Hyper-Competitive Youth-Soccer Industry (The Atlantic)

Discussion in 'USA Men' started by Cubanlix63, Jul 14, 2018.

  1. Caulfield

    Caulfield Member

    May 31, 2004
    Club:
    Atlanta
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Another thing is your great athletes are leaving the sport in droves at 10-11 because the time demand for travel soccer is way too much. I’ve seen incredible athletes hang it up at 10 because they want to play other sports, and 4 nights a week soccer training is more than these families want.
     
  2. gunnerfan7

    gunnerfan7 Member+

    San Jose Earthquakes
    United States
    Jul 22, 2012
    Santa Cruz, California
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yeah, what with football only being 5-days-a-week plus Sundays? Hell, Mondays were late days where we'd go from 4:30-8:30 pm instead of 3:30 - 6:00 like most days.

    The travel sucks, but the practice time should not be the issue. Or at the least, if it is, other sports have the same problem. There are no sports that you get really good at just playing an hour a week.
     
  3. Cubanlix63

    Cubanlix63 Member+

    AFC Ajax
    Feb 19, 2014
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    As long as the players are playing with the ball using their feet they do not really need to know the rules. And they also do not need to use a goal.
     
  4. tyguy

    tyguy Member

    Apr 11, 2006
    Cheeseland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  5. Hararea

    Hararea Member+

    Jan 21, 2005
    Highlighting the part that's completely insane.

    Why the f*** should AYSO be organized like a professional academy? Other countries organize grassroots soccer by schoolyear because it's a lot more fun.
     
  6. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    It doesn't really matter how many kids participate in soccer (from the professional/national team perspective) after a critical mass point.

    If countries like Croatia, the Netherlands, Belgium, even France, Spain, Colombia, and Portugal can put together competitive teams with much, much smaller raw participation numbers, and China, India, Russia find it more challenging, it's clear that participation numbers alone are not the story.

    The number that is important is the number of truly physically and mentally gifted soccer players who play in good situations or drop out.

    Rec soccer is great and fun and it's too bad less kids aren taking advantage of it (especially girls given the wealth of research indicating how critical team sports participation past 12 yo is for young women's success) but I doubt that has much impact on USMNT.

    If elite prospects are quitting, that is a different story.
     
  7. Soccer888

    Soccer888 Red Card

    Mar 28, 2011
    I always felt all the traveling the DA teams used to do/ still do?, was too much at such a young age. The United States is a large country. Better to try to over-develop the regions on a micro-scale so the top teams don't have to travel across the country for good games. The MLS/USL academies are helping with this a bit, I think.
     
  8. EvanJ

    EvanJ Member+

    Manchester United
    United States
    Mar 30, 2004
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This wasn't written about soccer, but
     
  9. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    The youngest millennial is 22. They are not quitting rec soccer. They quit years ago.

    The kids who got a trophy despite sucking are not affecting our national team success (and knew they sucked even though they got the trophy. Kids are not stupid, no matter when they were born.)

    We don't need 5 million rec soccer players to be a soccer power. We need 200, 300, 400, 500 exceptionally talented athletes with great soccer brains. And we need to give them exceptional soccer coaching... Which of these do you think we don't have/ do?
     
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  10. juveeer

    juveeer Member+

    Aug 3, 2006
    One of the biggest problems we have with youth soccer is the fact that for most players the opportunities dry up once they hit u-15/16. Most local travel/club team leagues stop offering competitions and a player has to try to hook on to one of the few clubs offering older teams - which usually means traveling far and wide on weekends for games. And getting onto one of those teams is often pretty political.

    It is a hassle and a cost and takes most of the weekend. And in the northern half of the country that usually means playing only in the Spring, because HS soccer is in the fall and the winter, well, it snows!

    In most Euro countries this gap is filled by local "clubs". And I mean clubs who sponsor teams at all age groups and then when they hit 17, 18, 19 older youth programs that play games against other local clubs offering the same. You can still play through your 20s or at a semipro level with most clubs.

    Our setup offers very little of any of that. Many kids are late developers and we completely miss players that could develop into very good players if they had an opportunity to keep playing in their late teens through their lower 20's.

    Right now if you aren't good enough or close enough to make an "academy" team at an early age or get onto a college team of some sort you are done after you enter HS. Many Euro coaches I know have identified this as one of our biggest problems.

    As usual there are no easy fixes for this any more than there are fixes for our traditional "pay to play" travel system.
     
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  11. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    At a certain level, that is a problem - every year there are a handful of Latino kids who go to Mex or CA to lower level clubs to try their shot, for instance, but we have plenty of kids playing DA, College, on the pro roster etc.

    The biggest problem is we are not good enough at developing our best kids. I don't really think we need more players as much as we need to make the good ones better, and the best ones great.

    The change in the Euro academy rules was unfortunate, as it closed the door on the top academies to non-dual kids.

    Until we have 4 or 5 or 6 close to Ajax/Lille/Clairefontaine/Maisa/etc. etc. Academies competing for top players in the US, we're going to see slow improvement.

    The biggest problem is the 50 or so best need to be a bit better, not that we need few hundred more "pretty goods."
     
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  12. Clint Eastwood

    Clint Eastwood Member+

    Dec 23, 2003
    Somerville, MA
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Yup. The issue right now is the talent evaluation, coaching and cultivation of the talent. The raw materials have been there in terms of the players for quite some time.

    The homegrown initiative in MLS only started in 2007 (which gave the pro clubs incentive to develop talent), and the USSF development academy started in 2007/2008. We're just babies when it comes to this. Half of the clubs in MLS are less than a decade old, with more on the way.

    Its unquestionable that part of the issue is that due to the massive geographic scale of the US, many kids live FAR away from professional training. This isn't a problem in a Belgium or a Croatia. The footprint of development academy and MLS clubs keeps expanding year after year, giving more kids an opportunity. More kids live closer to some level of professional training than ever before. The spider web of affiliate clubs keeps growing and blanketing the country.

    upload_2018-10-15_10-38-17.png

    We just keep building and building and building while giving more and more and more kids an opportunity. The best kids at FC Dallas 12 youth affiliates are all funneled to the academy programs. What I've found is that PARENTS aren't accustomed to the cut-throat nature of those programs. If FCD coaches/talent evaluators deem that little Johnny and Scottie are better prospects than your little child Jimmy.............they will move Jimmy out of the DA to the Premier or Select clubs. No orange slices and Capri-Suns. And yes, that is hard to take and not what parents are used to with 12 year olds.

    This is going to be hard for people to accept, but what we need is INVESTMENT and PATIENCE.
     
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  13. freisland

    freisland Member+

    Jan 31, 2001
    ^^^ yep

    And getting used to the cut-throat will never be easy. It's not easy for the kids at Ajax, who can be there one year and gone back to their little slice of swamp the next. (For some folks it's careful what you wish for...)

    But even Europe, families have to/choose to move for soccer - Hazard's folks moved him down the continent to Lille when they felt his local training was not good enough, and, of course, plenty of French or Belgian or UK duals go one way or the other, based on demand for their services, to attend academies sometimes far from home.

    And we are in the infancy of a true, effective, competitive (and cut throat) development system that will improve the "product" in a generation or so.
     
  14. nobody

    nobody Member+

    Jun 20, 2000
    The problem with the idea we only need a small number of kids and then we'll train them up to standard with better coaching is the inevitably flawed process to identify players at younger ages. The biggest and best teams in the world using all the resources at their disposal have an abysmal rate of success on a percentage basis. They churn through hundreds of kids searching for one that is good enough. The reason you need millions and not hundreds is that this churn is inevitable and you have no way to determine which 13 year olds or 15 year olds are going to be the best pros.
     
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  15. TimB4Last

    TimB4Last Member+

    May 5, 2006
    Dystopia
    I agree you need millions, but we've given you millions of players, for decades, and yet, while the general skill level has gone up tremendously (since my day, certainly), you are still not producing truly elite players. Why is that?
     
  16. nobody

    nobody Member+

    Jun 20, 2000
    Obviously no one knows for sure, but my basic point is that we have in theory millions of players, but these are mostly recreational players and mostly they are completely ignored. And this isn't even getting into the large numbers of unregistered players outside the system completely. We somehow think we can identify the cream of the crop from this vast country as youngsters and then use all our resources to give that sliver of players all the attention and coaching while expecting that way we'll end up with the best final product. But since the initial player identification is necessarily highly flawed, the rest of the project fails as well. In my opinion, we need to raise the level of all players or at least a very significant proportion of them if we want a competitive enough environment to take advantage of our potential scale. Of course, actually helping so many players creates a financial barrier and we all know money matters. If solving this was easy, it would have been done long ago.

    I agree with many that MLS academies are about the only things brewing that will help player development. They will increase the number of players getting decent coaching and significant resources. They can provide that cut throat competitive environment where there are players numbers 24-54 waiting in the wings if 1-23 don't cut it. And, the clubs are learning all the time about player development and while having a large financial stake in making it work. I have way more faith in the ability of professional teams to eventually get player development closer to functional on a mass scale than US Soccer. They're not perfect and likely never will be, but at least they are moving things in the right direction.
     
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  17. nobody

    nobody Member+

    Jun 20, 2000
    Just came across this and thought it was interesting and relevant. It's almost like other sports are taking notes from soccer on how to organize everything around higher priced travel teams that force lower income participants out.

    Among richer families, youth sports participation is actually rising. Among the poorest households, it’s trending down. Just 34 percent of children from families earning less than $25,000 played a team sport at least one day in 2017, versus 69 percent from homes earning more than $100,000. In 2011, those numbers were roughly 42 percent and 66 percent, respectively.

    This isn’t a story about American childhood; it’s about American inequality.


    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...quality-explains-decline-youth-sports/574975/
     
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  18. Cubanlix63

    Cubanlix63 Member+

    AFC Ajax
    Feb 19, 2014
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    And US Soccer is going to have to try and fight against the national trend. Baseball which was once a working class sport is now dominated by rich kids and even Basketball is heading down that path.
     
  19. Cubanlix63

    Cubanlix63 Member+

    AFC Ajax
    Feb 19, 2014
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    And I want to sort of tie this back to the big news story that dominated today.

    https://www.si.com/college-football...itter_si&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sinow

    This is another example of how competitive parenting has become in this country. This strange scandal is an example but, the current youth sports industry is another example. It is the reason why there has been a travel/elite sports boom in almost every sport. And we are going to produce some good Soccer players simply because there is so many parents willing to invest a lot of money and time in their kids' sports careers. But, how will the kids whose parents do not have that type of money or time going to stand a chance?
     
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  20. tyguy

    tyguy Member

    Apr 11, 2006
    Cheeseland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Sure, we'll produce some 'good' soccer players. The thing is, and I think you are making the same point, that having money to drop on an 'elite' team does not make a kid a great soccer player, no matter how many trophies (fill in your town) United FC-Elite has in their cabinet. Because their main competition is other elite teams full of rich kids.

    Sure, rich kids can become great athletes. But I'd love to see a team put together made of kids who play pick up games from dawn to dusk. These are the kids who love the sport and will put everything into it. But like you said, most of these kids don't have the money or time and dont' stand a chance.
     
  21. jeff_adams

    jeff_adams Member+

    Dec 16, 1999
    Monterey, Ca
    It’s not easy but I’ve seen it done. An example was El Camino Futbol Club U-14s from Salinas California last year. They went all the way to the national semi-finals in Frisco Texas. They played and won the Western Regional finals in Hawaii. The key to their final success was parent participation in fundraising and properly filling out USSF paperwork to get travel expenses reimbursed.

    In my experience parent involvement can be as important (if not more so) than how rich the club is. Someone who is willing to spend the time getting financial sponsorships and grants can be as valuable as a good coach to a poorer community.
     
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  22. tyguy

    tyguy Member

    Apr 11, 2006
    Cheeseland
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Kudos to USSF for actually having money available to teams like this.
     
  23. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    Let's discuss the use of a non-ball winning regista for the USMNT against top 20 teams like Mexico, Chile, etc.

    GB's system is based upon the desire to have a lot of possession, to create goal-scoring opportunities by disorganizing the opponent, and by making the field big.

    Defensively, GB has stated that its vital for national teams to "make the least amount of [defensive] mistakes."

    I hope we can all agree that MB/WT

    1. are sub-par ball-winners,
    2. depend upon making safe side/back passes when under pressure (as opposed to being able to hold the ball and pivot/dribble away from pressure) and
    3. whose relative strengths lie in their ability to make long passes

    When watching the Chile game (I didn't see the first game), what I didn't see was the team having

    - a lot of possession
    - the ability to disorganize the opponent via possession and pretty much all of our chances came from a few direct counters
    - effective use of width as when we did get the ball to our wingers in isolation, they're simply not skilled enough to take advantage. In other words, Chile appeared to be willing to give up these infrequent one-on-ones because they felt their defender would win that situation (and they did)

    What I did see, particularly in the first half was a lot of bad giveaways in our half and a lack of defensive bite (although the structure was reasonably sound). GB eventually had to give MB more help in the middle via substitution but then we lost our attacking shape and were toothless to say the least.

    So, if we're using a regista and we look as poorly we usually do vs. crafty possession teams because we can't maintain possession, create dangerous one-on-one opportunities and make a large amount of defensive errors that will eventually cost us, why use a non-ball winning regista vs. good opponents?

    This is not to say that MB was useless in the game - he had a couple of wonderful passes and I saw at least one impressive takeaway (which unfortunately, he gave right back). Rather, it's that it doesn't make us a better team and therefore lowers our odds of winning against WC quality teams.
     
  24. DHC1

    DHC1 Member+

    Jun 3, 2002
    NYC
    My bad - wrong thread.
     

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