Philly didn't even have the academy up and running for the first few years as the team started from scratch. In reality it's just a little over a decade since it became the main focus for the Union way.
Before MLS NP New York City were either releasing academy players or loaning them to USL. Now they can keep them and have them play alongside draftees and marginal first teamers. In 2040 (those of us that are still alive and not controlled by our AI masters) might look back and say that MLS really became a development league in 2022.
I was a fan of soccer in this country before MLS existed. Those were some dark days. We are literally night and day from where we were 30 years ago. You can't even begin to make a comparison. And 25 years from now, we hope to be in an even better place. MLS is responsible for that. MLS is. There is no money for player development in 98% of the rest of the soccer structure. There are a couple of USL Championship clubs that have any kind of resources to spend on academies at a good level. Louisville, etc. Yes, there are USL Championship first teams that are known for providing game time to young players. But players like Diego Luna, Brooklyn Raines, Jonathan Gomez, Fidel Barajas, etc. came from MLS academies.
Luna left the Earthquakes to join Barca academy where he spent 4 years. Not sure what the story was there. Maybe they have a tattoo salon.
Club soccer is too expensive. And also, there's no pickup soccer for kids. That's essentially the problem. A lot of parents also just don't understand or care about soccer. I live in a neighborhood where the adults don't know anything about soccer.
San Jose has had some really strong youth crops and perhaps made some wrong evaluations and decisions. Talent evaluation is a tricky business. You gotta know what you got and make good decisions with regards to who you give homegrown contracts to............................. People act like European and South American academies get these decisions right all the time. They don't. Thiago Silva was rejected by Fluminense, Flamengo, and Botafogo. We can all think of countless examples of this. Its not just American kids.
For example, there are large public subsidies in Scotland for their FA and a significant portion goes to funding youth development. Iceland also essentially made soccer their country's PE requirement, hiring coaches. The Netherlands isn't the only country in the world.
All US Soccer has to do is setup some puggs in a park and say hey kids come play at this time and the kids will come and play and get a lot of touches. At a very low cost. You don't need refs or coaches. Just adding pickup soccer to curriculum will instantly make soccer better in USA. This would not replace club soccer, it would supplement it. I guess Americans don't like cheap and easy solutions. We need to overstrategize and overcoach and overspend to make it seem like we're doing something important.
it is definitely changing but you will still not get an argument from me that we often(usually?) are out numbered at home. That being said, you are very wrong when you say it would be a similar split. It is difficult…if not impossible to relate it to current (or recent) events in US soccer history. It is not like the Americans were outnumbered. It is like the Americans were not there. At all. Zero. There weren’t enough American fans to be drowned out.
true i guess. its just that there are a lot of parks around. we're pretty good at building parks. so that would not be an additional cost. big parks. little parks. parks parks everywhere.
US soccer is based in Chicago and has 450 employees. How are they expected to organize pickup soccer in Pensacola?
Apparently kids need US Soccer to tell them to play pickup soccer. They can't just go to the park and do it. Nothing kids like more than sports bureaucrats telling them how to have fun.
"But it's their fault. Them, over there! They're supposed to be in charge. Me? Why should I take responsibility? I'm too busy complaining about them on the Internet!" Can you imagine the liability if USSF organised a pickup game in a random park in Anytown, USA and some kid died of heatstroke, or got diddled by an organizer who hadn't been background checked? These things take logistics, coordination with local authorities, compliance with local and state laws, medical support, in some cases security and background checks, insurance etc. You may even have to play the local parks authority to rent the space. Anyone who's ever organised a local 5k, or any community event would understand the moving parts (and there are 89,004 local governments in the USA). On the other hand, a local mom or dad could probably invite a couple of dozen parents to have their kids meet at a park and kick a ball around without all that complexity. Even better, the kids do it themselves, which is what happens in most countries.
yes apparently they do because they aren't doing it. parents usually need to drive them to the park and the parents don't do that. so its not as easy as you say. anyways the point is that its what is missing. it is necessary in order to create creative players. this is why the US players are robotic. you don't get creative playing club soccer. you just become a robot. you need unmanaged play and a lot of it. this way you can experiment a lot. and you get a lot of touches at a low cost. talent is not fully nurtured under status quo due to high cost of running club soccer. which creates a big limitation of minutes.