many of the greats developed first.
Why Klinsmann is wrong about US Soccer Klinsmann is wrong about targeting the lower class because they are "hungrier". The authors of "Soccernomics" found that the opposite is true. The higher per capita income, the better that country does in all sport. Holland, Argentina, and even Brazil, who are producing more top players from middle class backgrounds (Kaka and Redondo are middle-class). England still recruits their footballers from a shrinking working class population and is suffering for it. http://www.sportsscientists.com/2010/06/world-cup-2010-soccernomics-101.html The backbone of athlete development and identification in America is HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS. Parents send their kids to basketball and football camps at age 6, 7, 8 so that they can make the team in HS. Kids love it because they know that "making the team" is tied to HS popularity. We need to make high school soccer more popular which will drive more youth clubs. Scouts can then pick the creme-de-la-creme from a large talent pool at youth clubs and HS. Unfortunately, right now, the Friday night lights of American football dominate the high school stage. I'm going to propose something radical. The USSF should call American football out for what it is...the endangerment of children. Check out this video about concussions in HS football. http://video.nytimes.com/video/2007/...en-danger.html The USSF should make an advocacy group of parents and physicians to ban American football in high schools. Send this group to meet with school boards and advocate for football to be discontinued in particular high school districts. You start by targeting a few of the wealthiest school districts in the country with predominantly white and Asian populations. They won't have any trouble getting a football ban through in those places. After a few victories, you'll have state school boards asking why football is too dangerous for wealthy school districts, but kids in poor school districts are allowed to bash each other into permanent brain damage. Across the country, you'll see HS football stadiums converted into soccer stadiums. The best young athletes will gravitate towards soccer. College football and the NFL would be cut off at the knees.
i think klinsmann is a step in the right direction but there is a reason why he isnt coaching another team. besides the world cup in germany, his other stints have not been as successful. with all the resources backing the US, they should aim higher. he is right though - soccer still has a ways to go here in the US and how we perceive the sport here is very different than the rest of the world.
I don't know. I used to lived in Chicago and HS basketball is very much part of the pipeline to college, then the pros. You're just talking about a lot less players. The NBA just doesn't bring in nearly as many new players every year. But it's not like The college scouts were not crawling all over every Citywide Chicago HS basketball tournament and the STate tournament. But i get you're bigger point and don't disagree in substance. And college and HS soccer does not cut it. There are also substantive difference in the development of players. It's very possible for an american football player to play his first game ever as a high school freshmen, at age 15, and still go on to play in college and become a pro. I'm not saying all american football players but they all don't start playing pop warner from age 6. I'd guess the reason they can start late and still turn pro is most likely cause it's largely a hand to eye game, coordination that's being developed in other areas already. It's probably hard to get foot to eye coordination at the needed level when you start so late. I don't think that is very common in soccer. That the first time you attempt to play soccer is age 15 and you become a pro at the highest level of the sport, And not to diss mls but i'm talking about the top leagues of the world. I'd guess normally the best players started playing before when many highschool football players start. Another thing is the learning curve for American football from College to Pro is rather large for most positions. So if you expect them to graduate at around age 21-23, you're talking about players the pros probably don't expect to make mistakes. I'm just not sure that if you go to Manchester United at age 23 they are going to give you a two or three years to make mistakes and learn on the field.
Re: Why Klinsmann is wrong about US Soccer You need a rich country to provide the infrastructure but poor kids don't have the schedule packed with recitals and other music/sports practices. So the poor kids get to the 10,000 hours threshold Gladwell developed before their suburban counterparts. That's what I got from the book.
Re: Why Klinsmann is wrong about US Soccer banning high school football for americans is like banning the premier league in england...nvr gon happen..even if soccer somehow becomes #1 sport here(hoppefully) football will still be around..who cares if footbal lis dangerous..soccers dangerous too..my point=not gon happen
Re: Why Klinsmann is wrong about US Soccer I just went and purchased soccernomics off amazon so i can't really comment on that until i read it. but i think Klinsmann's point was that in the U.S the kids in the inner city don't play soccer because of this pay to play structure. Basketball on the other hand has less barriers to entry. There are plenty of basketball courts all over the inner cities and all you need is a ball and a hoop - you don't even need anyone besides yourself to start learning. lets put it this way. Where do America's best athletes come from? What sport do they go into? They come from the cities and they go into NFL and the NBA. I don't think any awareness about the dangers of football is going to change our cultural acceptance of it. The NFL and football is not going anywhere.
Re: Why Klinsmann is wrong about US Soccer So what would we do when moms want soccer gone from the concussions provided from soccer. All the torn ligaments and broken bones? Your thought while imaginative and wishful it will not happen. On top of that I do not want yet another reason for the douchebags who hate soccer to say it is a weak non physical sport.
Re: Why Klinsmann is wrong about US Soccer You are out of your damn mind if you think you can get schools to ban football, especially in order to implement soccer in its place. How long have you lived in this country?
Re: Why Klinsmann is wrong about US Soccer Banning high school football will never happen. That's not even a possibility.
Re: Why Klinsmann is wrong about US Soccer I was thinking to myself "Well this post is a reasonable argument against Klinsmann's premise." And then I got to here.
Ban organized 11v11 soccer in the U.S. for kids under 14 in favor of futsal and small-sided outdoor games.
Re: Why Klinsmann is wrong about US Soccer Yeah... that's how you sell soccer to Americans, by getting rid of the most popular sport in this country to promote youth soccer.
Is club basketball at the youth level, pay to play, or do most inner city kids go through high school to make it? by the way, I agree that getting inner city kids to play soccer is the only way for America to ever be competitive internationally.
Re: Why Klinsmann is wrong about US Soccer It would take me longer than I want to or I would give everybody but the OP some rep for their posts. The OP was full of FAIL.
Re: Why Klinsmann is wrong about US Soccer I'm sorry, but high school soccer players are awful in general. I played better teams in pickup games in 7th grade. Not their fault though. They're taught to play like robots.
Re: Why Klinsmann is wrong about US Soccer The OP wants to ban football? If I understand that correctly, than this thread is a fail.
Re: Why Klinsmann is wrong about US Soccer I think you'd also want to butt-rape a lot of popular children's TV stars and post the clips to YouTube on the "Soccer is Awesome" channel. I think that would win a lot of people over.
Klinnsmann is right that in general the best athletes in any sports come from lower or moderately lower income levels and that youth soccer is dominated by parents that can pay to play and develop their social life around the travel and the games. In essence their kids can excel because the barriers to entry for poorer ,"hungrier" kids are prohibitive. Poor kids with few exceptions are not in the proper social sets or have money to travel and develop their game.The mechanism to reverse this process is not clear to me. But there are millions of inner city kids that do not have the size to dominate in the major sports that could have the oppotunity to make a living playing soccer. Role models and opportunties are needed to make these kids want to play.