This highlights how the whole debate is due to a terrible year for Klinsmann, 2015. The big jump I see is from the early 90s (in the 50s and 60s) to the late 90s (in the 20s). That coincides with the establishment of MLS. After that, it's been a slow rise until recently. 2015 changed the whole trend.
I saw that coming as soon as I read those numbers. fair enough, though. if it popped into my head, I can't blame it going into anyone else's.
When Bob was fired after the 2011 Gold Cup, they were 35th. I don't believe Bob and Jurgen were coaching together. The great Toby Charles and "Soccer made in Germany" (edited down to 52 minutes for PBS). Alan Fountain, who still calls Bundesliga matches for the global feed, replaced Toby for a year or two in the mid-80's, then Toby came back for the last hurrah. The show went off the air in 1987.
I believe that NASL's impact on the USMNT was largely indirect.I also believe that much of the impact was delayed. I don't think you can argue that too many players were developed or benefited from NASL (despite the existence team America). As far as the title of the thread, I took it to mean has it already had an impact and is it doing so at the moment? I believe it definitely has, if only to raise the quality of the typical American player. The Mike Burns, Mike Lapper, Jeff Agoos, Cobi Jones, Frank Klopas, Mike Sorber, Paul Caligiuri, Alexi Lalas etc. What I am talking about are the players that are not the stars of the team but make of the balance of the 23 and or start but are not necessarily considered stars. Also, not foreign raised, because MLS has not impact, one way or the other on foreign development. I do also feel, however, that there are several players that would probably had to start further down the ladder in Europe (and or the USMNT) or might never have had that opportunity without MLS. The two easiest examples for me are Clint Dempsey and Clint Mathis (both were relatively unknown in the US and I suspect even less well known in Europe before playing in MLS). In the past, most of our top players in Europe were noticed through the USMNT. What is better, having Europeans choose from 23 or so USMNT players (and sometimes youth national team players) or Europeans having those options in addition to some 100+ players in MLS? I have no proof but we each have to make a value judgement and I believe MLS has been a benefit and continues to benefit the national team. I also believe that the impact will grow as the youth from the academies grow and mature. 20 years from now, we will have coaches (youth and professional) that went through progI rams that are much much better than anything that the current american coaches experienced. Will that benefit the USMNT? I believe so. I know some feel we would be better off keeping MLS as a relatively minor league and be content to send our best to Europe for polishing. I feel that is insane. It may be the best option at the moment but is nothing more than a stopgap measure that will suffice until the time that we have the infrastructure, coaching etc to provide a superior environment for American players. As we improve year over year, the numbers of young players for whom Europe is the best option will shrink. I believe Pulisic made the right decision and it will be awhile before the right decision for a player of his quality would be MLS but there will be a time. 10 years from now? I don't know how long. Maybe 20? I'm not going to worry about how long right now.
Actually, Bob had one low at #34, that cost him his job. On the other hand, under Klinsmann we've hovered around #30 for years, with only a peak in 2013. Basically, Jürgen has kept us at the level that got Bob fired. http://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/associations/association=usa/men/index.html
The NASL coincided with the massive growth in soccer in the the US. As you say, 3 American players mostly hidden did little for the American player at that time. We obviously suffered not having a professional league for 10+ years, but it was either the spark or the main driver during that period. They obviously grew too fast, but they brought in some crazy talent. Peel, beckanbauer, neeskins, best, etc. The cosmos are comparable to a Real Madrid or whatever supper club today. it embedded soccer in many of communities that are biggest drivers of talent in our country. I'm sure some could explain how the Tornados have impacted soccer in Dallas today. Or New York, or Southern California, etc... Also, many players went onto coaching in college, professionalluy and roles with USSF.... Gordon Bradley, Clive Charles, Bobby Clark, etc. You can see the exponential growth during this period. http://www.usyouthsoccer.org/media_kit/keystatistics/ US Youth Soccer Annual Registration of Players 1974 - 103,432 1980 - 810,793 (800%) 1985 - 1,210,408 (50%) 1990 - 1,615,041 (33%) 1995 - 2,388,719 (50%) 2000 - 3,020,442 (25%) 2005 - 3,050,465 2007 - 3,123,698 2008 - 3,148,114 2009 - 3,094,868 2010 - 3,036,438 2011 - 3,025,551 2012 - 3,020,633 2013 - 2,804,711 2014 - 3,055,188
Children born between 1965 and 1975 would have grown up with the potential to watch the NASL. This is the age demographic of the WC 1990 and WC 1994 players primarily. Just as it helps kids now when they watch professionals play, the same could be said to some extent when Harkes, Ramos, Waldo, Meola, etc watched the NASL. The leagues long term influence was not in the players that it produced but in the children that it inspired.
From the mid-70's to the mid-80's, the easiest league to follow was the Bundesliga because of "Soccer made in Germany" being a weekly PBS staple. Toby Charles also managed to get the edited-down rights to the 1980 and 1984 Euros and the 1982 World Cup, plus some European Champions Cup finals. In 1986, Univision had the Spanish language rights to full live matches, with Tony Tirado on the mic. NASL was often preempted in non-NASL cities for bowling or some local shows due to its low ratings.
I am not sure who is making that argument either. The best and, IMO, highly achievable target for MLS is to become an Eredivisie clone in the grand scheme of the Dutch tradition, developing top notch prospects and selling them to big European clubs for huge money. The less preferable but still feasible path is to develop players to can be sold for further development to leagues like Portugal, Turkey and the Netherlands. What is happening instead is that the league develops poorly, selling an occasional starlets into a smaller league but, most often, letting him leave on a free after the expiration of his original contract. The free market adjusts to this easily observed and undeniably poor record and, as the result of this observation, top prospects often chose to bypass MLS entirely. With Pulisic's remarkable early success - hey, it surprised me ... by a lot - chances are that other European clubs will begin to pay greater and greater attention to the unsigned US U 17-20 starlets. And those clubs will easily outbid MLS on the economic criteria on top of being able to present a far more compelling case for their soccer future. And, no, not everyone will go to Europe even when invited and not every AMEX kid will drive down to Mexico for a free case of Corona either. But many a top prospect definitely will.
I would consider the Eredivisie (approx #10 if I am not mistaken) to be a relatively small league. I would agree that doing as you say would be a good interim target that could possibly be reached in a relatively short period of time (10-15 yrs?). With the US' resources, both athletically and economically I don't see any reason to stop there. I may be totally off base but I believe we should aim high.
Right but you have to walk before you can run. The Dutch league in general "suffers" from a limited source of revenues, which means it can only buy certain level of talent developed outside and hold onto a certain level before having to sell. Generally, especially in the context of this thread, there are two issues - "does the Netherlands home league (Eredivisie) develop enough talent for the national team" and "is Eredivisie a good enough place for their national teamers to find employment"? The answer to the first one is that, considering the Dutch making the last two WC semifinals, their local infrastructure delivers as much as is reasonable to expect from a 17M big country. All of the top Dutch players were brought up by the local academies and clubs before being transferred to someone higher on the food chain. With the most lucrative wages topping out at around $3M in the Eredivisie, the Dutch fans should expect their top stars to be employed by the world thirty-forty richest clubs. None of them is at home. PS. There are obviously cyclical coaching and talent issues but those are present everywhere, including all current and past world champions, from Germany to Italy to Argentina to Brazil.
I'm not sure if I'm surprised or not. It seems like youth soccer it pretty saturated. The booming years growth from almost non-existent in 1974 to roughly 40% of its ultimate "capacity" was enough to help build enough talent to qualify with Mexico excluded. The total number was about the same and lower in proportion in next five years, and 1990 and 1994 world helped the spike from 1990 to 1995. I dos I do think the coaching and over all quality of youth soccer improved over that second 10 year period though improved coaching and culture shift.
If it is saturated, I find it very surprising that it would saturate at 3,000,000 players. Especially since that figure counts both sexes. In 2010 according to the census http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdfn there were 539,000,000 kids aged 5-17. 3,000,000 is only .6% of that number. In my area I am 100% positive that many more than 6 out of 1000 boys and girls play soccer at some level. I can accept that the numbers will be less in certain areas but believe there is probably room for growth in those areas. It would also be interesting to see the distribution of players; ie ayso vs club. I agree about the quality of coaching being better now.
You are just looking at numbers for the biggest youth program. If you looked at AYSO registration, the peak ended sooner. US Club soccer started in 2001 with frustration with some restrictions in USYS and allowed teams to dual register and play out of region games and tournaments. A decade later they had rec leagues and had ECNL where top Girls play. Development Academy is not part of USYS either. It started in 2007 with some U16 and U18 clubs. It has grown to include U14 teams and is starting a girls program. There is also very large growth in local Hispanic leagues which are not affiliated with any major youth soccer program. That said, the growth has stagnated (escalating costs along with young parents hearing how much it costs to play soccer) have hurt. Conflict with HS has not helped either. On positive MLS expansion in last decade has provided an opportunity for young boys to dream of being a professional for the local team - much like local baseball, basketball and hockey leagues do.
Young players need to play. In Europe, a young kid that isn't going to get minutes he will get loaned to a lower league. It is much like Major League baseball's minor league system only with a lot more tiers where results truly matter. USL helps in that regard but there is a huge gap in level not found in Europe and winning a title isn't as important as it is in a European minor league like the Eredivisie. NASL is somewhat in between but it doesn't help because MLS doesn't want to do business with them so it becomes a place where marginal MLS players can make a decent pay check rather than a more advanced league where younger players can develop.
It needs to start before they even get to MLS. Things like first touch, moving without the ball, dribbling, are just lacking and that starts at a young age. Whatever is going on with the coaching at the youth level is what needs to improve.
Some players that have played in both swear that USL is a marginally higher level than NASL nowadays, despite its "3rd division" designation. In any case, it's not a difference of a "whole division."
Certainly the results from last year in US open cup would support that. I'd also agree that NASL is much closer to USL than MLS which is a problem. NASL seems in general to have older players including many that played in MLS or other league while USL has younger players including some higher potential. Haiti for example had 6 US club based on their roster with 1 from MLS, 5 from NASL.
This this is something MLS can change and should make it a high priority. Lack of mobility is one of the biggest problems we have in terms of allowing players to find their level and ends up stalling players careers. They need to somehow connect with the NASL or use their muscle to run them out of business. MLS should strive for and should be able to be connected with three or four tiers of teams. MLS and really all leagues make mistakes on players, but they shouldn't make such that if they don't sign a kid at 18-22, it means they can never play in the league.
Right but, as I keep on saying, junior leagues will never be as good as the senior. Double/Triple A baseball is a good place to learn because it has top notch instructors. If the upper echelon instructors, i.e., head coaches, are no good, the lower tier can't possibly be better. And the sad fact is that MLS head coaches aren't very good in teaching the very basics. This creates a very low ceiling of what can ever be achieved below that.
Funny, the last 5 matches do nothing to make me think that our manager/TD is helping the USMNT. Most of these guys, MLS and otherwise, are so much better, smarter, and more decisive with their clubs than they are with Jürgen, whether we're playing Colombia or Puerto Rico's scrubs. That sufficiently obscures everything. His presence has made this debate positively stupid. The most ridiculously, blatantly obvious way that MLS is helping the USMNT is providing a steady stream of former professional soccer players in need of a job who have a hell of a lot more expertise to coach players of all age levels than most of their coaches did.