Klinsi tearing apart the US Soccer infrastructure

Not to disagree with the general premise, but Bradley is better than you give him credit for. He has shown good ability to wiggle out of tight spots and even sliced through midfield on the dribble at times. His runs into the box are typically very intelligent and he can distribute long passes well. He's a 22 year old midfielder and very few central midfielders master the game well enough at that age to be world class players.

The player you are describing is Clark: athletic, runs a lot, tackles hard, no ball skills.

There's no question Bradley has a lot of this hustle attitude. He won't elevate his game or indeed last long at this level running all the time. But he has developed pretty good composure and instincts and his technique overall is very good. Not Xavi or Iniesta good, but he is a major improvement over the rangy grinders we often see in the US midfield. I'm curious to see where he goes in a few years; if he learns to be efficient in his running he could be a top level player.

 

"catching up to us"

So sick of these damn stupid internet memes that are accepted knowledge where no one actually looks at the facts. Does everyone realize that at the last Olympics, we won every game by a big amount except the gold medal game. And the reason for our improved performance beginning with the '06 Worlds was instead of treating the national team like an all-star lineup, they made it an actual team with some continuity, like a consistent coach in Krzyzewski. And they're going to continue doing that with the 2010 Worlds in a couple months and the London Olympics.

Look at our results in 2008:

beat China by 31
beat Angola by 21
beat Greece by 23
beat Spain by 37
beat Germany by 49

quarterfinals: beat Australia by 31
semifinals: beat Argentina by 20
gold medal game: beat Spain by 11 (fantastic game, but we still won by double digits)

average winning margin of 28 points

And if world player development is so awesome, where the hell are these guys in the NBA? Nowitski always chokes in the big moment in Dallas. I have a mancrush on Steve Nash, but development-wise he was produced in a poor man's U.S.-style system in British Colombia. You've got Gasol on the Lakers playing the Pippen to Kobe's Jordan and he's real good. Ginobili is past his best days. And that's it for the non-U.S. developed players that made the All-Star Team Rosters (which you can say are the 24 best players in the NBA).

Then you have the draft and the hit or miss that are international players. This year only one international player that didn't go to a U.S. college was selected.

No it doesn't. You can be a coach and do everything right and be perfect. If the talent's not there because they don't play the sport or because your better athletes go play something else, they're not there. If you take a player and he plays against guys better than him, than he'll become better than if he just routinely beat guys that couldn't touch him.

 

Given what happened with Kobe in Colorado, I think I'd be afraid to put Jozy in that position.

 

you cant prove that, rusty

 

They basketball analogy is pretty flawed. When our best player want to play in the olympics we can't be beat. Look at this past summer games, we rolled over the competition because we had our top players there. In 2004 we had some good player but most of the best were either not selected or didn't want to play.

 

YOU are full of shit.....and clueless as well.

 

I don't know. Are you saying Benny Feilhaber is a guy selected due to workrate and big boot and body type? He has a very good US "club pedigree" - Strikers and UCLA. Bobby Convey - Delco. If Rossi had stayed in the US, he wouldn't have ended up at a top soccer school? I am dubious about the premise that skilled players don't get a chance to play. (and I'm just shooting from the hip here) but think it more comes down to the places they play are not as good at maximizing their potential as some other places - which are generally in other countries.

Again, the sample is pretty small and there are obvious successes in guys who have gone to Euro youth systems relatively early (JOB, Rossi, as mentioned. I'm sure there are others) and guys who, tho we will never know what would have happened if they had stayed in the US, certainly have not become instant Messis simply due to time in prestigious Euro U systems.

If I won the lotto on thing I'd love to do is take a few of the top club sides at U12 or so, split the teams in half, and ship half to Ajax or some other well respected academy and let the others go through the US system and then see where they end up in 5 or 7 years... My guess is on average the guys at Ajax or some other academy would be stronger and the top players would be technically and tactically more aware, but until I win the Lotto I won't really know.

 

Ack! Consider crow eaten! Wikipedia FAIL! (Do I sound like Capello?)

 

Congrats on procreating. Would you like a medal?

Parents give up their kids to the system because high school baseball players tend to develop better in the minor leagues (college players tend to reach the majors quicker, but have a lower ceiling), and they can always bank some of that signing bonus as a college fund. If they become successful major league players they will make way, way, way more than they ever would as an insurance salesman with that BA of theirs.

College is a means to an end (a stable future), it's not an end in and of itself. Jozy Altidore would be wasting his time by going to college when he could be pulling in $1.5 million a year, which is what he made for Hull. He'll have plenty of time to drive from his mansion to college after he retires. In that same vein it's telling that Michael Bradley didn't go to college. His dad's a Princeton grad, you think he values education? But MB didn't go to college because BB probably understood that because soccer is his profession, "getting his education" by playing professionally abroad came ahead of getting a BS in chemistry. MB can always go and do that later.

 

The question isnt can this sort of thing be done as a gimmick, its how scalable is this.

As a gimmick, it works fine. But its not scalable. Because as a gimmick its self financing. But to do this over and over in every city of the country requires you to put a lot of money into it that currently isn't sitting out there. And how do you integrate the results of all these competitions into the professional system?

 

The notion that nobody in US soccer noticed Funes is a fallacy that continues to be repeated. He's not an American citizen, it's unclear if he even was in the country legally, and how can MLS compete for Argentinians with River Plate?

It was never going to happen and there isn't a single thing that MLS or FC Dallas or whoever could have done to keep him in the country.

 

And how many of those sports do other countries play at a top level? zero.

The fact is in all those sports you listed, the only professional leagues that are decent are in America so of course our system works. It's the only one.

The fact of the matter is any player going through college isn't going to stack up against guys going through youth academies of ManU etc. All you have to do is go look at England and look at our team. Notice the difference?

Now look at our team, the only ones that didn't go through the traditional USA system collegiate athletes are our best players. Michael Bradley, Landon Donovan, and Tim Howard. It's not a coincidence.

 

Yup. To those calling him naive (no one in particular), who's to say that he doesnt have a solution in mind? Based on some past articles Ive read, he is still interested in taking job sometime down the line, and will no doubt be in close contact with Sunil in the near future.

But until we have a general election for USSF President we wont ever be shown the cards until Klinsmann is in place as coach or head of the Federation or whatever it is we want him to be.

 

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-.../us/us-scatters-pondering-been?cc=5901&ver=us

Here's an article from ESPN with video of Klinsman's comments.

 

GKBenji explains the US youth system very well.

 

Hockey generally, like baseball, has the advantage of having a parallel development track, with the CHL for players who don't want to be student-athletes and college for players who do.

I think it's amusing that you would cite the CHL for "got it right" in this context, though... by comparison with college, the CHL is notorious for being mainly focused on playing and winning games (they play an 82-game schedule), while college (with only two games in a week) is focused more on skill development.

 

^^^^^^^

i know it's difficult to read every post in a thread this long. but we all need to really read pablo chicago's post again.

 

Just because there exist better environments doesn't mean that we can have a better environment. I know this sounds defeatist, but that doesn't make it wrong.

Let's take this example. Why do youth soccer teams travel to tournaments? It isn't about development. The answer is that parents like their kids to have that experience. My neighbor's kid plays high school volleyball and they go play these tournaments too. The kid will never be a professional and will probably not play in college but it's something fun to do. And as long as parents pay the bills they get what they want.

How do you fix this? Do you ban travel? Do you send around emissaries from USSF to try to convince people not to travel?

My little point throughout this discussion is that the current system is organized the way it is for reasons. Unless you change the reasons, you won't change the system.

 

Maybe I'm naive, but this, I think, is a great, great idea. Don't know how to make it happen, though.

One other question...what night? Do you switch boys soccer to a spring sport and take Fridays? Keep it in the fall and play Saturdays? Alternate home games on Friday with the football team?

 

In Texas we played on Tuesdays and Friday nights in the spring. It didn't bring out many more people that wouldn't have come out otherwise. And it didn't bring anywhere close to the number of people that came to football games. The stands were mostly empty.

 

Well, comparisons to high school football in Texas are pretty sketchy anyway.

I agree that the basic premise you're talking about here is false. I think the fairer, more nuanced criticism, based on what posters immersed in youth soccer culture write, is that when it comes to the marginal players, the marginal starters at Irvine Strikers, the guys Benny goes against in practice, for THOSE players they'll select the fast behemoth with feet of stone rather than the smaller but skilled player. So Benny can't develop his soccer brain, because he's not playing with enough guys to play 1-2s with or create triangles to quickly play out of pressure with.

This would be a good place to ask the question again...is the US player weaker technically or tactically? I think tactically. And part of that is the youth soccer culture.

Our goalkeeper can catch the ball?

I'm not advocating this, but doesn't the Fed certify referees? They could deny referees to those tournaments. They could deny players at those tournaments from all Fed youth programs.

 

Look, I'm not a fan of pay to play either, but this is America.

In the USA, there's an education component, albeit not the optimal set up. But kids have been able to go to college (Eddie Pope, Gooch, Reyna, Charlie Davies, Kasey Keller, Bocanegra, DeMerit and more) and still become good players. That's not going away.

What in the hell do all the kids who fail in soccer in Europe end up doing, at least there's an option here. (before I lean on that sweeping generalization, do youth academy failures end up going to college in Europe?)

BTW, baseball remamins a massive sport despite the NCAA allowing just 12.7 scholarships per team.

There will be kids who leave high school to pursue the dream. Foreign club teams are scouting us like never before, looking for talented kids who are willing to move.

Klinsi is right, but the system needs tweaking, not torn down. You're not goingt to get around the college component and the soccer hot mom component (which isn't the worst thing )

MLS teams need to follow DC United's lead and establish a youth development system. Loved the story about Najar <sp?> and there has to be more like it.

We also need to offer IMG tax breaks and let them expand the Bradenton camp to other areas, like Texas, California, the Atlanta area, New York and Chicago.

If you expand the tax base, you generate more tax dollars. Folks we just need to expand the socceer development base in this country, with the realization that some kids will still go to college.

The coaching is going to improve. The seeds were planted going back to the old NASL days. A few players stuck around and became youth coaches. More seeds were planted with the 1994 World Cup and the start of MLS. More former players are coaching. Claudio Reyna is getting involved in developmet. Klinsi's done some work here. More players head over the Europe.

The infrastructure is growing, and it doesn't have to duplicate Europe. Yes, it would be nice to steal secrets from Barcelona but WE ARE DOING OK the way things are now. And the structure will get even better with time. Our way. Our style.

The system is not broken

 

Klinsmann never said the entire system needed scrapped. He said the system needs changed so that it doesn't exclude kids from families that can't afford to have their kid play for a club or academy. Brad Friedel's academy is/was free to the players and aimed at scouting and bringing kids in that demographic.