Oh, speaking of the age mixes…I dont like the strict age groups, in terms of developing elite pros. As a kid I played organized football and baseball. In the former, you might move up from little league to junior league because of age, or because of weight. So if you start early and you’re bang average, you start out as a young small practice dummy. As you get older and heavier, you become a starter. LL was 8-11, and once you got over 80 pounds you went to JL, which was 9-13. So me, as an average player, was a benchwarmer for my 3 years as a young player and a starter my 2 years as an older kid. In baseball, LL was 9-12. So an average player went from being a bench warmer to being a starter. In kiddie soccer, no player is more than a year older than any other player. With soccer, it’s a very strict band. But it doesn’t have to be. When I coached my kids in CASL, the rules changed every 2 years. 1st and 2nd grade was 4v4, no keepers, then it was 2 years of 5 field players and a keeper, then 2 years of 9v9. So for 2 years, you played with the same rules, and then moved up a level. So there’s no reason those teams had to be 12 month bands instead of 24. Here’s what I don’t like about that system. A below average player will never get to be good on his team. But with 2 year bandings, the below average 6 year old will become an above average 7 year old. So that system encourages love of the game for the masses. That adds to the cultural capital of soccer, which we lack. Another thing I don’t like, and the part directly relevant to the national team, is that every other year, our potential pro is playing against teams where half the players are a year older than him. Half of his practice foes are a year older too. He has to do more than dominate through size or speed or technique. He will face bigger and stronger kids, kids with an extra year of experience and practice. That’s how you develop. The younger brother of my best friend grew up to play in college and then got to AA ball. I’m talking baseball here. He was 3 years younger than us, but he still was good enough to start as a 9. But he wasn’t a good player yet. Their team came in last place out of 5 and he was average on that team. But I’ll bet he developed a hell of a lot more than if he had been the biggest, best 9 year old dominating other 9s.
LOL, Same. LL Majors was mostly 11-12 year olds, but you tried out 9-12. If the manager wanted you, you played up. But did he have to actually play you? nope. I was one of the few 9-year old in the league. Maybe i got in a blow out for an inning or two. 9 at bats sounds about right. Manager was an old guy with no kids. they said he had a heart attack or something, but it feels like it could have been cover for a molestation issue (not with me), cause he got disappeared. 4 years later as a September B-Day I was one of the, if not the oldest player in the league. Little different. Hit about .500 and even had a bomb as a 4 foot something (only like 4 or 5 kids cleared the fence, though there were 2 that went yard 2 times a game).
I kinda think the whole discussion is always grasping at straws. We're not elite because we don't have enough elite talent. Asking why the US doesn't have more elite soccer talent is like asking why Spain doesn't have more elite basketball talent. When it comes down to it, the answers are obvious. Ultimately they all funnel back to the popularity and love of the sport. It comes back to culture that can't be built overnight.
It’s simple. Our elite athletes aren’t playing soccer.. you need to be very athletic gifted to become a world class attacking player. I could also say Spain is closer to developing a world class Basketball player than US is to developing a world class player..
Pau Gasol already happened. How elite athletically were Kane, Lewandowski, Salah, Van Persie, Mueller, Robben, Ribery, Rooney...surely we have a bunch of guys whose last name being with an R we can start with and then spread out... Maybe we should try good youth coaching, and then around 15, use our world class training facilities and speed/strength coaches to round out the "elite athlete" part of it. Or we keep taking the early maturing kids and wonder why they can't pass to moving feet and have a first touch like a hammer...
There’s no decisive hook in soccer to truly capture our domestic culture full time. The World Cup is like the Olympics, it’s cool as a spectacle every four years but that can never replicate the impact of our “real” sports. Euro soccer is cool and romantic but at the end of the day it will never be ours even if we produce someone who can achieve more than Pulisic at the club level. MLS has done so much to simply survive let alone produce some markets that have a legit big league feel, but overall it can’t compare to our traditional big leagues or the best Euro soccer leagues.
Its culture..................................... Its like the fact that Haiti and Dominican Republic have similar populations on the same island. Why does one produce baseball players and the other doesn't? All one has to do is travel to Spain to see the difference. Go to San Sebastian and see what Real Sociedad means to the community. I live in Boston. See what the Red Sox and Celtics and Bruins and Patriots mean to the community. If you're a tourist visiting Boston, you might not see evidence that the Revolution even exist.
Its culture. ....................like Mexico was talking about stopping school 6 weeks early so kids can experience the home World Cup. Mexico president wavers on plan to cut school year by 40 days for the World Cup | Reuters
Spain is a legitimate basketball powerhouse, just not at the level of the US. So are countries like Argentina, France, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Russia, Serbia, and Turkey.
................right and we're not chopped liver at soccer either. We've made the Round of 16 at 4 of the past 6 World Cups. Make a list of countries that have done that, and it's not a long list. Brazil, Argentina, France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, England, Portugal, Mexico, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, AND the United States. 13 nations and we're one of them. [If Copilot is right. I didn't do that work myself. ] I know we all wish we were qualifying for quarterfinals and beyond, but that ain't easy. .............................I was recently in Spain for two weeks, and I don't think i saw a basketball. I couldn't get into the Real Sociedad store. It was too packed. It didn't seem like tourists (unlike the Barcelona store which seemed like all tourists.] Its just culture. We can argue around in circles about what to do about it, but when push comes to shove these are nations in which soccer is just an integral part of the culture. We're not there yet. But we also have to see how far we've come in the last 30 years.
Canada got Davies, Buchanan, and Bombito without 'culture'. You need 'culture' to play like Spain or Argentina. You don't need culture to play like some of the other elite nations or to produce elite players.
Yeah.................but that's exactly what we're doing. We're the 16th ranked team in the World that has made the knockout rounds in 4 of the last 6 World Cups. We were a quarterfinalist at the U23 Olympics. We've been to five straight U20 World Cup quarterfinals. Our finishing positions at the last five U20 World Cups have been 7th, 6th, 6th, 5th, and 5th. We have talent across all levels. But being "elite" as this thread seems to be defining it, is a different beast. Spain, Argentina, France, etc. is a different beast altogether. We're happy to have 25 US-eligible players in "top 5 leagues." Spain and France have 500. We're happy to have guys at mid-table Premier League clubs. But we're not going to have any guys on the top 5 clubs in the Premier League. The ELITE level. 2nd ranked league in the world is the Bundesliga. We might have one guy who starts for a Bundesliga team that finishes in the Champions League places. Tillman and Leverkusen are in a heck of a battle for 4th place. We had one guy playing in the quarterfinals of the Champions League. Johnny. That's it. Our star CB is playing in the Conference League final. Not the Champions League final. When we say "why aren't we elite?"..............................the answer is self-evident and obvious. Its the same reason Japan, Colombia, Mexico, Sweden, Switzerland, Nigeria, Turkey, etc. aren't that level. We all have good players. What do you need to produce the kinds of players that Spain and France do? Its not wishing, hoping, and dreaming that's gonna get it done.
FIFA rankings don't mean anything. We are not winning against Uruguay, Japan, Switzerland, Denmark, or Turkey (Non-Friendly). We haven't won against Canada, which is 30th. Panama has our number every time we played. At best, we are 30th. Are we getting better yes, but we are still ass.
No, that's not what we're doing. We don't produce 10 Davieses or 10 Bombitos, even though we have 10 times the population of Canada, a country in which Ice Hockey is the #1 sport. Men's soccer in the US doesn't attract the Davieses and Bombitos. --and also-- We don't have the 'culture' to produce the level of players that populate the national teams of Spain and Argentina. Those players don't fit the athletic profiles of the French national team pool, for example, but are still elite players.
Stop using Canada, a country that was trash until 5 seconds ago, and their ONE outstanding player, as the measuring stick! How many Group Stages has Canada advanced out of? Oh, none? How many Gold Cups? How many Nations Leagues? How many Canucks are in the CL? MAYBE 2?We were better than Canada from 1990-2016, and Canada were complete trash before that, minus any 1930s Why not cry that Mexico doesn't have a Davies? How come they don't have 50 Gilberto Mora's? They have 4 times the population of Canada, they have the culture, and they're arguably less-talented than the USA, that's including poaching players developed in the USA who become instant starters on their team! Such a strawman argument, it just doesn't make sense. Canada isn't elite, they aren't the measuring stick. Gabon isn't either, despite us not having an Aubamayang.
I am not Canadian and have never been to Canada, so I cannot speak to their culture, but it definitely seems like soccer is on the *same* tier as football, baseball, and basketball, as opposed to here in America, where it is a tier below those sports. The second factor is that while Canada's #1 sport is hockey, its expensive barriers to entry means it is a middle-upper class sport. Davies in particular was a Ghanaian-Liberian refugee who did not grow up well off, and he grew up playing soccer in an Edmonton inner-city program. Had his family immigrated to the US instead of Canada, he probably grows up playing American football instead once coaches discover his elite pace and athleticism. Canada doesn't have the same level of competition between sports for their elite athletes, especially ones that cannot afford to play hockey.
1. I've named other Canadian players in highlighting the superior athleticism(pace and power specifically). 2. Canada's rise has been a 6 year process 3. Canada have 9 players in the Top-5 leagues of Europe. That compares extraordinarily well to the 15 US-produced players in the Top-5. 4. The outside observers I've read have also noted only ONE American player as an outstanding player. 5. I've also used the USWNT as an example
Here’s one reason why America isn’t elite, and I think it’s a good thing. It’s just sports, people. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/72...hared_gift_article_copylink&smid=url-share-ta
1. We have better players. We have historically had more athletic, faster players. Canada has a shallow pool of fast, athletic players. Good for them. 2. Exactly, a cycle and a half in which their high points were getting bounced in the World Cup GS, topping the Hex on GD, and not establishing themselves as the top team in the region over Mexico over those 6 years, which is why it's insane you keep using them as a benchmark because they happen to be smaller. We haven't produced a GK as good as Keylor Navas despite a population 68 times bigger than Costa Rica, shall we bow to Costa Rica as the Elite in the world? You don't get to choose who becomes a generational player, and you don't "develop" them either. You develop the mass of kids, and with luck and talent, a tiny few rise to astronomical heights. If it could be replicated, we'd see it in the top teams, but it can't be, which is why there is ONE Messi, ONE Ronaldo, or ONE MBappe. 3. Yeah, Canada has had an abnormally good couple of years. Do we need to have 36 players in order for us to be equal to them? We're trash if we have 35 or less, and France if it's 37 or more? Uruguay has 10 players in Top 5 leagues, so we'd need 1,000 players in Top 5 Leagues before we could say we're their equal in developing players, right? 4. Whoopity do, I don't care. Mckennie is outstanding, Balogun is outstanding, Pepi is outstanding, and on their day we have a half a dozen or more players who could be "outstanding". Most American teams historically didn't have ANY who would be considered "outstanding", even on their best days. 5. A completely different competitive environment. You may as well compare Men's and Women's basketball. The rest of the World does not care much at all.
1. How many of those players even touch the US soccer academy? Balogun, Dest, Jedi don't. 2. Canada does have 2 very good players, and David might even start for the US. 3. We can have 100 players playing in top leagues, but if players don't feel the shirt, then what's the point of them? When players play for Mexico, they feel the shirt. I don't think that's the same for USWNT. USWNT, they do. From what I know, there's a big gap between Ice Hockey and basketball, baseball or soccer
You raise a great point. If there is one team in North America that should have some pretentions of being elite it is Mexico.
Yeah, except I've invented a metric that says Mexican players aren't athletic or fast enough for the modern game, based on nothing, and they don't have a single player in the Champions League, so they actually suck, turns out. Norway has Erling Haaland, and is like 1/26th the size of Mexico, so Mexico is actually trash. Where is Mexico's Erling Haaland? How come Raul Jimenez and Santi don't even come close???? How come Mexico only has one Canelo Alvarez instead of hundreds? Are they even trying?
1. Most played in the US. You'd know if you bothered to look. And that's without counting American-developed players on other NT's like Obed Vargas (now at Atleti) and Esmir (now at PSV). 2. Right, which is why it's dumb to look at them as some kind of measuring stick. 3. I have no doubt Mexican players feel lots of pressure. Probably feels good when times are good, but it crushes the team when things go South, like they did against the US under Berhalter, in 2014 WCQ, in 2018, in 2022, etc. The curse gets bigger every year they get grouped or knocked out at the first opportunity. I just don't think this meme about "wanting it" is as much of a boost to performance as "played together more than once during training" is. Mexico is going to have a special little camp before the World Cup. That training's much more important for their squad to gel than "playing for the shirt" is.
If I said no, their best athletes go into pole vaulting, river swimming, and long distance walking, would yall laugh?