What Caused the Lost Generation?

According to many posters, it was directly caused by Klinsmann although I’ve asked the question: who are the players that would be much better if Klinsmann was never involved in the system?

Some more questions: What specifically did he do that caused such damage and what exactly were the actual results of this action?

how did this generation do as u-17s through u-23?

 

It can be argued that a youth team's performance has little relationship to the full national team's results. There have been many youth teams from various countries that have looked like world beaters while that country's full national side has done little or nothing. There are also numerous examples of full national sides that almost always do great on the world stage while their youth teams have almost never excelled.

While it is fun to watch and follow youth teams the ultimate meaning of their performance is near zero.

 

Peter Pan

 

Betty Friedan and/or Gloria Steinem...take your pick

 

Is it the period when Bradenton was fading out, but MLS development academy model just began to emerge?

 

All I know is that, for whatever the reason, the lost generation is real...and the young guns can't come fast enough.

 

There were probably several reasons.

One was growing pains in the first two or three years of MLS academies -- and MLS teams being perhaps overeager to sign academy kids who weren't ready, just to show that the academies were working. I don't think anyone should have expected first-team players within the first two or three years of the academies existing.

Another was injuries eliminating the competition for places at both club and national team level. (This may have contributed to academy players being signed to first team contracts too soon.) There were really two lost generations: the Davies/Holden generation and the Zardes/Trapp generation. The Davies/Holden generation in the USMNT was devastated by injuries, most of the players forced out of the national team picture in their early 20s. As a result, the Zardes/Trapp generation mostly didn't have to win their places at national team or club level against top players in their prime; they walked into open spaces vacated by injuries, or won their places from aging veterans.

 

I've only seen one person advance this theory... I don't buy it myself.

I do find fault with the way Klinsmann went about integrating new players after the 2014 World Cup. But all that really did was create a shortage of USMNT-quality players with sufficient familiarity with the team and system when World Cup qualifying rolled around. I don't think it is in any way related to a "lost generation."

 

what did he do wet integrating new players in his second go-around? Thanks.

 

I respectfully disagree that there's no or little correlation. Is it perfect? Nope, but it's a decent launching point, particularly when looking at trend lines rather than one group of kids. Look at how excited we are with our consistently good performance recently and contrast that to our poor performance in our "lost generation".

Is it a guarantee? Nope but I'm pretty confident that this group will be meaningfully better than that group.

 

Obama.

 

the USMNT hasn't been used to develop players since the days of Bora when the NT was treated like a club team.

Anyone that gives this much credence to the NT manager's ability to develop players is way off base (IMO). Some give him too much credit and assign all the credit for any positive developments to him and some give him too much blame.

I think one reason Klinsmann receives so much credit/blame for things he really did not control is that he claimed that to be that person that would come in and fix everything in our system.

 

I think the question of why the lost generation is very interesting. I don't think it is nearly so simple as to be answered by one or three bullet points.

Part of the issue is the group we are comparing it to had a trio of Dempsey, Donovan and Beasley that were all born within one year of each other. Bradenton launched during their youth but none spent any significant time developing there (to my knowledge). For my money, they were three once per decade players that weren't given the training and development opportunities that a typical once per decade player receives any other part of the world....they were still three of our best all time.

Another issue is that we went through a period where many of our best hopes never made it (many due to injury).

Another issue is that early MLS was worse quality than it is now, was not set up to develop players and even with the lower quality, few of the young players were actually ready to play MLS until they got older.

When MLS actually implemented the academy system it wasn't immediately effective for many reasons including but not limited to: few teams actually put a priority on academies, few academies had more than the oldest age groups, learning curve, lag time for academies to have any real effect (first graduates can't really be said to have been developed by academies...most were still developed by colleges).

At the same time that the development system in MLS was beginning, Europe was trying to figure things out as well. No matter what anyone says, European development of young Americans has a spotty history at best. Recently they have had some success so perhaps they are figuring it out now. The two parts to the European equation are the soccer part and the psychological part. Going to a foreign country to live/work can be difficult for any young person (especially if you do not speak the language and do not have supports in place). Going at a very young age is even more difficult. European teams (at least some of them) seem to understand this better or they see more value in the young players and are willing to invest more time, money and effort in supporting young Americans than they did in the past. (I suspect that this is more a result in them seeing more potential value in Americans than they did in the past).

 

I think more important than Bradenton fading out was the change in use of the NT. In the past, the NT was run as a club. It was effectively a development tool. Players played far more frequently with the NT than most do now.

 

Our guys need to go abroad. After a solid 2 or 3 seasons in MLS, they need to go or they risk retrograding over time.

The likes of Johnson and Hamid should have left MLS by 2014/15 even if it was only to the likes of Belgium or Greece. A lot of our guys have to play their way up the European ladder but they have go. Of course, they gotta have the fire and desire within to do it.

 

FACT on U.S.A. Men’s National Teams Soccer:

Since 2011, the US has now missed a U17 World Cup, a U20 World Cup, two Olympics and a senior World Cup.


As correct as the above posts detail out on the injury bug hitting this 1990's crop of our guys really bad, the USSF shut down of Bradenton, to then MLS clubs just getting their feet wet with their own way of growing youth players, I will always remind folks that our nation has the talent. Our boys can play. Individually there are very solid. However, these latest crop of men just do not play well together as a unit when asked to go head to head at the Senior National Team level.

 

One can also follow the line, though.

Missed the 2011 U17 World Cup, had a really poor 2013 U20 World Cup, failed at the 2015 CONCACAF U23 Championships, failed to qualify for the 2016 Olympics, failed in WCQing for 2018.

Its all the same group. That was just a bad generation.

We had a good generation before it, and seemingly have a good generation after it.

I don't want to generalize, but almost every good national team program has bad spells. A whole bunch of other good nations also just missed the World Cup. Not just us. [Italy, Holland, etc.]

I think our response has been great. It had to come from investment and investment and investment from MLS in the development academy and reserve teams. It had to come down to opportunity for young players.

People blame the USSF like people blame the government for their problems. The USSF is an umbrella organization with tons of different interests and agendas. Waiting for the USSF to fix our problems was always a fools errand. The answers had to come from MLS and they are. That's where the money is.

 

One really interesting thing about this particular cohort: unlike the ones both before and after, this cycle of the youth national teams had a whole bunch of players developed in Liga MX academies, and several more who went to Liga MX after playing in the U-20 WC. I'm not sure what the reason is. Perhaps there was overemphasis on recruiting dual nationals. But it's also likely that the Liga MX developed players were a higher proportion of the pool than usual because Bradenton was being phased out and the MLS academies were still in their infancy. It wasn't until 2012 that MLS started requiring clubs to have academy teams at age levels below U-16. That was when the "lost generation" was 17-18 years old.

 

I've probably posted something on this topic a half dozen times. Every two years or so some thread like this comes up. To me, it's a pretty simple. There have been three phases in the history of US soccer youth development. It's important to note that each phase affected players mostly at the grassroot level before they reach 18 years old.

The first phase was the ODP/high school/immigrant clubs era of the 90s. The top players developed in this era (Donovan,Dempsey,etc) would play in various leagues according to what they thought best. They would play HS for a few months, do some ODP and then play in an immigrant league the rest of the year. Few rules, eclectic style and spirit was the hallmark of this era. The founding of MLS and the 94 WC provided a lot of motivation for players.

The second phase was the Bradenton/US Club Soccer/Suburban phase of the early 2000s. Bradenton was founded in 1999 and US Club Soccer in 2001. You could argue a lot of ways about what was the motivation of US Club Soccer. Regardless, the result was that youth soccer got more suburban and more expensive while the participants spent less and less time in other leagues. Competitive soccer became very risk adverse. Less technique, more focus on winning. the Most Atplayers were focusing on college since MLS salaries were very low. Also, the 2002 success wasn't very well known. Meanwhile, Bradenton all but isolated the top talent in an ivory tower. At first, this worked well for Bradenton. The best talent of the 90s flourished and became more cohesive. As the talent started becoming less and less this became less ideal. The player characteristics were flash in the pan talents that flared out early or grinder types with little imagination. This decade combined bad practice with a bad situation and little motivation. Many talented players never decided to go pro.

The third phase was a reaction to the second phase. MLS and USSF got together and decided they needed to invest in youth soccer in order to ensure that there were enough pro players being developed. MLS steadily increased rookie salaries and their academy presence. The DA put a break on the rising pay to play costs. The result was still very suburban but the level was much higher across the nation and more focused on pro development. In addition, the 2010 success provided a boost. Finally, the players developed in the 80s and 90s provided better coaching or, often enough, just had kids that were raised in a soccer family. The players coming through from this era are technical and more cohesive in style but above all there are many more kids that have the potential to be pros.

 

This is a great thread and this is something that our soccer media should be helping to identify and define through research and interviewing individuals with insight, but one of the things we have yet to develop here in the US is a soccer media that can dig and help the public see behind the curtain more. MLS has the ability to disseminate their own news. There is nobody peering behind their curtain with any regularity.

I think that there is an under-reported media aspect to these things as well. How much has social media effected these players? How many of these players come to a site like BigSoccer, read about how great they're going to be, believe it, and then not have the resilience to fight through the hard times that come in a professional career?

Ask anyone who has been to grad school what happens during the first two years. Many kids come in believing they are better than everyone else, have not developed the requisite resilience, crash, burn, and then drop out. Other's weather the storm and rebuild themselves with at least a grain of humility. They seek help. They become tight with people who can help them along. They take lumps and figure out how to avoid the things that cause them or build on them.

Growth comes when a player figures out that they really don't know very much at all and begin to be fully coachable. It could be that we had a generation of players who in some way believed that they had already made it and when they didn't get that contract at Schalke and had to come up through a reserve side and fight for every first team minute that they didn't have the requisite grit and resilience to elbow that kid from England out of the way and take the minutes from them...to take the food off of their plate and put it onto your own.

 

To put it quite simply the "Lost Generation" was caused by and continues to be caused by the toxic US soccer culture where politics and selfish focus is placed well above the actual betterment of the sport and the benefit of the players involved from the U8s to over 60s.

All the top people care about are their own position and if their views are the only ones being implemented.

This toxic culture results in "some" potentially top players never being identified or never being drawn into the few clubs/routes into the top programs.
It also means that players are quite often pressed so hard to excel and make the higher ups look good that they are burned out or otherwise driven from soccer before they can really achieve anything.

Every generation has lots of lost players but, sometimes, enough survive "development" so that the national teams look OK.

The whole problem starts with excessive "adult" pressure at the youth levels and before the more advanced programs can even get started the generation is already ruined.

The only problem with youth sports in this country is the adults.

Having stated the problem I really have no idea about a solution except, maybe, that there could be a rule that no adult can be involved in any phase of youth soccer for longer than six years. This would at least prevent the stagnation that results from not having new ideas on a regular basis.

 

It was a confluence of factors. One of them being what you talk about, lack of resilience.

Let's take a look at what a player born near 1990 faced during their crucial 12 to 16 year old phase in 2002 through 2006. The WC success in 2002 was not on daytime TV so he probably wasn't even aware of it happening. MLS was contracting and the rookie salary is $10k. The 1994 WC is a distant memory and soccer is just not a thing yet. College scholarships for soccer are few. Pay to play is rampant. Even worse, the coach might be a guy who never played pro soccer. The kids with immigrant parents are being priced out unless they are huge talents. The kids who aren't immigrants probably have parents born in the 60's that never touched or barely touched a soccer ball. The motivation to excel for these guys is much lower than the 90s. The cost to keep playing is much higher than the 90s. The kids who are talented are taken to Bradenton but there is nobody near their level to play against and their is nobody pressuring to push them out of the program. There is a desperation from US Soccer to find new talent but the talent pool is much shallower. This creates a feeling of entitlement among the talent we have. The road to becoming a pro player is harsh and our small pool of talented players flares out and nobody is their to replace them.

Compare to a player born near 2000. They were at an impressionable age during WC 2010. By the time they are 13 EPL is on NBC. FIFA is the most popular video game. Messi and Ronaldo are a once in a lifetime rivalry. Parents were born in the 70's and have a much higher possibility of knowing soccer. Even better, some of those parents are ex-pros or ex-college players that have started a true soccer family. At the very least, the coach was probably an ex-pro. Pay to play is still an issue but costs are reigned by the DA initiative. There is probably a DA near them and maybe even an MLS academy. At 15 they notice that rookie pay in MLS is about 50k and some HGPs earn 100k. Getting to a YNT is a competition. The pool is deep, competition is high.

Night and day, really.

 

The landscape of sports and news media, and media in general is in a transitional phase. Media companies (traditional print, newspapers, TV) are having a difficult time hitting their metrics, and commercial views/money goals. People simply consume their media differently these days then they did just 5-10 years ago. Media companies have been having a difficult time navigating the changing landscape, while some are holding onto the old ways with an iron grip instead of changing and evolving.

Soccer is still an emerging sport in the US, and even in the largest media markets isn't covered on a regular basis. It's still rare for the local news outlets to have a dedicated MLS/Soccer beat writer. It's still rare for the local sports radio stations to talk or even mention MLS or soccer. When they do, it's usually with some snark and an ignorant comment.

For me, I get my soccer news from one of six places: SiriusXM FC, ESPN FC, The Athletic, Twitter, Big Soccer, & The Philly Soccer Page. The first three are subscription services, Twitter is a mix of volunteer reporters and reporters who work for subscription outlets, and the last two are volunteer/fan driven. I live in a top 5 media market, and yes we do have some good coverage/better than average MLS team coverage. That said, soccer isn't the primary sport/topic that these reporters cover for the local news outlets. Fans would love more in depth, deep dive, "behind the curtain" reporting. The fact of the matter is that covering soccer in the US doesn't pay. At least not for local reporters. There are a few national reporters who make a good living. Just in the last 2-3 years there's been a ton of great soccer reporters who lost there jobs due to staff reductions at the local newspaper.

The same is true for other emerging sports in the US, like Lacrosse (fastest growing sport since 1970!!!) and Rugby.