It can be hard on the kids, and it's all in how the families handle it, I think. I can't say I was the most dispassionate bystander supportive only mother, but I tried to be fair and helpful. Oh, well, those were the days gone by.
I agree that it shouldn't be called an all star team. All star teams are based upon their performance in the regular season. In my experience a number of regular season legitimate all stars didn't want to play winter/spring soccer because they were committed to other sports (e.g. volleyball, basketball and softball). In fact, soccer was their secondary or lower sport. Others, even at a U12 level hold part time jobs (in my case at her parents dry cleaners). So its a best a team made up of the best of those who want to play and are available. Finally, there are other reasons including a lack of personal discipline by both the player and their parents towards teammates, referees and others that keep players from chosen. "Select" is a better description,
I agree "Select" is the better description and most AYSO teams seem to use that these days. Having been a Select team coach and someone who helped do the selections, the process is hardly an exact science. You do tryouts and some kids hide behind trees or goof off with their friends. You ask for coach recommendations and some don't offer any. You watch the games, but the kids don't have a good day those days, miss those games, or pout when they aren't playing their preferred position because the coach rotates. Some parents check off they can only make some of the games, can't play in the Thanksgiving tournament, or can't make the practices and expect you to make an exception for their little superstar. You also have a limited roster size and you need some versatility. You need a couple of kids willing to play goalkeeper and kids who actually like to play defense. I recall one Dad consoling his kid when he was put in at left back that if he worked hard, then he would be moved up to striker, while I was cringing at the thought that defense was considered the JV position. Do parent volunteers get a boost for their kid? For sure, but it's usually because the team won't happen without it. Typically, the commissioner has to strong-arm someone to coach/organize the team, which means they have done all the applicable coach training before the season and they aren't going to do it if their kid isn't on the team. They also need three referees because the turkey tournament application insists upon it. If your Region doesn't have ref volunteers without kids who like getting yelled at on their days off, then the kids of ref parents are going to have a huge advantage. As a practical matter, much of this is becoming less relevant as kids move from AYSO to club soccer far younger than they did 10-15 years ago. By U8, many top boys have left for club. That pretty much evens out the talent pool in a way that makes the arguments far less persuasive. Kids are not getting selected who are just as good as the ones being selected, but that's because none of them are "all stars," not because one is "deserving" and one is not. It's a little more delayed for girls, but not much because they develop earlier.
This pretty well ties to my experiences. And I was the only ref parent volunteer for all of my eldest daughter's select teams (and the head coach/ref volunteer for my youngest daughters first select team). Fortunately, our region and the area it was part of had a strong referee culture, so it wasn't too hard to get 2 other refs as many needed games to advance up the referee ladder to the area level and beyond. Finally, just a slightly off topic observation more on the player development side. A number of girls from our high school in my eldest daughters grade and the one before it ended up getting college scholarships to play soccer, every single one of them without exception was a star at the u-8 level when i first noticed them. Most but not all, also had older siblings who played soccer so they were playing backyard soccer with older kids from the start.
I realize I may be misunderstanding the scenario. I thought you were talking about All Star games, not teams. The nomenclature is different across states and across time. When I was coaching in the 80’s in NC “select team” was the best players from a particular area. For example the Durham 73 Select team had all the best players in Durham who were born in 1973 (sometimes also a couple 74s). I think our select team was equivalent to a top club team today in the bigger cities. Anyway all my posts above were under the assumption you were picking an All Star team from several teams for an All Star game, like MLS does. IOW nothing to see here, move on!
Dylan Vanney and Ruben Ramos Jr. selected for the USYNT U20 National Team to represent the US at the Concacaf U20 Championships from July 24-Aug 9 in Mexico. #U19MNT head coach Gonzalo Segares selects 21 players who will represent the United States at the 2026 Concacaf U-20 Championship from July 24-August 9 in Mexico 🚨ℹ️ https://t.co/aSyjS0Osd7 pic.twitter.com/5AT84nEODE— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) July 16, 2026
I should add that I suspect this means that we are OK letting Ramos go, but not Harbor Miller, which fits with Cuevas' departure and Miller's increased importance as depth.
I did a where are they now on Wynalda, and I came across this video on his take on how to fix the American system. I'm also interested in seeing how the ambitious USL Premier project will turn out.
US U20 team beat Cuba 5-0 Ramos Jr. scored the first goal in the 2nd minute on this header. A fast start for our #U19MNT! pic.twitter.com/8j71jGSmms— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) August 1, 2026 Dylan Vanney (who is still technically ours because he is on loan) scored the 5th goal
Not really a fan of bringing Pochettino back. Don't think he did a poor job, per se, but I'm generally not a fan of going hat-in-hand to a coach for NT job and overpaying him. Was a disaster last time (Klinsmann)
I like Poch. We won our WC group and in 3 of the 4 WC games that mattered we looked the best the USMNT has ever looked. We were a scoring machine. Klinsmann was an idiot. He destroyed our team chemistry, he did Donovan and the team dirty. we scraped by in the WC group stage and unlike Poch he didn’t win a WC knockout game. Also Poch has a long history of success, Klinsmann not so much. He failed at Bayern, at Toronto (as team advisor who selected their new HC and technical director who were both fired after the club finished in last place), at Hertha BSC where his behavior was so bad he ended up being banned from entering club grounds and finally as South Korea HC where he failed spectacularly and ended up being hated.
I generally agree with your assessment, but Pochettino DOES NOT, in fact, have a long history of success. He has one Ligue 1 title with PSG and most of the posters here could coach PSG to a Ligue 1 title. He has notably failed to win anything else, despite getting close; I say notably because he has a reputation of getting to finals and choking. For example, arguably, he deserves credit for taking Tottenham to some of their best results ever, but that was also one of the strongest Tottenham squads I've seen with Son and Harry Kane and ultimately he won nothing with them. Similarly, he has the strongest US squad ever at his disposal: what has he done? With the USMNT, he lost both Nations League and Gold Cup Finals. While I generally agree about the World Cup performances, you could also look at it this way: we defeated teams that were poorer than us that I'd expect to defeat and lost to the only credible teams we played against, conceding 7(!) goals between the two matches. This didn't start in the World Cup, either: Pochettino can't beat Mexico in two attempts, whereas Berhalter beat Mexico 4 times in competitive matches, including winning 3 finals against them. And we will make him one of the best paid NT managers in the world -- like top 2 or 3. In the World Cup, Pochettino made more than Thomas Tuchel, who is a more decorated club manager, coaching one of the top-ranked NTs with aspirations to win the whole tournament. Why are we paying Poch so much? To win the Gold Cup? To make the semis of the Copa? No, we are overpaying him to accept a job he wouldn't normally take, which is also a bad starting place for building a relationship with NT manager, IMO.
Yeah, I know nothing about what we are paying him, nor how it compares to other NT managers. So you are probably right we are overpaying to keep him. But the other argument against Poch - not winning the big one - is something I don’t necessarily agree with. For decades I’ve argued that judging soccer managers based on how they do in the occasional tourney - no matter how big - is a fools errand. And research backs me up - read Soccernomics where they looked into the whole issue of evaluating both players and managers on competitions the outcome of which often hinges on a couple shots going 2” too high or to the left. The data clearly shows that clubs overpay players and managers who have good WCs for example. At some point every soccer tournament is decided by at least one, usually more, single elimination games. This games in turn are often decided by 1 goal or the result of a pot-luck pk shootout. If you want to evaluate a player or manager accurately you need a decent sample size of games, like 30 or so. That is why regular season accomplishments have been found to bevmuch better predictors of future success that tourneys are. We see this with the Galaxy. Vanney’s good outcomes in 2 post season tournaments has led him to be considered a top coach, and paid accordingly. But in both those tourneys a couple of tiny changes in shot direction would have led to elimination. Plus of course in the last tournament there was the good fortune of not having to face a single top 5 team. This is not a criticism of Vanney - he did nothing wrong. It’s a criticism of evaluators who don’t realize that winning a tourney is a combination of playing well AND getting fortunate. So the fact that Poch did well in regular season but doesn’t have the trophies means less to me than to most. For fans, winning trophies is everything (and it should be, since it is the goal), but for personnel evaluation is is grossly overweighted.
someone has to break the cycle ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ my question is, has the expectations been laid out for him, I'm assuming its win Gold Cup, Qualify for the WC and get to the second round, any others maybe identifying new prospects to grow the talent pool, not sure what else he will be judged on
Tiny sample and different quality of coaches. Would be interesting to see how repeat regimes do across all countries. It can be a challenge for a coach to keep motivating the same players for years on end, especially for club teams where they see each other almost every day for months on end. Some can do it, like Pep. Most struggle. But there is a countervailing advantage starting the cycle knowing the player pool and the whole US soccer system. tl;dr - While repeating is a risk I think Poch is a good coach with success at the highest levels. The US is unlikely to do better. But that’s like just my opinion, man.
Not to change the subject, but we have an actual Galaxy player, Ruben Ramos, Jr., starting for the USYNT U20 team in the Concacaf U20 Championships Quarterfinal match against Guatemala if you want to watch on FS2 Starting XI taking on Guatemala in the quarterfinals tonight 🔥⚽️ @Concacaf U-20 Championship pic.twitter.com/BVXlPGFp3N— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) August 5, 2026
So who would you have liked to see them bring in to replace Poch? Since he was willing to stay I’d argue why replace him if you’ve got no one better lined up. Plus you need to figure in the new salary regulations that prompted the USSF to utilize outside fund raising to pay him in the first place. We’ll likely see if that had to continue for this new contract in the coming weeks. How likely are we to be able to replicate that for someone else? Which would relegate our options to a pool of MLS based coaches or former USMNT players ala Cherundolo? Poch never really got a cycle. He came in on the back 2 years of a cycle where we auto qualified as hosts and has what, like 20-25 games under his belt with us? Im ok with his rehire, at least for now. I think he did a good job with what he had at the World Cup.