The current state of our youth national teams (2026 cycle)

Yet again, Florida soccer. We have issues at the youth club level.

 

Really a great article.

Operationalizing anything like this across this many people is an incredible task, not least because you have no real power. Any significant progress will be hard earned.

 

Paywall. Can you summarize?

 

It primarily talks about the challenges that Crocker and Co. are facing in trying to change the development atmosphere in the US. He was one of the primary architects of the English Way that helped revitalize development in the UK but designing a US Way and implementing one are completely different.

The US has had development models before. There's the much cited on here Claudio Reyna model -- but there's a quote from a USSF Board member about it:

It also talks about the implementation of the DA as one sided -- pushy, abrupt, dictatorial, which rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

Crocker's focus has been on being much more collaborative and carrot instead of stick. And the focus has been:

But he has to get all these disparate people to buy in, and he doesn't really have an effective whip. So he's been roadshowing and trying to convince them.

But it's hard. The UK FA has double the budget of USSF and 1/4 of the population and a tiny bit of surface area. Every team in the UK, it's noted, is within a 3 hour drive of the England FA headquarters. Doing a road show and working with youth teams was much easier there than here.

Also, there's the egos.

You can see the tension here:

Other people seem more positive:

Some of the things they are trying to implement:

• Broader training for youth coaches - the badging has been so limited in terms of numbers.

• Digital Platform useful for both elite prospects and the average player

Other things mentioned:

• Unified Youth Calendar
• Scaled Talent ID -- he talks about having state level youth teams, for example
• More course, use of the National Training Center, etc.

Overall, though, you get the sense that it is a huge task even if you've never tried large scale change management.

There's just so many egos, so much money on the line. There are 54 "state" federations (4 states have 2), there's several nation wide youth leagues, etc.

The biggest group I would be trying to influence personally is making the parents ask about individual development plans if they want their kid to develop. That's one of the biggest things he highlights -- every kid in England in a more competitive environment has a development plan to work on. Whereas here we don't focus on that -- just winning.

But if you want your kid to get a scholarship ... having that development plan is more relevant than the winning.

 

Was wondering if this had been posted yet....

 

Thank you! I clearly need to subscribe to the Athletic if they are covered this type of stuff.

It would be an understatement to say that the "development atmosphere" in the US is a beast. I'm not sure one central organization can actually tackle this.

I said it at the time, Reyna's curriculum (even if well-intentioned) was a joke. Good thing Cullina is on to that almost 15 years later...

The DA was definitely rigid and heavy handed, but I would argue that is what was needed at the time. The lack of adequate standards across the landscape at that time was glaring. With much more professionalism, and generally much higher standards across the board, this does seem like a good time to relax the restrictions and allow for more differentiation and trust for the clubs.

As far as the solutions presented, I range from skeptical to enthusiastic:

• Broader education for youth coaches - I am skeptical that they can actually pull this off in a meaningful way. US Soccer's education pathway is stupid expensive, and it's not that good. There is such an arrogance about their approach and a complete lack of respect for other resources and education platforms. If they think that the number of licensed coaches is an issue, they have nobody to blame but themselves. They should also be much more open minded to the idea that their coaching pathway is not the only path for coaches to become develop. I would argue that their pathway is poor at the lower levels and prohibitively expensive at the higher levels. It is also extremely rigid in the methodology that they expect, and they change their philosophy about which methodology is en vogue every few years. I think more leeway for the coaches while evaluating and guiding them within an approach that gives the coach more freedom would lead to a much better outcome.
• Digital Platform - This sounds really cool. It could be an amazing resource if they do it right. Based on the Reyna curriculum and their approach coaching education, I have doubts about how good it will be, but Crocker's experience has me hopeful that he can pull something together that can be really good and impactful.
• Unified Youth Calendar - good luck
• Scaled Talent ID - this is hilarious as it's basically the ODP model. I don't hate it, but there are huge flaws with that model (cost and the fact that the big clubs are not involved any more being the two biggest issues).
• More Courses - could be good if they are better and more affordable than the current offering.

Maybe it's solely due to Crocker's hire and vision, but this new direction looks like it could be a response to the French FA's audit of the DA and US Soccer that happened a few years ago. There never was much that seemed to come from what was billed as a serious and thorough assessment. That US Way Digital Platform looks like it addresses much of what the French evaluators were critical of.

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that IDPs are the answer mainly because I'm skeptical that they would be followed through on. I still think that our issue is simply cultural. That is extremely vague, but that ambiguity underscores the challenge of implementing something like this on such a big scale.

For me, the biggest impact to the "landscape" would come from our men's senior team being successful. That would excite people and give them confidence that we can compete with the traditional powers, and I think that is where the cultural shift comes. That sparks a level of passion, belief, and enthusiasm that these USSF initiatives can't really touch.

In short, the biggest issues facing US Soccer are not technical issues that have clear and implementable solutions. The issues are deeper and more abstract than that. USSF can and should help create the best environment/landscape possible, but it would be extremely arrogant of them to believe that they alone have the answers to the "problems" that are holding us back.

 

It's definitely worth it. You can usually find a deal out there to make it very affordable, at least for a year, but they have a TON of USMNT stuff and very strong EPL coverage as well. They are okay on MLS.

But overall, probably the best soccer coverage out there.

I have done a number of change management projects in a Fortune 500 company where my overall group of people to influence ranged from 300 to 1,000 (it was about 10k people overall) and I had the advantage that everyone worked in the company and thus this could have some influence on their pay, etc.

And that was freaking hard and I had my share of failure.

USSF has remarkably little power and massively large scale to influence. ANY movement would be an accomplishment in my opinion. You are fighting so many forces, here.

And at the youth level, the amount of ego and infighting is absurd. It's why I laugh when people blame MLS -- they are the one org there whose self-serving motivations actually lean TO development. At least you've got that. Everywhere else, you've got a lot of issues.

I'm sure this played a role but I think the reality is that Crocker knows how a good development system works, and I'd bet he's not the only one at USSF. The issue is the implementation.

The US has a number of key gaps that are incredibly hard to fill:

• There's a cultural issue surrounding free play, competition, winning and development. The bizarre thing to me is how soccer parents seem to value winning over development, but they conflate the two for reasons I don't really get -- maybe it's simply not knowing the sport?
• There's a huge lack of free soccer coaching and knowledge because the sport simply doesn't have the cultural relevancy. My dad taught most of my youth teams but he knows a lot about baseball and football ... not so much soccer. There's really a gap at home and on those early teams. Coaching education can help but nothing is that same as the long slow march of generations of people playing and being coached themselves the right way
• There's a massive funding gap. If we want youth coaches to do things like really work at developing players, we can't have it be something someone is racing from their 50 hour a week job to do. But we don't have the pro system developed enough yet to fund more than we've got and we likely never will have the pro team to citizen ratio of top nations.

None of these are really within US Soccer's ability to solve. You need to influence and work around them. But asking them to change the culture, find hundreds of millions of dollars or educate joe scmho into being a great coach for 6 year olds ... yeah, that's too much to ask.

Our issue is culture, for sure. But what I'm saying is that I think trying to convince youth teams to focus on development when their paying customers are focusing on winning fails before you start.

However, what is weird to me is that those paying customers should want development. Right? So how can you actually use parents' obsessing with scholarships or youth national teams and achievement TO influence coaching as opposed to fight it.

One of the things I'd do is go to every D1 program and tell them that when they are recruiting, they should ask to see the players IDP from their youth team. What they need to work on, what they've improved.

Right quick, a lot of parents would be asking where their IDP is, dammit.

And no, it won't solve it, and no it's not easy, but the idea is how can USSF operate on a scale of influencing hundreds of people to cascade to thousands.

And one way to influence culture is to change the metrics of how people are rewarded. Yes, reward winning ... but man, coming up with a way that personal skills and development translate to scholarships or pro academy slots very clearly ... well, that's something parents can grab onto.

And parents drive the culture because they pay the bills.

I don't really agree with this, but I'm not going to argue because it's not an either/or. There's nothing occurring here that's stealing resources from the senior team or inhibiting it.

I don't think that they alone have the answers to the problems, and I think the article definitely highlighted that they do understand much of this is cultural.

If anything the article was one long attempt by Crocker to say "we aren't capable of easily solving this."

But they are tasked with improving it. And so within their limited budget and manpower, they are going to try to do it. They have very little hard power here, so they are going to with trying to convince people, building scalable tools, etc.

I think their ideas are generally good. I think they know they are insufficient but the point is not solving but moving the needle.

There's no quick fix.

 

I read that and had an appreciation for Crocker’s interest in finding solutions in the youth game.

Not sure his overall tenure in his role as technical director for the whole federation has went that well, but if he wants to have that role just for the youth programs I’d be okay with it.

Also still to be determined if he’s going to have success in molding things in a positive way.

 

Not great

🇺🇸 Tough few weeks for USYNT and USMNT:

U15 boys: 0-5 loss to Mexico (last month)
U17 boys: 2-8 loss to Netherlands (today)
USMNT: 0-2 loss to South Korea amid poor run of form

At least the U20 team beat Morocco 4-1 this window (and then played again to a 0-0 draw)

— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) September 8, 2025

What is even happening

Yes, there’s a story out there. I deleted what I put out initially.

Didn’t name names and not going to make it easier for you to find, but something happened within our U-17 team (what exactly is he said/he said).

What I didn’t realize initially and now feel stupid for even… https://t.co/ET7fEsvjw9

— USMNTProspects (@ProspectsUsmnt) September 9, 2025

Final thing I’m going to say about the USA U17 situation, at least for the time being.

It helps NOBODY to leak stuff like this. People hear a story and run with it, then it becomes a huge drama in the media. None of this is helpful to the players or the team. Keep it private.

— American Ultras Talk (@usmntaut) September 9, 2025

 

Two developments... latest Guardian 60 best young talents list has two Americans, Julian Hall and Jude Terry

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...0-of-the-best-young-talents-in-world-football

And

USSF's recommendations for the future of College Soccer

The Athletic:
With college soccer ‘at risk,’ U.S. Soccer pushes for overhaul – but not without resistance

 

All of the sports other than football need to have conferences that have nothing to do with football. Maybe travel makes sense for the top football teams because of money but is idiotic for smaller sports that don't generate revenue. Maybe even for basketball which does generate revenue but not so much that extreme travel doesn't cut into it. Add in that the kids are actually, supposedly, there to learn and travel hurts that a lot and it would be interesting to go back to conferences more similar to the 70's when every team was somewhat close by. Football will take care of itself and maybe basketball wants to stay with them maybe not but the rest should split.

 

Whatever changes are made to the American soccer development system let's hope they don't do whatever American basketball has done... the five best NBA players aren't American (plus the five Americans making up the tail end of the top 10 probably have an average age close to 35) and there hasn't been a US-born MVP since James Harden eight years ago in 2017-18.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NBATalk/comments/1ofj9fd/is_this_the_actual_1_tier_of_the_nba/

1982549838337114139 is not a valid tweet id

 

Current state vs 2027 and 2028, apparently...

Tannenwald: The present spread of talent scouts (hired by U.S. Soccer part-time) and talent reporters (volunteers), and the planned totals and geography for 2027 and 2028. A pretty clear way to show the scale of the challenge:

https://bsky.app/profile/jtannenwald.bsky.social/post/3mcmzyl25ac2v







Why wouldn't they give the numbers for "current" smh someone count the dots

 

Never mind, I scrolled up

https://bsky.app/profile/jtannenwald.bsky.social/post/3mcmzooflzk26

U.S. Soccer head of talent identification Tony Lepore says a total of 1,706 players were called into youth national team camps across all levels (U-14 to U-23, boys/men and girls/women) in 2025.



There are currently 176 YNT talent scouts across the country: 93 on the women's/girls' side and 83 on the men's/boys' side. There are also 135 "talent reporters" across 48 states. (Delaware and New Hampshire are the odd ones out.)

 

2022460645913047396 is not a valid tweet id

 

We still don't know what happened with Olympics. Was he called and refused to go or never been called?

 

The Athletic: The U.S. boys’ Under-15 soccer team is proof that the youth pathway being built is working

 

Interesting take from Mexico:

🇲🇽🔥🇺🇲“Mexico is way ahead in youth development compared to MLS: structure, methodology, and coach training. 80% of the youth national teams are still made up of Liga MX players. The one player we bring from abroad is very specific.”

- Andres Lillini the Director of Youth… pic.twitter.com/Ps44fv9Np3

— NextMex (@NextMexOficial) February 25, 2026

 

I checked the original article and it was an accurate translation except that MLS was not mentioned specifically. However, it is likely implicit since they were talking about YNTs from abroad.

 

LOL.

Meanwhile, on r/LigaMX, it's "The Pocho Era has Begun."

https://www.reddit.com/r/LigaMX/comments/1rf0kac/the_pocho_era_has_begun/

"Saw this coming years ago, the pochos are better developed than the mexicans. The NT is going to be mostly pocho eventually, Liga MX isn’t developing their talent and it looks like they’re not changing anytime soon.

Another thing I see happening is mexican teams fighting for pocho talent from the MLS since they refuse to develop their own players. So they can keep up with the extranjero rule, it’s kind of already happening. Chivas are ahead of it rn since all the talented homegrown mexicans are so expensive right now."

 

For those who didn't click through to read the full tweet:

A few months ago in the concacaf u15, more than half the team was develop in the USA

 

CONCACAF is getting rid of U15 competition though there is something called a FIFA U15 festival that I don't entirely understand.

Instead, teams outside the Top 8 for the U17s will play a U16 tournament; the top 8 will qualify for U17 qualifiers.

The Top 16 U17s will play in four groups of four the next year; group winners and runners up will qualify for the U17 World Cup; there still will be no finals.

U20s stay largely as they are; the 2026 U20 CONCACAF title serves as Olympic qualifier.

Seem to be going backwards in terms of actual competition at the youth level.

 

I suspect most of the region can't afford to support the U15 level.

I'm sure we can find opponents to play when we have USYNT camps.
We can host "tournaments of the willing" when we want. Those opponents could even be better than we'd face at a U15 CONCACAF Championships.

With the U17 CONCACAF Qualifiers and World Cup being EVERY YEAR now, there's only so much we can do anyway in terms of events and camps. A portion of the year is by definition full.

 

That will hurt other CONCACAF teams more than the US as it harder now to get players as teams don't release them like they used to. I mean Cavan playing for Philly is infinitely more useful than playing in U17 qualifying where there are no games against the top teams.

 

The U15 tournament is probably a victim of the U17 tournament expanding to yearly. There are lots of reasons to drop it in favor of U17.

1) Only Mexico and US do U15 academies well.
2) There is no U15 WC.
3) U17 WC is not only yearly but with expanded slots for smaller feds

For the smaller feds, it just makes sense to spend more on U17 right now.