Let's face it... US soccer consists of men who are too unathletic to play real sports. The end.
The American club system, pay to play, does nothing to identify athletic talent they can recruit and mold at an early age. Given we're so far beyond where the elite nations are, from a volume of elite players perspective, who's responsibility is it to cultivate players? USSF? Club teams? There are no open, formal, development opportunities.Where are our elite soccer stars?
They’re all playing DB and WR in the NFL.
Yup, go watch a youth basketball tournament and go watch a youth club soccer tournament and see what's different.The American club system, pay to play, does nothing to identify athletic talent they can recruit and mold at an early age. Given we're so far beyond where the elite nations are, from a volume of elite players perspective, who's responsibility is it to cultivate players? USSF? Club teams? There are no open, formal, development opportunities.
In the pay to play model, you are basically eliminating the underserved communities. By the time the kids are high school age, they've missed out on formative development years in a system to be looked at by USSF.
The opposite is true for hoops. Every suburban kid has access to basketball and more suburban kids are showing out because they get exposed to coaching and playing early on more than ever.
Yes, the fact that almost all elite soccer programs are filled with kids named Bowman and Clay instead of Tavarius and Le'Jonafin is near the top of the reasons we suck.
The US has athletes to spare, but you can't wait until the fizzle out at lower level D1 football or basketball programs. They need to have been playing soccer for almost 15 years at that point
Then at the high school level soccer needs to change to spring sport instead of fall.
The countries we’d like consider soccer contemporaries don’t have seasons. They just play soccer year round.
So year round soccer playing youths from poor countries have overuse injuries?One research article that came out years ago estimated that overuse injuries has risen 150% from 2005-2015....likely because of this.
In March, I was in a hilltop neighborhood of Valparaiso, Chile where flat space is sparse. 5-6 early teens were playing on concrete in a section of a park that was less than a 1/4 of hoops court in size.We've been thru this. It's like our modern school system. We throw the most money per kid than any other country in the world yet are ranked like 29.
It's not about money or talent. Kids in other countries grow up kicking a soccer ball 24/7 their whole childhood. In the streets, parking lots, home, wherever. They don't go thru basketball season then baseball season then travel ball baseball then all star basketball the aau basketball. Then play soccer then go back to something else.
We've been thru this. It's like our modern school system. We throw the most money per kid than any other country in the world yet are ranked like 29.
It's not about money or talent. Kids in other countries grow up kicking a soccer ball 24/7 their whole childhood. In the streets, parking lots, home, wherever. They don't go thru basketball season then baseball season then travel ball baseball then all star basketball the aau basketball. Then play soccer then go back to something else.
They play soccer. That's it. It's a poor country's game for sure. More kids are playing soccer now because single moms don't want little Johnny getting hurt playing football.
Our entire infrastructure is designed around kids being involved in multiple extra curriculars and many not playing sports at all anymore.
Euro soccer has more revenue and structure for sure but they still concentrate on soccer almost exclusively. We don't.
So year round soccer playing youths from poor countries have overuse injuries?