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

I did read something today that the J League physical output numbers are basically the equivalent to the EPL (MLS is slightly behind both). The average Japanese player to my eye seems to have average technical ability which I think translates when you watch them play and compare to the US.

But in terms of results we’re fairly comparable for sure.

 

I think the thing is we’ve come a long way where we’re in the tier just behind the elite countries. From where we were 40 years ago it’s tremendous progress. But the next step is the hardest step.

 

Yep. Part of the reason that I left coaching in youth soccer after 20 years (Note: It was about ten years ago).

I was one of the rare coaches who started in AYSO who had played club soccer growing up and amatuer in the early 90s (played in a couple of US Open Cups). I have four sons and my goal was for them to have fun first and learn soccer second. Three of them moved onto club soccer after 5 to 6 years (where I would be an assistant coach). One son played in the Development Academy Program for about three years. I was also a coach instructor and board member, eventually running a program for five years for special need kids.

During that period, there was a movement of children to club soccer at earlier and earlier ages (most of the time without any knowledge of their physical or mental ability as related to soccer. A lot of young adults who had played overseas would come over and "coach" for the money. Others were ex-college who wanted to make a career of coaching. Some where good, most were not. Why? Often, they didn't have the proper experience of coaching youth. So, yes, training is definitely an area of potential improvement, but the structure needs to take out the "pay" by parents to play. Over the past ten years, it's slowly started to happen, but it's hard. Who is going to pay and who is going to drive the structure of the programs (from identifying to development)?

In the end, the son who went the farthest wasn't in soccer, but football. He was a good goalkeeper, but he was always a head taller than everyone and big. He ended up played college football. He still loves soccer, but ended up not being his path.

 

This is also why at younger ages in particular players born at the beginning of the year dominate.

 

Obviously you need things more than physical ability but one of the biggest shifts in the game over the last couple decades at the highest level is it’s become much more about physical ability than it’s ever been before. And there was a stretch with our youth teams that preceded the lost generation where it feels like we shifted too far in the direction of technical ability at the expense of physicality.

 

This thread and several others makes me wonder why everybody, or at least most bodies, make the "reasons" for our weak play so complex. It is really very simple: We are not at the level of the better teams because we are simply not good enough. There may be complex reasons for us not being good enough and there may be complex reasons for our soccer not improving as rapidly as we might want but it is really simple in that in the USA soccer is a minor sport and the minor sports get, mostly, the minor athletes. Even with our fairly large population and our relative wealth we (soccer) will remain in the second tier of sports in the USA until something MAJOR changes and that will only happen if at least two of the sports above us begins failing for some reason and that looks unlikely in the extreme.
It seems that we should just be satisfied that we have a viable top league and some seemingly viable minor leagues. That means that the sport is healthy and will grow but we are very very unlikely to move our soccer up the pecking ladder.
Personally, as long as we avoid total disaster like another failure to qualify for the World Cup and keep doing moderately well in CONCACAF we are just fine and all of us should just relax and enjoy what we have. I know for the next few weeks I will sit back and enjoy what we have and then, after the WC ends, begin pining for the lack of high level soccer readily available.
Shoot, I might even break down and subscribe to MLS just to keep my soccer desires in check. But I do not think that will be necessary, at least for the rest of this season and the next.
I am actually happy with the state of soccer in the USA. I do wish there was more and better but what we have is just fine and I worry that even little things like MLS changing its season might make things worse instead of better.

 

For NFL on a per capita basis the top 5 states are Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and DC.

NBA is DC, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, and Indiana.

MLB is Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, California, and Arizona.

I didn’t include NHL cause it’s such a regional sport. But basically we need an MLS team in New Orleans.

 

The women are successful because the countries they play don't care as much about women's sports as we do. They're essentially playing amateurs and semi pro teams a lot of the time. I'm sure our national team would look great playing a collection of semi-pro English players.

 

I just don’t buy the athleticism as an area where American’s have an advantage. Lots of countries have highly athletic players who are also incredibly technical soccer players.

 

I’ve been on your side of it before, but I’ve come back around. In my opinion, MVPs are pretty wild statistical outliers.

If you look at recent drafts, the US is churning out top talent. This year’s draft is ridiculous, and last year’s was pretty great, too.

I firmly agree that if the NBA started academies all the way down the age groups like MLS, players would be better off. And even better if we had government funding.

But all in all, the situation is pretty good. The large majority of top 100 players (75ish) in the NBA are American.

 

I wonder if there’s a bias in that 75% estimate. I wonder if the superstars, the elite, in European basketball would be in or very near that top 100 if they’d committed to American professional basketball.

And, we’re not just wanking about basketball. There are serious gaps in the American soccer development system. My belief is that as most have noted, little kids here with dad coaches are being coached worse than kids coached by dads in Spain or Germany, etc. That’s the first gap.

But I think another hits at about age 19, that age when practice time ain’t enough. Players need good games to progress. MLSers aren’t loaned much to clubs in the second tier, your Sacramento Republics or currently comatose NCFC. In nations with several tiers of pros, there is always a place for promising-but-not-quite-there youngsters to PLAY. We also miss out on late bloomers who, in other nations, would be playing as low level pros instead of playing college soccer like they do here.

If I’m right about European basketballers, their gap hits at the same age, when it’s time to become a pro playing other pros.

 

The biggest advantage of hosting the World Cup is the opportunity to disseminate culture.

I'm at my parents' house in another state right now, and their local newspaper today devoted an article in the sports section to explaining "the weird, wonderful lingo of the World Cup." Terms like "parking the bus," and "squeaky bum time," and so forth.

More importantly, kids are going to have heroes and dreams, and it will feel perfectly normal to them to dream about soccer instead of gridiron or basketball.

 

There is no "Broken" system. There also isn't a "problem". Problems can be fixed. Facts are facts and can't be changed. The fact is the US is not a singular sport loving country like almost the rest of the soccer mad world. The NBA finals are going on right now and tons of fans are focused on that and ..... there's nothing wrong with that. We have lots of other distractions and interests here as opposed to almost any other country.
How many other pro sports leagues do other countries have that come anywhere close to equaling their soccer league? We have 4 pro leagues bigger than our soccer league. These are facts that aren't changing. Just because some die-hard soccer fans "think" something is "wrong" or broken doesn't mean that is correct. No matter how big soccer gets here it won't rival what it's like in England, Argentina, or any other big country because we also have the NFL, NBA, NHL, and boring ass MLB that get fan attention.

 

Once upon a time there was a phenomenal athlete from Louisiana who was also very good at soccer. Considered pursuing it, but was told he'd have to move away from his parents to Florida to get decent youth training and then to Europe for any decent level of professionalism. He said no.

A few years later, there was a similar kid from Birmingham who was told he'd have to move away from his parents to Texas for youth training and eventually to Europe to get to the level he really wanted, and he said yes.

Then a few years after that, there was one from south Florida who was told he'd have to go to Orlando and then Europe and said yes to that.

The first grew and became Beckham--Odell Beckham, that is. The second became Chris Richards. The third is becoming Alex Freeman.

It's a tough decision to make, individual decisions will vary. But I bet there's also football culture and infrastructure at play. The latter two guys both went to MLS Academies, because by that time those existed.

And they also new that if they hit a level that was maybe 10% below what they were hoping for, that would probably still result in a good pro career. At one point, 10% underdelivering meant toiling in a hamlet in Eastern Slobovia earning only just enough to feed your family. 10% less than Richards, and you're someone like Miles Robinson or Walker Zimmerman, who still make seven figures playing this game.

 

You can argue other nations' players don't play in college because...... they don't have that option. No other country has anywhere close to the amount of college athletics as we do. If college soccer was dropped to the level of English college soccer, whatever that is, we'd naturally have more kids going pro at lower levels. Kids have way more options here than any other country. That is a fact, not a problem that needs to be "fixed" because it's not a problem. NIL could even make it "worse" because kids could have less incentive to leave school early due to the NIL money they are getting.
All you have to do is look at all the foreign players in college soccer here to see that.

 

Title IX is what led to our women's soccer team dominating.

 

Honest question: if Little League baseball and Pop Warner football and AAU basketball aren't free, why should youth soccer?

 

100%.

.................................and back in the 99 generation our main rivals were China and Scandinavian countries like Norway. To some degree Germany.

What's happened in women's soccer is that Western Europe and the UK decided that they really care about it too.

China and Norway have fallen out of the top 10 of the women's FIFA rankings.

For 25 years people have been predicting the demise of college soccer as it relates to the USMNT. Ever since I've been posting here. It hasn't happened. We have goalkeepers, defenders, and midfielders from the NCAAs on this World Cup roster. And we may have had a forward too if not for the injury to Agyemang. We also capped Brian White in 2025. So not just NCAA players, but 4-year NCAA players.

NCAA soccer really isn't the reason the USMNT isn't a semifinal contender. NCAA soccer is providing a good alternative for the "late bloomer" crowd. Sebastian Berhalter and Cristian Roldan weren't USYNTers.

We have the avenue for the elite youngsters like Cavan Sullivan and Julian Hall and Zavier Gozo. They rise rapidly thru the ranks based on their talent. But there's also the avenue for the kids whose long-term prognosis as professional soccer players isn't as certain when they're 18 year olds. They can be getting an education as Plan B while still getting to play the sport.

IThat's a GOOD thing.

 

When MLS was starting out and their pay was dog crap college soccer was seen by many players, and their parents, as the smartest way to go. Why give up free college to get paid $25,000 as a pro? That made no sense. But now that training academies have sprung up with almost every MLS team and the salaries have greatly increased it makes more and more sense to skip college soccer and turn pro early.

 

FWIW, the USWNT came around in a world landscape where there was virtually zero women's soccer. For example, the German, Brazilian and English FA's banned women until the 1970's. In comparison, men's soccer was the most competitive sport in the world by a large margin.

Comparing USWNT to USMNT is apples and breadfruit.

 

Because soccer wasn’t a very popular sport in this country .

 

I totally agree with you.................but how many youngsters are signing HG contracts out of MLS academies? A couple a year for most MLS teams?

What do the rest do if they want to continue playing the sport?

....................they go to the NCAAs. There's a small portion of them that still develop into MLS-level players, and then a smaller-yet band that still develop into USMNT-level players.

I remember reading an article in 4-4-2 about this huge group of kids that are dumped out of the English academy system in their teens or early 20s. They haven't been prioritizing education. They've never considered anything other than being pro soccer players, and have no Plan B.

In America we have a robust NCAA program for those players to still play the sport. In fact, NCAA teams are looking at those European players too.

Anyway, my assertion is that the NCAAs really aren't the reason we're not a contender to win the World Cup in 2026. When we look at our starting lineup against Germany, there were three NCAA players in the starting XI. Predictably late-blooming positions. Our two CBs an the goalkeeper. And of course, Richards will replace one of those CBs. We do have depth and pool players from the NCAAs.

What the USMNT needs to become a contender to win the World Cup is MORE Pulisics and McKennie level players. More and more depth in the pool pushing forward. And we need one or two of those to develop further into players short-listed for the Ballon d"Or. Even if you're Morocco, you've got a player at that level (Hachimi). Are those players in the NCAAs? No, those aren't the ones going to the NCAAs. Those are the talents we hope Albert and Sullivan and Hall and Gozo and others turn into.

 

Sadly, that's a club that would definitely need to be moved sooner than later. And not for political or financial reasons.

 

Yeah, if this country can't (or refuses to) provide BASIC necessities like healthcare, childcare, and housing, then surely funding for youth sports on the level that people would want is far away. The good news, I suppose, is that our professional soccer clubs and leagues DO have free (or reduced price) academies. That system doesn't exist in any other American sport (as far as I know), and there's room (and possibility) for expansion within the current professional soccer structure here.