Tell them to stop sucking. There are literally more avenues for pro soccer in the United States that any time in history.
What if somebody brings up a strong pro/rel argument on that platform, that could stimulate debate in this thread? I mean it could happen. I guess.
Funny, there's a post on there from me, just a few down from where you have it specifically dropped (that wouldn't be on purpose now would it ....) where I state that I'm not against pro/rel, but just pro/rel in the US. So we could also use it as a case study for how you've ignored my stance on pro/rel for years, and mislabeled me to fit your narrative/agenda.
Why so? You're talking about a team that topped a 2014 WC group containing Uruguay, Italy and England and were one of only three teams that finished the tournament with an unbeaten record.
23 MLS teams. 33 USL teams, 9,000 USSF registered clubs, 208 D1 college programs, regional combines. If an 18 year-old really wants to play professional soccer at some point in his life there are a lot of options, probably more in the US than any European country.
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I'm surprised Ted hasn't attempted to nail it to your virtual forehead. This would be the source of the claim that there are 9000 clubs, all with the potential of being elite, world class teams if only they had access to pro/rel.
Pro/rel is inevitable and it will likely happen like this The year is 2024. USL has reorganized into two leagues D2 & d3. D2 has 20 teams. Average attendance is 16k with multiple clubs in the 25k range. All clubs either play in SSS, are in the process of building sss or play in qualified stadiums no different than what some MLS teams play in (Seattle,NYC etc) Polling amongst soccer fans for pro/rel is at 75% (basically where it is now) Media supports pro/rel being implemented into the pyramid. Every other Grant Wahl column lauds the necessity for pro/rel quoting Bruce Arena extensively and asking rhetorically if p/r were in place in 2018 if Arena could have taken the USMNT to the World Cup final. Dan Loney seen outside Stub Hub handing out #Prorel4usa stickers. MLS agrees to pro/rel but tam,ham,gam, discover claims &drafts are kept in place and no one understands what any of that means so we still watch European leagues.
Wow, he's certainly stretching the meaning of the word potential there...... In the literal sense, sure they each have the potential to one day reach the pinnacle. About as much potential as I have of landing Jennifer Lawrence or Margot Robbie as my wife. It's like mutli-millionaires who are interested in community based sports teams are in infinite supply or something? That lot likes to bang on MLS for it's expansion (ne Cartel Fee as some might want to call it) fees rising. What they don't realize is the cost for one of those 9000 clubs to rise up through a currently mythical American Soccer Pyramid gradually would easily exceed the current MLS expansion fee. Hell, the reason Commisso, Silva and the now former NASL flag bearers railed against MLS is because they either don't have the means to run an MLS club, or they don't have the want to in order to do it correctly. Silva clearly has the money to get into MLS, he just doesn't want to spend it. Which is perfectly fine, I wouldn't either if I was in his position. Granted, wealthy people don't stay wealthy by frivolously spending money. Commisso clearly has a lot of money, and is a successful businessman, but I don't believe he has the resources to get into MLS as it is today. 10 years ago, he likely would have been able to get in the door if he wanted. I find it very hard to believe that there are truly 9000 clubs that could one day afford to build a $150M+ stadium, $10M+ training facility, and a multi-million dollar academy. Oh, not to mention they also need to have the money it will take to not only fund these entities on an annual basis but also to expand them as they move up and grow into the elite world class club that they are striving to be.
For those who think MLS isn't working, here's the team that beat Paraguay, with players who spent time in MLS academies/youth systems in bold. 12-Zack Steffen 2-DeAndre Yedlin 3-Matt Miazga 5-Cameron Carter-Vickers, 19-Jorge Villafaña 20-Wil Trapp 6-Darlington Nagbe --(9-Cristian Roldan, 90+2) 8-Marky Delgado --(11-Tim Weah, 86) 4-Tyler Adams 10-Kenny Saief --(23-Rubio Rubin, 67) 7-Bobby Wood (18-Andrija Novakovich, 77) Substitutes not used: 1-Bill Hamid 13-Erik Palmer-Brown 14-Antonee Robinson 15-Eric Lichaj 17-Shaq Moore Missing players included Weston McKennie (Dallas), Kellyn Acosta (Dallas), Haji Wright (Galaxy/Cosmos) and Jordan Morris (Seattle).
Ah, right ... Because the true goal of the AYSO Walla Walla Brown Thunder U8 team isn't elementary school kids learning a sport. It's earning promotion to Division 1. If only our system were "open."
The thing that I find striking about those numbers is our ratio of youth to adult players -- the latter derived by subtracting the youth players from the total players. There was another document that was available that had more complete numbers for all FIFA associations, not just the top 10 in each category. For most countries, the ratio of male youth to male adult players is between 1.5:1 and 2:1. That sort of makes sense: it's normal for many kids to stop playing eventually. For some countries with especially strong amateur sports cultures, such as Germany, there are as many adult as youth players. Then we look at the US... the ratio is more than 10 male youth players for each male adult player. The vast majority of US soccer "clubs" are youth-only, and a fair number of them only go up to U-12 or U-14 before feeding into bigger youth clubs.
I was about to say "of course there are more today," as far as youth "clubs" are concerned, but I'm not sure. Or if there are, it's more about the increased costs of secondary education than about the popularity of soccer. There was an article in the Something Or Other today about how parents now spend more than a scholarship is worth, just to get their kid a scholarship. Except if costs keep rising, you might as well make the bet that costs now will pay down the road. It's not something I'd bet a second mortgage on, but I'm pretty sure my kids will never be able to hit a curve ball. The point is, the youth club business model is an amalgam of babysitting and hope trafficking. The idea of Kings Hammer - and I'm literally picking the one nearest to me - gathering a team of adults and working their way up the ladder while trying to gain fans and, God help us, build a stadium is utterly laughable. If they had wanted to be FC Cincinnati, they'd have tried that sometime in the last thirty years or however old they are. So when a youth coach says that promotion and relegation will spur youth development, to me that's just another way of saying "I don't understand my job and I don't even know why I'm bad at it."
We are not talking about other countries. We have 100 semi pro teams below MLS? That’s the problem, we have thousands and thousands of 18 years olds looking at these 100 teams... not enough. Thank you for making my point stronger.
We had 10 in 2010. There were 10 teams in 2010. There are thousands of places in NCAA D1 colleges, there are thousands of amateur teams, there are combines all over the country. If you're good enough and determined enough you'll find a way.
It's not a law or anything that says you should read an entire post before commenting on it, but still. Did we decide whether or not Chris Wondolowski counted as a late bloomer? Because it seemed like we tried to lawyer our way around the fact that he played four years at low level college and spent five seasons with the first Quakes/Dynamo before accomplishing much of anything. Have we worked in how German player development has changed how promotion and relegation works? Couple of weeks ago someone told me it was super-important, be weird if literally nobody has brought it up since then. Or was that Dutch youth player development that was supposed to have revolutionized promotion and relegation? Anyway, you'd think there'd be pages and pages and pages of discussion about it, but they're not showing up on my browser. SO weird.
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Hmmm....I see you conveniently forgot or didn't even bother read points 5 and 6 that I made............ So out of those "1,000's of 18 year olds" how many of them have a realistic actual shot at being a bonafide professional player, let alone an International Class player?
The problem with adult soccer is that there's not necessarily a compelling reason for an adult league to be part of USSF. If you're good enough to compete for the Open Cup, sure. If you're a weekend warrior, not so much. Some people think pro/rel would make more people interested. But again -- we're talking about a lot of weekend warriors here. Purely recreational. At no time in my adult soccer career could I have come home and told my wife I'd need to travel to Baltimore for games because we had just been promoted.
I think you read point 2 incorrectly. There are close to 100 teams each in PDL (74 teams), NPSL (98 teams), and USASA (16 elite level leagues with 10 to 12 teams in each league). That is more like 300 teams at that level and not 100 total.
Isn't the fundamental basis of your argument that we should have pro/rel because it works in other countries? The Netherlands has 38 professional clubs and 18 semi-pro, yet have one of the most productive youth systems on the planet. I know that the US has a much larger population, but that's why I argue for a much larger D1 than is typical. If you had 64 professional clubs, just at MLS standard, that should meet your demand for an environment where gifted players could earn a living, much more than just opening the system and hoping that's the result. The 32 that MLS seems destined for, would still represent 12-14 more professional top-tier teams than most nations have.