[Bushnell] A ‘broken’ system, nascent culture: Why the U.S. has never had a world-class men’s soccer

Exactly, and I think we can extend that to all players. They are not necessarily a product of development or a system or anything like that. At the end of the day a player comes from the result of their own personality and ability.

However, this is where culture comes in because the greater the culture, the more likely it is that people play the sport (providing quantity) and that they are given opportunities to reach high levels of the game (providing quality).

 

If you want an optimistic take.

Pay-to-play, @MLS academies and the growth of the US player pipeline: Have we reached a tipping point?

a guest post from @Pragidealist, who you should give a follow.https://t.co/VieJK7PiHX pic.twitter.com/q6XsvgnZJG

— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) July 16, 2026

My general view is we have three real issues 1) not taking full advantage of our population because of barriers to access because of pay to play and broader lack of grassroots interest in the game, 2) coaching and development not good enough for those who are getting opportunities, and 3) not enough MLS academies generally and not enough MLS teams investing in youth and giving young players opportunities.

The volume point is the real key. Because while our scouting system misses players all the time so does everyone else. No one is very good at knowing at a young age who is going to turn into a good player and who isn’t. And this is true across the world and at the best clubs. Harry Kane for example was cut from the Arsenal academy. And there are countless such examples. The difference of course is after he was cut from Arsenal he still had other places he could go. And I think that’s the difference in they other countries there’s such saturation that no one slips through the cracks even when they’ve been misevaluated.

 

I think if USL teams could all get decent academies going that would be a huge deal. Because it gives us so much more coverage and in places where there’s no MLS team. More than anything you’re going to need people buying players from USL for that to work and primarily it’s going to have to be MLS helping in that regard.

 

What are these 2,224 and 63 numbers he’s quoting?

 

He brings up points that many here have also highlighted regarding that topic so it makes sense.

 

Yeah, US parents tend to have the idea that kids need to be taught to love winning, which is a wacky idea to me.

There's just huge barriers to knowledge here. One of them is that WC matches are a tiny sample size that tend to get overanalyzed. Another is that there's a huge amount of randomness to the top-end outlier talent, which is why it's better to concentrate on the floor.

I believe the crop of guys we cut this year are some of the best players we've ever cut, which says more about the program than whether or not Pulisic was up for it.

True and, at the same time, this was a bit of a turning point. 50 million Americans just watched the team play, and it really wasn't long ago that 20 million was a jump-for-joy number.

But maybe. . .?

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/16/arsene-wenger-us-soccer-development

“It’s not a coincidence that the teams that have gone the furthest in this tournament are some of the best-resourced federations in the world. They are able to ensure that there’s access. They’re able to ensure there’s great opportunity. They’re able to ensure there’s great coaching. And they have great government support. They have great community support. They have great professional club support. And so everyone’s working together with a shared mission to bring this to life. And I think that’s the opportunity we have coming out of the summer.”

Helfrich said that the efforts to make youth programs more accessible will require opening a new “system” rather than making the current operation more affordable.

“We are not seeking to make the current system more affordable; we’re trying to create a new system that then we make highly affordable,” Helfrich said. “It’s a really important distinction … We need a different system. We need a system that has the pathway open to more players.”​

 

At the risk of cherry picking, here are the recent players I think have shown real quality (not just having a good or bad world cup)


Reyna – Father was professional soccer player, NYCFC Academy to Dortmund at 16.

Pulisic – Father was professional soccer player, Dortmund Academy

Tillman – Raised in Germany, Bayern Munich Academy

Balogon – Raised in England, Arsenal Academy

McKinnie – Partially raised in Germany, FC Dallas Academy

Richards – Father was professional basketball player, FC Dallas Academy

Freeman – Father was professional football player, Orlando City Academy

But maybe we should be mining these veins harder. I assume the USSF is already scouring youth in Europe. I’m being a little facetious, but we should have a U-12 camp just for kids whose parents were professional athletes? It seems like we should be giving some weight to this.


I haven't done it yet, but if we go over to the 2030 thread and look at the prospects people are talking about over there, what kind of backgrounds do they have? Similar?

 

It's funny seeing people dunk on pay-for-play after the WC exit.

As if that hasn't been an issue brought up for years and years.

Lots of countries don't have pay-for-play youth soccer and they also don't compete for WC's. People realize that right?

Mexico doesn't have pay-for-play and that is a country where soccer is the primary sport yet they are worse than us or at best at a similar level.

Anyway, we shouldn't ignorantly idolize youth systems from other countries. They have their own well established problems if you actually look into them.

Those systems churn up and spit out a lot of young men and for those who don't make it things can be quite bleak.

Also, we currently have a more talented pool of players than we have ever had before with more players playing in the top 5 leagues of Europe and most of them are a product of this allegedly super flawed US youth soccer system.

It's such a red herring but it's simplistic narrative that is easy for people to buy into.

The U.S. problem is it doesn't have any superstars (most countries don't) and has 20ish players playing regularly in top 5 leagues.

To compete for a WC you need 1-3 superstars/stars and 50+ players playing in top 5 leagues.

30 years ago we had no superstars and 1-5 players playing in top 5 leagues.

There is plenty of progress and nobody can account for superstars showing up.

 

Pretending that one simple trick will fix everything is misleading. Same thing with saying that fixing one specific thing won’t solve everything so it doesn’t matter.

Our overall problem is that soccer is not deeply entrenched in our culture. That means that we have a much lower % of people with deep knowledge and commitment to the game. That means that we have a much lower % of children raised in households where they get deep exposure to the game. That means that the average early age youth team has a lower % of those kids. It also means we have fewer of those teams per capita. That means that it’s harder for kids to learn from their peers because the average peer is less competent. There are also a myriad of factors that also increase the transaction costs associated with those interactions.

Then pay-to-play gets layered on top of that. It cuts off middle class and lower kids from access to the most scouted environments, and increasingly the paths that feed into it. That’s probably more true the further you get from an MLS academy. The other problem with pay-to-play are the incentives. The organizational incentive for one of these youth clubs is to make as much money selling the service of youth soccer to parents of players. Academies are built to add the most longterm value to the youth players they train. So a big part of our systems cuts out a large % of our smaller % of the population starting point and it does a worse job training players.

 

With respect to soccer and culture, I think there is one piece of hard data worth pondering. The immigrant population of the United States:

Now about 50 million

2000 31 million

1980 14 million

Even if nothing else changes (and many things ARE changing) that alone will move the quality of the player pool.

 

Much of the French talent is driven by their immigrant communities. And a lot of discussion as to Italy have issues in that front because it’s much harder to get Italian citizenship.

 

It certainly is. The African influence is real and important.

There's also the fact that some of the other places are full states of France. We know that CONCACAF nations French Guiana, Guadeloupe and Martinique have representation in the French parliament. [Hence why they can play in CONCACAF events but can't qualify for the World Cup.] And quite a number of French players have parents from places like that. The most obvious being Thierry Henry. His father is from Guadeloupe and his mother is from Martinique.

Current France has multiple players from these states. Zaire Emery's mother is from Martinique. Their goalkeeper Maignan was born in French Guiana (his father is from Guadeloupe). There's that whole CONCACAF region influence with others.

In theory there were only three players born abroad on this France World Cup team. One of them is Thuram, who was born in Italy while his father was playing there (like Reyna and Berhalter being born in England). Olise is complicated. A truly multinational person who characterizes himself as coming from four countries: France, Algeria, Nigeria, and England. He talks about that.

We don't need to go down the rabbit hole, but the whole "this France team isn't French" trope is loathsome. Truly vile.

 

As far as the endless navel gazing about "what's wrong with American soccer" that goes around in cricles after we exit a World Cup event............................the answer is we're on track and working on it.

We made the round of 16. Same as Germany and the Netherlands and Brazil and Japan and Mexico and Croatia...and on and on. I just feel like shaking people. WE DON'T SUCK AT SOCCER. WAKE UP. Only 8 teams can make it to the quarterfinal. Only 4 of the 8 teams that have WON THE WORLD CUP, made it that further than we did. Brazil, Germany, Uruguay, and Italy didn't make it further than we did. This is highly, highly, highly competitive.

Is pay for play a problem? Sure, but in Europe SOMEBODY is paying. Its the clubs that are paying for kids to train at Barcelona and Dortmund and Arsenal. Its not some moneyless utopia. The more that MLS can be profitable, the more the programs can be paid for. The more we can build residential academies, which take a lot of money to operate. The more we can pay for coaching development and training. Then more and more and more kids can be taken under the umbrella.

We just built a USSF training complex in Atlanta.

We continue to build and build and build. The building that has to yet come for us to reach what they're doing in Spain, France, etc. is significant. All we can do is keep working.

For those that don't think we're continuing to build......................here's the stadium that Dallas just built for their reserve team. This is their RESERVE TEAM stadium.

 

It's not helpful to say other countries do not have "pay to play" systems. They absolutely do, just other entities, not the players, pay the costs. Unless their fields, equipment, travel, gear, and staff do not cost anything and everyone is a volunteer.
It's like saying roads, schools, and the police are "free" when they are taxpayer funded. Someone is paying the costs of these services and staff.
If you don't have a new source to pay the costs, then a "solution" is not a solution and just wishful thinking which doesn't help the situation at all.

 

Is it hard to gain Italian citizenship by birth?

 

I don’t know the specifics of French versus Italian immigration law but I’ve seen lots of articles like this

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/t...re-the-countrys-immigration-policies-to-blame

Which like it’s arguable if that’s the reason or not but food for thought.

 

What you don't hear from the whiners about "pay for play" is solutions.

Even somebody like Landon Donovan will say "I don't know how to fix the problem, but..........................."

Meanwhile the solution to problem is simple. Soccer needs to be as much of a money-making and profitable enterprise as it is in Western Europe.

The four semifinalists for WC26 have all won the event before. The powers are the powers, and they're the powers for a reason. The three European finalists at WC26 also have 3 of the top 4 domestic leagues. Is this a coincidence? The Premier League brings in an estimated 3 billion a year in worldwide broadcasting rights. 3 billion just in broadcasting rights. Where does the money go? To a great degree distributed to the clubs, who can then invest that in whatever they want.

 

I don't know how the Italian works exactly. Anyway, I made that statement because systematically linking the French NT with immigration issues is dumb - basically none of the French players (except one or two) are immigrants.

 

How ?

 

Just the backgrounds of the players.

One can't put their head in the sand and say the French national team isn't heavily influenced by players from immigrant backgrounds. Are we going to pretend that Mbappe's father isn't from Cameroon?

.........................and by the way, it's irrelevant. French citizens are French citizens regardless of skin color. ethnicity or national origin of their parents/grandparents.

Just like the same is true for United States. Its irrelevant. US citizens are US citizens.

 

it's relevant to the extent immigrants have soccer-related cultural capital that is absent from the old-stock population...for the USMNT I think we are seeing some significant movement at the youth level...players like Pierre and Albert have immigrant parents...Sullivan has immigrant grandparents and has old-stock family with unusual soccer backgrounds

 

Again, you will find very few immigrants in the French NT...
Their 'soccer related cultural capital' comes from their social background, rather than their origins.