For Future Yanks Abroad

It was an excellent wide ranging interview with a focus on finding the best fit for a young player. Understandably the interviewee given his background focused mainly on England, rather than other European nations, as a landing pad for US players.

The interviewee was passionate and blunt but not condescending in his assessment of youth development in american soccer. It's worth a listen especially for parents and youth coaches.

Some tidbits:

MLS and the NCAA are the biggest enemies[of needed improvements in player development]

MLS Academy facilities are excellent but the coaching is weak

Amatuers[nor their parents] shouldn't be paying agents to get gigs in Europe.

The best youth coaches in the US typically aren't with the best teams: the younger coaches who grew up with soccer haven't yet collectively worked their way up the totem pole.

An American youth player, due to the greater investment needed, must be better than 90% of his counterparts in a European team in order for that team to sign him.

intesity. mental toughness. intensity. mental toughness. all lacking in American youth dev.

U15 coaching in America is fairly good. Youth coaching above that level is poor.

 

It's a great interview. Direct, honest and and real look into the issues we face which American journalists refuse to confront. I encourage people to at least listen from the 20 min mark on. Only thing I partly disagree on is the ability to retain 18 yr old prospects(the top ones) due to NCAA eligibility being negated with a pro contract. The top youth players aren't thinking about college anyway. Whether guys like Gil or Fagundez or Najar or Agudelo, they were more than willing to sign with MLS before they turned 18 and college was never in their plans, just as a Hyndman or Flores or Perez or Rubin had their minds set on turning pro, just as Haji Wright does, not whether they lose NCAA eligibility. If college is a serious option, you're not a top prospect. The top prospects on our youth NTs have Euro options.

Anyway, I'll just copy and paste my thoughts from the YBTD thread.

I think Jack hit the nail on the head with our biggest problem, that being coaching. Made a great point with our resources and population, the main reason we're so good across other sports is we employ the top coaches. Even in sports like tennis or gymnastics, they constantly search for and hire top foreigners. The problem isn't not enough kids playing soccer, the problem is our coaches doing a terrible job developing them and teaching the finer points of the game. You benefit to a certain extent from just playing but it's clear our guys, even top prospects are not being taught the intricacies of the game. And along with that is the general forgiving environment here and less competition. This environment really is far too coddling and it goes to the top of MLS and across our soccer media. MLS can't point out player short-comings as that would be bad for business and most of our soccer media works for MLS and doesn't want to lose access by being critical.

There's also the gap from about 17-21 which is vitally important and where kids abroad really start taking the next jump. Was a good example about one of our youth teams drawing Argentina years ago and that Argentina team going on to be worth a collective 250M Euros while ours went on to be worth 2M Euros. That's where we fall apart, due both to not having good coaches in that age group(even at the NT/IMG level) and due to a severe lack of playing options. We see it with 99% of our player pool frankly being tactically inept. Even our top prospect in Yedlin just signed by Spurs is quite poor tactically, and he came from one of the better tactical environments in MLS. Jack is also right that USL-Pro is a poor level and it makes little sense to have 23/24 yr olds playing there. If you're in USL Pro at that age you don't have a future in this sport. I'd support the idea of turning USL-Pro into more of an U18 or U21 league. Instead, we're seeing USL-Pro teams signing foreigners, which makes little sense from where I'm sitting. If it's a development tool for MLS and this country, we need as many youngsters playing there as possible.

And the underlying theme to it all is MLS is more concerned with profit and running a business than developing talent. And I can see why, MLS is a business first and foremost but it's also the situation we find ourselves where development isn't important. BTW, MLS spending 30M/Y on development means nothing on its own validity. What's it supposed to even mean? If that 30M/Y isn't spent on hiring top and proven development coaches from outside our bubble, what good is it? What is it spent on if not on good coaches? It's embarrssing to boast about spending 30M/Y on development and not hire better coaches while non-MLS academies many times are still producing as good of, if not better talent than MLS academies which they eventually poach.

And some will argue MLS is young and in its infancy and that's true to a point. But we don't need to turn the whole thing upside down to start improving quicker and pumping hundreds of millions into the system to do so. No, want more bang for your buck, have every team hire two proven development coaches at 150K each. 300K per team, to work with the U15's and U18's. Given how much is invested in MLS it makes little to no sense not to spend a few hundred thousand more on coaching, especially after spending millions on building facilities for that purpose.

But this is where the old guard also gets defensive and we see it here on BS too with those claiming to have worked within various parts of our soccer landscape and they're more concerned with giving a pat on the back than solving problems. They want to protect the old culture, keep the bubble closed, keep hiring from within the same network, and that will completely stall our development. It has stalled it. Just look at the huge gap in development from current 22-30 yr olds after taking out guys like Fabian/AJ/Mix/Brooks/Chandler developed abroad. We have Jozy and Bradley who bolted at 18 to Europe. Roughly half our WC first XI was developed elsewhere. Where's all the good players who've benefited from MLS coaching and all the playing time in the league? It's not there, they're not there. And for how young MLS is, with half the resources over a decade ago we produced better top talent. That's quite a red flag. Many scouts have commented on this but the media at large is silent on it. But when you listen to a guy like Jack or other scouts who've been on the inside, it's pretty damn clear what our issues are and "more time" alone doesn't solve them. It's a change in focus, it's a change in philosophy and less arrogance.