Personally, I believe that all those stories about poor immigrants that aren't able to play as they can't pay for soccer are total bullshit. In SoCal every good player who can't pay will play for free. Clubs will fight for those kids they will find a way to bring them to practices if needed.
What happens in SoCal is in no way reflection of other parts of the country. In So Cal to be brown is to be average and to have a foreign accent is completely normal. To be rich or poor is normal and to be different is normal. In other places this is not necessarily the case. Instead of throwing ALL of those stories in the garbage and calling ALL those people liars, maybe you should open yourself up to the idea that your understanding and experience is not one size fits all and that yes, perhaps some of these people are telling the truth.
One factor enters in when a player is granted a scholarship... often that means the parents of the other kids pay more for the player to take away playing time from their sons and they are very aware of it. It doesn't work in every situation.
Yup. Plus........................how do you train/develop in order to get good enough that a club which provides scholarships notices you? I will say, though, that we're a capitalist country. Everything costs money. If your kid wants to play the violin, or be in the Boy Scouts, or play tennis, or do whatever....................its going to cost money. It just depends who's paying for it. And yes, that means lower income folks have fewer opportunities. It doesn't matter if we're talking about soccer or any other activity. Pro clubs (like MLS, NASL, etc.) have the money. That's who can afford to provide development opportunities for free. They generate revenue. Of course these pro clubs aren't doing it as charity. They're doing it to develop talent for their first teams (or future revenue from player sales). But local youth clubs? How do they operate without people paying for it? There are only so many car washes and bake sales that a group can have. Even non-MLS DA clubs struggle with this. And what are they developing the talent for? They're not making money in the end by selling the players on. [The USSF is dead-set against these types of training fees it seems.] So how, might I ask, does Buttscratch United in Denton, Texas afford to operate? How do they pay coaches and maintain fields and pay for travel and pay for uniforms and on and on? Buttscratch United has to charge fees. Duh. And that means that folks that can't pay those fees either can't play or somebody else has to pay for them (via a scholarship, etc.).
the god of yanks abroad, Dave M-N suggested I post there here. SCOTUS just struck down a portion of the US citizenship law where, for kids born to US dad's abroad, the dad had to live in the US longer than a mom would have had to in order for the kid to have citizenship. It lowers the time from 5 years to 1 year, if I read it correctly. Dunno if this affects andy potential US kids (and not sure I'm even reading it right.) But lawyers have at it. http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/12/polit...rt-citizenship0456PMStoryLink&linkId=38616092
I'll repeat the article I linked in the other thread as well. It doesn't look good for opening up eligibility: https://thinkprogress.org/scotus-immigration-gender-bf65cebccf9d
For the heck of it I will outpoint that I just read an article about Maynor Figueroa's '07 son Keyrol, who has lived around the world with his dad and played at all kinds of fancy clubs, currently (I believe) with FC Dallas in some form. http://www.diez.hn/legionarios/legi...eroa-se-forma-en-los-semilleros-del-barcelona
His dad played for Wigan, Hull, the Rapids and FC Dallas. Did the kid play at different clubs than where his old man played?
Yeah, he's a forward..................but he's so young that I don't think he's ever even played for the FCD U12s or U13s. Certainly not in the DA with the U14s. The Honduran press seems to have latched onto him as some sort of "wonderkid," but all of that is sooooooooooooooo premature with a kid that age. Those lower levels of the FCD youth teams are like a "who's who" of MLS players' kids. There's Santiago Ferreira, for instance
As an excuse to bump this thread -- here's a story about refugees and soccer in Idaho: http://magicvalley.com/news/local/r...cle_f57ffd6c-6a21-5e7c-9c0c-d98b603be504.html
Fairly irrelevant to that but I remember about 15 years ago we played a tournament in Spokane and like one of our worst players got a scholarship offer to a college in Kansas just because he was the tallest player on our team.
Who among us doesn't have a story like this, in which the moral of the story is that we should've practiced harder?
I think there's a separate thread for possibly-USMNT-eligible kids of professional soccer players, but I can't find it... Do we know if Javier Morales' son Santiago Morales is a US citizen, or close to being one? Morales came to MLS in 2007, so I'm guessing his son wasn't born here... ACADEMY: Santiago Morales Follows His Father's Footsteps Edit: https://www.fcdallas.com/players/santi-morales Santi Morales Midfielder 27 Real Name: Santiago Morales HT: 4' 6" WT: 60 Age: 10 (02/09/2007) Birthplace: Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain Hometown: Frisco, TX
The big question will be if Dad (or Mom) has become a citizen already. A child can't naturalize without a parent before age 18.
Diego Fagundez says he wants to play for the USMNT, says his citizenship is mere months away, and that he would like to play for a country that would be interested in him (says Uruguay no longer in contact with him).— Alicia Rodriguez (@soccermusings) January 20, 2018 Diego, Buddy. Who is your agent and why is he so inadequate that you think you’re eligible?
We say this all the time, but its true. The players themselves don't tend to know these FIFA eligibility rules. Its up to their representation to not let them down in this regard. We on this board all knew that the second he stepped on the field in that CONMEBOL U20 Championships tournament that he would never be eligible for the US. How could he not? Its not really explainable, but its true.
Soon after he got his Green Card, Diego was complaining that no one was telling him what was happening in his process to get US citizenship. He seemed to have no clue that he needed to just wait until the clock ran out and that there was no quick path to be granted citizenship just because USSF might want him to play for the USMNT. Diego doesn't seem very good with process and details.
It's sufficiently hard to believe that Fagundez doesn't know all this by now that one wonders whether this was simply a bid to get Uruguay thinking about him again. Can't blame him.