Why do we not create any players on the level of Lewandowski/Kane/Mbappe/Neymar/Ronaldo/Messi/Ronaldinho/Zidane/Iniesta/Sergio Ramos/Haaland/de Bruyne/etc? We cannot even create players at the level of top African players like Mo Salah/Mane/Drogba who grew up in countries that spend far less than the USA on soccer. So why is this? Certainly it's not a matter of money or facilities. Certainly it's not a matter of number of players as we have many in the development pipeline at all ages. Are their moments where the potential is there, but we hinder the talent at some point, due to some dynamic in our system? I don't think it is because of the other pro sports that soccer has to compete with. If Messi or Mbappe or Iniesta had grown up in the USA I doubt they would have pursued a path to football or basketball or baseball (though baseball would be the most likely). I would think they would have still pursued soccer but at some point along the way their talent would not have reached it's top potential due to some forces. What are those forces? And why isn't the USA able to figure out what it is and fix it?
It's largely because up until recently Soccer was considered a sport for the suburban white elites. In order to get access to higher levels of competition you had to pay to play. There's also the fact of the matter that there are more professional sports in America than any other country. Athletes have many paths to make professional sports a career, or at the least use sports to get a good to great education for free/less money. That's not the case throughout much of the rest of the world. MLS and now USL academies are mostly free to play. It's going to take time, but eventually America will produce top talent in World Football.
Takes time to build a culture. We're getting there. Compared to the 90s and early 2000s when soccer was actively disliked in addition to merely being unpopular, the game is in a pretty good place. Americans contributing to top Euro teams is becoming a more regular occurrence, MLS has won a CCL and jumpstarted the academy system, the second division is stable and growing in its own right. Not long ago a guy like Brenden Aaronson jumping into Leeds and making an instant impact would've been rather mind blowing, now it was kind of expected given his pro journey before arriving there.
lol you know white players are as good as black latinos and asians. i mean we have white players like ronaldo , haalland muller milinkovic savic modric, suker, vlahovic and many other great white players
Time? The MLS has been around almost 30 years. Pro soccer has existed in the US for 100 years. But we couldn't make the World Cup last time despite having many pros in Europe. So not I don't think it's time to build culture. Our cultures is what it is and it will never put soccer first. Soccer will grow yes and maybe one of the big 3 sports, but it will never reach the levels it has in Europe where it basically occupies the mind space of football+basketball+baseball combined here. It's nearly year round in Europe and it's everything there. It will never be "everything" here. It will grow, but will never be the end-all be-all. The US sports landscape is too diversified. Compared to the 90s? That def remains to be seen. Looking at the facts, one could surmise that we seem to be worse considering that we qualified in the 90s and early 2000s, up until 2018. Aaronson is good but will never be a top 25 player in the world. It appears not a single American will be a top 25 player. I don't see anyone on the radar. A lot of really good players yes. But not "world class"
@An Unpaved Road ... it remains to be seen how we'll do in this WC, but we just failed to score a single goal against Japan and Saudi Arabia. So it's not looking good.
I don't think there's an appreciation of just how underdeveloped soccer culture was in the US 30 years ago and how much it's changed. I played college soccer in the 2000-2003 seasons. My first coach with professional playing experience was not until my sophomore season in college. Most kids prior to the 90s were coached by parents who had never played or watched the game, and were often learning out of a book. Starting in the 1980s, former NASL players started to have an increasing impact in youth coaching, but there weren't enough of them. The early 2000s saw a sea change in youth coaching, as the growth of US pro soccer, both MLS and lower leagues, created a generation of ex-pro coaches. As late as 2005 or 2006, there were rookies getting into MLS who had never seen a professional match before they played in one. The lack of access to soccer as a spectator sport definitely had an effect. Kids who grow up watching soccer develop a better understanding of what the game looks like, and they try to emulate the players they see. Today pro soccer is part of the landscape in the US, and readily available on TV and streaming services. Finally: talent develops talent. The best players get better by playing each other. Until recently, there may have been a lot of talented kids in the US, but the density wasn't there, and there was a ceiling on their development when they rarely saw opponents at their level. The academy system is starting to change that.
Programs better than ours slip up as well. Since Italy won the World Cup they have two group stage exits and two failed qualifying campaigns. Mexico was a hair away from failing in 2014 except for a Zusi goal giving them a lifeline. International soccer is hard, and other countries are routinely improving as well, including Concacaf nations who benefited from MLS. And 30 years is nothing, especially considering how different MLS is today from the league’s first ten years.
Why can't Germany produce NFL players? Why can't Italy produce world class baseball players? It's not that hard. It's culture. It's not a top 4 sport in the public's mind. Why wouldn't have Mbappe pursued another sport? The US is filled with a bunch of 5'10" 160 lb high school shooting guards with dreams of the NBA or hs wide receivers with dreams of the NFL. But let's look at the mysterious forces instead like pay to play and lack of pro/rel or nepotism because those are cutting edge reasons and buy social credit in word space of soccer. It could be too many parents who try to manufacture their sons career by worrying about whether their u9 team is winning or not as the big problem in their child's development as well as the system holding their son back. This was a troll question you asked because you have answers just ones you don't want to hear.
there is many players who play soccer but in usa they are not getting attention because they are wrong race and wrong socioeconomic backround and wrong ethnicity. most people that play soccer in clubs are white but give attention to them and make them good all around players will not be in so called interest of american soccer so they look them over and are looking for next pele(freddy adu) or next maradona(some latino player)
That's a great rundown. But doesn't explain the mystery... Based on your essay one would think the USA more likely makes the WC in 2018 than 1990. So why didn't we? And why didn't we score a single goal against Japan and Saudi Arabia? Furthermore, if we look just domestically, it appears we are losing the development battle. https://runrepeat.com/us-players-mls Over the last decade, South American playing time has increased 85% and European playing time has more than doubled (103% increase) In the first MLS season, 67.27% of all available minutes went to Americans. In 2011, US players played 53.86% of the entire playing time in MLS. This figure has consistently decreased since then, especially in the last five seasons. In the 2020 season, US players played only 37.96% of all playing time. The US share of playing time in MLS has decreased by 29.53% since 2011 and 43.58% since that first season. So, if we are importing more and more foreign talent to the MLS, how are we going to develop world class talent? See... even though, yes, we are better off than 40 years ago culturally, it's not the US 40 years prior that we are competing against... who we are competing against is the entire globe today. We have advanced. But so has everyone else due to natural evolution of tactical knowledge, training methods, recovery methods, use of technology and analytics, etc.
That's a fair point but Italy is in the most competitive conference. A great team is going to get left out. If they were in concacaf they would advance every time. Now that I think about it, being in concacaf is probably part of the problem, because we beat up on teams like Honduras and Panama which gives us a false sense of progress, and then we probably get complacent as a natural result of that. Just think, if we had to play European countries every single year, it would no doubt up our performance because it's much more of a pressure cooker.
Most of you say it's culture. So let me ask this - can you be more specific - how does culture translate specifically into development. Does it come down to time spent with the ball? The age that kid's start playing? Quality of coaching? all of the above? Seems that time spent playing would be a big factor; in most other countries kids spend more time playing soccer right? For NBA, a lot of those kids grew up playing a lot of pickup basketball anywhere they could right? So our kids get more basketball minutes compared to Italian kids.
I don't have answers. I have some ideas about what could be the causes. For example: * a culture of over-coaching and lack of creativity. We don't allow kids to think independently and to experiment. We want them to fall in line with the coaches structure. This can stifle certain players from becoming their best. I think it would have been impossible for a Ronaldinho to become himself in the USA because of the mentality of our system. He's too showy and he's having too much fun. "Knock it off!" is what I hear coaches yelling at a young Ronaldinho in america. * probably also just fewer minutes played at the youth level. I think most kids in other countries play way more minutes (whether structured or unstructured, but most certainly more unstructured minutes). * related to fewer minutes, is that soccer is mainly a suburban sport in the US. Abroad it is more of an urban sport. This matters because in urban areas there is more density, so kids can walk to a pickup game rather than having to depend on a parent to drive them. well these are a couple of my impressions.
Yeah, things would be different if the U.S. regularly played competitive games against Euro opposition.. How much so is hard to say. If Belgium mostly played against CONCACAF historically they still would not have won a World Cup, and probably never finished third or fourth, but maybe they still could've been to the quarterfinals like we have. You could envision a bunch of what if scenarios, but the bottom line is we are a CONCACAF country so that's the reality we look it. Speaking of results everyone always comes back to missing 2018 but not as many want to talk about maybe overachieving during the last 30 years. I'm surprised more aren't at least a bit content with having seen a World Cup quarterfinal appearance, a FIFA final against Brazil, topping a World Cup group with England, getting out of another very difficult group that included eventual winner Germany, Portugal, and a historical rival in Ghana. All this with a mainstream sports culture that still doesn't exactly view soccer as hugely important except for some instances here and there. I'll alter the question, why should we be producing generational talent on a global scale or flawlessly cruising through CONCACAF on our way to a World Cup semifinal appearance?
Anything can happen on the field. Italy has failed to qualify twice in a row now -- despite winning the Euro in between those two failures. Egypt failed to qualify for both World Cups during the same stretch in which they won the African Cup of Nations three times in a row. As for American playing time in MLS: MLS expansion has outpaced progress in talent production so far. Even though Americans are getting a smaller percentage of the minutes than in early MLS, they are getting a lot more total minutes. The league is much larger, so there are a lot more spots to fill on the field. The big change is what we're starting to see in the national team now, and we'll be seeing more of it in the next decade. With the MLS academy system, MLS will create its own talent pool, and expansion will increase the rate of talent production -- but it takes time, so as long as MLS has been expanding, the US talent pool has been stretched. Keep in mind that most MLS academies have only existed since 2008, and MLS only required academies to field teams younger than U-16 beginning in 2012. The very first cohort of U-12 academy players is currently 22 years old. Only a few of the academies can really be said to be mature right now.
Heck, let's try for 100 Milners first https://farpostfooty.com/2014/09/24/articles-a-messi-comparison/
Yeah, but...you let a village of Italian kids replace their soccer for 4 years with basketball, do you think they beat even an average team 2 years younger in the US? "just let them play..." THis is where "culture" is important. It's not just 10,000 hours. 10,000 hours of grabasstic jungleball gets you maybe to where the englsh game was at the end of the 19th century. There's a book, youd probably like it, Inverting the Pyramid. Covers how we got from big strong sons of the aristocracy bullying their way to goal to the beautiful game we have today... Those italian kids watch the game way more than americans kids do. Not only that,they watch it with parents, aunts/uncles, generations who have also watched the game and know it. They're playing pickup and someone sees them doing something they get feedback "good idea, but you want to hit it with the outside of your foot more..." - just like a kd here might get correction on how to tighten up their spiral, or not shoot with a sideways body,etc.
I just realized this tonight. My kid was playing soccer at a free soccer clinic/pickup event. Only 4 kids were there. And my kid's mom was down my throat about keeping him out late (it was from 6-8pm). This is America. Yes, there are lots of clubs, and we are in one. Lots of soccer being played, relative to other sports. But relative to soccer played around the world? No. Club soccer is just one piece of the puzzle. There needs to be far more hours of play, unstructured play, like pickup/street soccer/whatever you want to call it. Because this is what the rest of the world is doing. They are all getting more hours than our kids. The families support it; or at least are cool with it because they are living in the soccer culture of their country, so it just feels normal. But not in the USA. As well-intentioned as all the soccer parents are here, it's just not going to be enough. It will be enough for them to get to college or perhaps the USL. But above that, practically impossible, a rarity. And that makes me kinda sad. I just had to vent. Yes you'll have your Pulisics here and there. But it will be limited. Not on a large scale like every where else. The other problem is that for parents in the USA, they have to be there with the kid, which gets very time consuming. Most parents just can't hang around while their kid plays an hour or two of soccer every day. Not to mention the driving. Yes at the teen age level sure the parent doesn't have to be there. But by and far, prior to the teen years I mostly see parents there. And that's great, but it puts a cap on exactly how much a kid can play since it depends on the parents (for much of America).
If you're trying to make a point that kids don't play enough then that's weak as other sports can easily pump out talented American athletes. If you're implying the culture isn't strong enough, then yes it's more difficult but not impossible. Just improbable. What you describe is a problem in America that extends beyond just soccer, but that's another discussion.
I don't think it's weak because soccer is different than other sports. They all do not require the same amount of time. Soccer requires more time to develop than football for example. An athletic kid can start playing football at say age 13 and really progress well throughout high school and then play D1. But that just isn't going to happen in soccer.
Well yeah but that's just American football and not every position in that sport is something you can take up and physically command. Tennis, Basketball, and Golf require a certain amount of finesse that you can't just pick up to be superb at it. And yet legends came through from those sports. It's the culture. You want kids to be more immersed, then they have to want to play everyday like the kids in other places.The only issue is that development in America seems to mostly happen through organized scheduling rather than organic and spontaneous. The only exceptions to that are mostly American football and Basketball.
Tennis - yes it requires much practice and those who aspire to go pro pretty much give up everything to train in the sport nonstop. Basketball - yes it requires a lot but plenty of college players did not start still say middle school. Height plays a big role. For example, Dennis Rodman was 5'11" when he graduated high school and did not make it on any college team until he grew a lot after high school, then he was able to play college. Gymnastics also requires a lot of time and sacrifice. And so does soccer if you want to go pro. But that's my point. Most families can't do it. It is more possible if you are wealthy. It's very expensive in the teenage years if you're doing club soccer. Even an MLS Next club (non MLS team), they have to travel a lot. Hotels and flights add up.
If you look at other countries it seems those kids play more unstructured soccer than our kids. Yes it's a culture thing. Look at the ones that do make it. Pulisic - his parents really got behind his soccer development and they both played college soccer. But the "Messi" - which Pulisic is not - is out there and did not get developed in the USA because yes, culture, and also because the cost is too much of a burden. Pay to play.