Its a weird argument that some Americans fans make to denigrate our development programs. You don't hear it in Argentina or Uruguay. Nico Paz, the hotshot young attacking midfielder in Serie A, is the son of Pablo Paz. So what? Lautaro Martinez, the best forward in Serie A, is the son of former Argentine professional Mario Martinez. Alexis MacAllister, of course, is the son of former Argentine international Carlos MacAllister. So what? Franco Mastantuono's father is a coach. Of course we can go on and on. Giuliano Simeone, the son of Athletico Madrid coach Diego Simeone, is in the Agentine national team. Argentina fans ould probably run down 20 more. This is just all common sense that 95% of fans understand. i don't understand why there's this subset of American fans on social media who view America as different. Children of soccer professionals have advantages. Do I think that children of professional orchastra members have a leg up on their peers with regards to the music profession? OF COURSE! They grow up around music.
Now do American politicians! There’s a Kennedy running for Nadler’s seat in New York City and Pelosi has endorsed him. Pelosi’s father served in Congress and also as Baltimore’s mayor. Or rich people. Elon Musk is the world’s richest man, and his dad owned a diamond mine. Donald Trump’s father was rich.
Never mind that we can do it in all sports. Baseball is very much like that. Any baseball fan can run down a whole bunch of current players that are the sons of former players. Lots of high profile ones. Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Daulton Varsho were all starters for Toronto last year. Cavan Biggio was there in 2024. Are we so naive as to believe that Ken Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken Jr., Barry Bonds, and countless others didn't have a developmental advantage? of course they did. We're not stupid. It's the same for soccer. There are a bunch of three generation families in baseball of late, and possibilities for four generation guys. The Boones will be four generation if Jack Boone can make the majors. Its such a silly discussion to have that I feel stupid for even having it. As if soccer should be different with guys like Christian Pulisic, Gio Reyna, Sebastian Berhalter, and company. We have the son of a Ballon d'Or winner in the USMNT. I'll stop there.....................
The level you have issues with isn't MLS. You want players with unermarkable backgrounds, you average Joey SixPackOfSunnyDelight, to be equally represented in the "US Professional player pool" or even "USMNT potential player pool". So we're gonna need a lot more knowledgable parent coaches, low level former pros as coaches, working at the grassroots level, like countries with more developed soccer cultures have. So that when an MLS club is looking to do intake at u12 for MLSPreNotQuite, or one of the partner cannon fodder clubs, they aren't falling all over themselves because "this kid spent 2 years in Europe" because our pool has kids that have skills and sense shaped by wanting to develop players instead of winning plastic trophies and racking up mid level hotel club member points and having the olive garden menu memorized. MLS seems to be doing better at converting players that get into their academies to players with "professional interest" from other domesting and foreign clubs. Are they doing better than the NCAA used to do - probably, there's probably someone here who knew all the guys that were going from Middle Jabbib State to IFK Frozenhoofen in the swedish 3rd league in the 00s. And yes, ideally we'd have hundreds of senior adult teams in a 3 or 4 level pyramid for youth to go to and a robust domestic transfer/buy/sell/loan market but, we aren't there yet. But it is better than it was 15 years ago...
Its night and day from where we were 20 years ago. 20 years ago MLS clubs couldn't sign players from their academies directly to their first teams. Academies were more like community outreach programs. Even then, only a few clubs really started in earnest in 2007. Dallas was one when they appointed Oscar Pareja to build theirs. Half of the clubs in MLS are 15 years old. Founded since 2011. They've barely developed first team culture, much less academy/reserve team pathways. Yet for some reason there's a group of fans that expect MLS in 20 years to have built what other leagues have over 100 years. I don't get it. No, we in the US aren't able to develop players in the bulk that France, Spain, Argentina, etc. can. That's not an insult to say. That's just reality. We're still relative newbies at this. But we're investing and working on it. And based on MLS finances compared to the rest of the World, we're catching up........................... MLS clubs have salary caps, etc. on their first teams. There's no cap on what they can spend on their academies.
Sure, which is why we've quickly built up the infrastructure to rival everyone other than the most elite leagues. San Diego is founded, and one year later they're beating Pumas of Liga MX 4-1 in the CONCACAF Champions Cup. US-developed players like Luca Bombino and David Vazquez on the scoresheet. [San Diego acquired Luca from LAFC and David from Philadelphia.] We're doing great. I get the sense that some posters on this board are comparing us to the most elite of elite national teams and domestic leagues, and lamenting the fact that we're falling short. We're not there yet, and that's OK. That's to be expected. If bridging the gap to the elite was easy, other nations would be doing it. Japan invests a lot. Japan has never won a knockout round game at the World Cup. Morocco has been doing great, amazing things. Probably as best as they can possible do. But they're still ranked behind the obvious. Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, blah, bah, blah. Bridging THAT gap is extremely difficult. And folks shouldn't criticize the fact that the US uses dual-nationals. Everyone does. Morocco does. Their best players weren't born in Morocco. Hachimi was born in Spain. El Aynaoui of Roma was born in France. Bilal el Kannouss of Stuttgart was born in Belgium. The list goes on and on. Hell.....................at the recently completed African Cup of Nations, Ghana had only one player born in Ghana.
It may never happen and that's okay too. There is no inevitability of soccer and its domestic leages becoming more and more popular just like there is no guarantee that the bigger richer leagues in the world will become less popular.
Its just weird what was going on at AFCON. More players were born in Paris at AFCON..............than any actual nation playing at AFCON. That's a weird statistic. Only one player on Ghana's team born in Ghana is a helluva thing. I don't think American fans would tolerate that. Here's an interesting list to think about. Players based in the United States currently playing in the CONCACAF U17 Champsionships that AREN'T playing for the US. The majority are dual-nationals. [You wonder what this list is going to look like 30 years from now when our development programs are churning out even more talent.] Barbados: Jacob Gollop (Woodstock Academy) Belize: Lucas Gallego (Hexer Academy), Jordan Glenn (LA Youth) Canada: Lohamba Okoko (D.C. United), Van Parker (Real Salt Lake) Dominica: Jah-Mal Alexis (Sports Paradize), Peyton James (Houston Dynamo) Dominican Republic: Aidan Betances (New York Red Bulls), Gabriel Florentino (Inter Miami), Hugo Gonzalez (PDA), Kamil Castillo (D.C. United) El Salvador: Robert Heredia (Houston Rangers), David D’Angelo Sibrian (Atlanta United FC), Ruben Andrade (HTX Soccer), Enzo Garay (Springfield YC), Andrew Sorto (LAFC), Mayson Barillas (D.C. United), Giovanni Salazar (LA Galaxy), Edwin Ortiz (D.C. United), Aiden Colocho (LA Breakers FC), Xaviair Graham (LA Bulls), Robert Hernandez (LA Galaxy), Sneijder Salamanca (Global Football Innovation Academy) Guatemala: Ethan Ruppert (Orlando City), Leandro Rivas (Charlotte FC), Jeffrey Interiano (New York City FC), Jorge Castellanos (Woodstock Academy), Joshua Perez (FC Cincinnati), Daniel Gonzalez (Charlotte FC), Troi Penniel (New York Red Bulls) Guyana: Tamer Unver (BW Gottschee) Honduras: Leandro Padilla (Inter Miami) Jamaica: Jelani Bradshaw (Atlanta United FC), Jaeden Morgan (Phillips Academy), Jaheem Bennett (New York City FC), Kemal Mattocks (Strikers Miami FC), Lukas Anderson (Bethesda SC), Jude Royes (Orlando City), Kai Williamson (Inter Miami) Mexico: Marcel Avalos (San Jose Earthquakes) Puerto Rico: Daniel Valle (TSF Academy), Lleyton Wadsworth (Tampa Bay United), Caleb Simmons (New York Red Bulls), Denzel Palacios (Chicago Fire), Luis Moringlane (Inter Miami), Keven Medrano (Unattached), Edwin Rios (LA Galaxy), Reign Magsino (Real Salt Lake), Jordan Interiano (Orlando City), Lucas Hernandez (Austin FC), Benjamin Harris (Met Oval), Andre Fernandez (Weston FC), Diego Echevarria (FC Dallas), Dacian Delgado (Columbus Crew), Marcus Nazaire (New York Red Bulls), Nicolas Gonzalez (Cedar Stars Academy), Adrian Soto Saint Kitts & Nevis: Victor Hart (Colorado Rapids) Trinidad & Tobago: Kenai Richardson (World Class FC), Levi Williams (Inter Miami)
The Puerto Rico one is expected…PR is baseball country, so you’d expect their best players to be based in the continental US. that El Sal one, holy smokes.
That comes from the Hugo Perez era. They've built up the scouting network. But I think the point I was making was: There are a lot more American-born players at the CONCACAF U17 Championships playing for other teams than with the US team. But anyway, I like this measure of MLS. We sold Alex Freeman and Obed Vargas from MLS to La Liga in the January window. They've already debuted for Athletico Madrid and Villarreal. They stepped right into the first team. That's a measure of something. A measure of confidence in their ability. A measure of readiness to play at that level.
its not just soccer families its the fact that soccer families + euro dual nats + americans with youth experience in europe COMBINED are FAR OUTPACING the 300 million of americans developed domestically its not about saying anything about soccer families in and of themselves.....but in comparison to what the entire country vis a vis MLS is not even equally them....lets face it, there arent THAT many soccer families in the USA
those players became pros because of their fathers not because of any club the point is talking about what mls is producing and when you take away the "soccer kids" with "soccer dads" and dual nats.....the cupboard is A LOT less full than you might think by simply looking at the usmnt as a whole
Then USMNT is destined to suck. Plain and simple. Not enough ex-pro players have stud kids in the US. And IF we get a stud better start praying it isn't a Mexican, Bosnian, Italian or some other Nationality that their entire family root for, support and wished their son played for.
Why does it matter? No really, why does it matter? Its the same in every sport. Yes, some of the best players in baseball come from baseball families. Bobby Witt Jr. and those guys. Its a complaint about nothing that means nothing. Oh, the US wouldn't be as good without Christian Pulisic and Tim Weah. What remarkable insight. Yeah, and the Golden State Warriors wouldn't have been as good without Steph Curry and Klay Thompson (whose fathers both played in the NBA). And the Lakers wouldn't have been as good without Kobe Bryant (whose father played professionally). Genius level thinking required. The levels to which you go to twist yourself into knots to make meaningless arguments about nothing is truly remarkable.
Chris Richards, Adams, Tessmann, Freeman, Aidan Morris and Scally have families who never had more than high school soccer experience. Pepi was coached by his dad but his dad didn't have any pro experience at all. I'm not sure what percentage you are looking for but it really doesn't matter. Early upbringing matters. Family culture matters. This is why some countries dominate in talent. It's not the development techniques of the top clubs it's the raw materiel provided by the families and community.
it matters when evaluating how good mls academy and player development truly is. try to follow along all this money and all this development etc....and MLS is basically still where it was in domestic player development...havent really made strides there imo even though talent pool is better overall what im saying is not much credit is=n usa having better players should really go to mls
There's a lot of pro players (in MLS and abroad) whose parents were not pros. There are really not that many (in MLS or abroad) whose parents did not play the game at a decent level - let's call it high school/young academy level, where it was essentially their most played sport. That's because a huge amount of this sport is learned before the age of 7 (in fact, probably before the age of 5). I'd say MLS/USSF has done a decent job producing a few kids with basically 0 background in the sport, like DeJuan Jones, Cade Cowell, Alex Freeman, etc. These kids basically don't exist elsewhere.
yeah but my point is just that these guys you listed from USMNT PERSPECTIVE are not top tier. the top tier players are almost all dual nats/developed in europe/sons of coaches or pros of course there are pros ....but im talking usmnt here ive seen some noise lately about mls development system doing well...and i disagree.....from a usmnt perspective, its not. its helping mls a bit. but theres still a clear gap ...the same gap theres always been.