# LA TIMES: Is youth soccer training to blame for American team failure to make WC?



## Vin (Nov 20, 2017)

http://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/la-sp-youth-soccer-sondheimer-20171119-story,amp.html

Marvin Mires, the boys’ soccer coach at Downey, offered this opinion:


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## LASTMAN14 (Nov 20, 2017)

A uniformed curriculum is one piece that is necessary.


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## Livinthedream (Nov 20, 2017)

Vin said:


> http://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/la-sp-youth-soccer-sondheimer-20171119-story,amp.html
> 
> Marvin Mires, the boys’ soccer coach at Downey, offered this opinion:


Interesting...but as usual they bring up HS...what a farce...HS in 2017 is NOT developing any players !!! It has a social aspect and that’s it...these journalists that mention that lose credibility in my eyes...it’s like goin back to the 80’s...

It’s about identification at the young ages and then developing that talent...our identification sucks !!! And let’s be honest regular club soccer is becoming recreational as the lower teams pay the bills... meanwhile the top teams are trainin in a shit area cause all teams get equal access...at some point Flight 2 and 3 teams need to pay less and then get less of a field...the top teams/players need to be developed...


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## Livinthedream (Nov 20, 2017)

Livinthedream said:


> Interesting...but as usual they bring up HS...what a farce...HS in 2017 is NOT developing any players !!! It has a social aspect and that’s it...these journalists that mention that lose credibility in my eyes...it’s like goin back to the 80’s...
> 
> It’s about identification at the young ages and then developing that talent...our identification sucks !!! And let’s be honest regular club soccer is becoming recreational as the lower teams pay the bills... meanwhile the top teams are trainin in a shit area cause all teams get equal access...at some point Flight 2 and 3 teams need to pay less and then get less of a field...the top teams/players need to be developed...


Also the digital age isn’t helping... our kids aren’t bored enough these days...too many fun distractions...the best players are playin when they’re “bored”...not watchin Netflix or on some lame and addictive app on their phone...


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## Mr. Mac (Nov 20, 2017)

The main problem is our country's greatest athletes are not playing soccer. Pick any running back in the NFL, or or just about any NBA player and teach them good fundamental soccer from the same age they learned their current sport, and we would be a force to be reckoned with, if not the absolute #1 team in the world.


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## timbuck (Nov 20, 2017)

High school or club soccer aren't the problem.  We do "ok" at the u17-u19 levels internationally.  It's college soccer that really screws us up.


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## LadiesMan217 (Nov 20, 2017)

Mr. Mac said:


> The main problem is our country's greatest athletes are not playing soccer. Pick any running back in the NFL, or or just about any NBA player and teach them good fundamental soccer from the same age they learned their current sport, and we would be a force to be reckoned with, if not the absolute #1 team in the world.


Mr. Mac - it is pretty much that simple. Not sure about those NBA dorks (maybe for headers or goalie) but any NHL player or NFL player not on the line.


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## sweeperkeeper (Nov 20, 2017)

High School is an issue but the biggest issue is with college.  If your child is a top player and the choice was a full scholarship to Stanford or UCLA or the chance to go pro.  It would be tough to turn down that kind of pay out for the fraction of a chance that the child makes it and earns the kind of money making it worth while going pro.  Just another issue with the NCAA and their "amateur" philosophy.  


Read the op-ed by Pulsic.  He calls this out specifically.    
https://nesn.com/2017/11/usmnts-christian-pulisic-explains-whats-wrong-right-with-usa-soccer/


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## Mr. Mac (Nov 21, 2017)

LadiesMan217 said:


> Mr. Mac - it is pretty much that simple. Not sure about those NBA dorks (maybe for headers or goalie) but any NHL player or NFL player not on the line.


I don't know..but seeing men that are 6'7" and have the quickness they do plus their jumping ability.. I am pretty sure they could at least be great defenders or holding mids. They have cardio for days too.  But I agree about Hockey or any non lineman in the NFL, and I would even say most MLB player's except for pitchers, first basemen and Albert Pujols would great too. Haha. 

It's a shame too..Our best female athlete's have been playing since they were toddlers and look at our USWNT and their success (until Jill Ellis started going coo coo that is!)


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## Josep (Nov 21, 2017)

The biggest problem is that the chances for a big pay day is bad.  MLB, NFL and NBA, kids can be making massive amounts of money at 19.  It’s here in their faces.  

The drive for that in soccer is non-existent.  It’s not as much about athleticism for me as it is about the reduced number of kids lacking the desire.


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## Chalklines (Nov 21, 2017)

Josep said:


> The biggest problem is that the chances for a big pay day is bad.


Bingo

Increase professional soccer salaries and make the big pay day a reality for more.

We are a money driven society. Fixing US soccer isn't brain surgery. Just increase the size of the carrot and the results will follow.


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## El Clasico (Nov 21, 2017)

It is always interesting to see all the same silly arguments about "our best athletes" not playing soccer. Or how H.S. soccer screws up our players....wait, no...it is college that screws up our players. Yeah, that's it.

Consider this...all those "Super Star" athletes (almost every single one of them) that are playing in the NFL or the NBA have a few things in common.
1. They played High School Ball
2. They played College Ball
3. They DID NOT play Club Ball
4. They DID NOT play in the Basketball Development Academy
5. They DID NOT play in the American Football Development Academy

Most played the same way we played as kids growing up down south.  After school, we went outside and played until it got dark, we got yelled at or we got dragged off the dirt, gravel or asphalt patch by our ear. There was no instruction or coaches just like there are no coaches on the courts when you drive through south LA neighborhoods and see the kids playing pick up basketball games to teach them "good fundamental" basketball. I have seen great volunteer coaches at the various local Boys & Girls Club so don't want to take anything away from them but I think my point is clear.

Yes, I realize that opportunist with dollar signs in their eyes are starting "club" basketball leagues all over the place but that is a relatively new event and mostly driven by Asian money. Took my player to one last year for the benefits of cross training and footwork and I was blown away by the number of Asian parents that drop, cut a check and go. Easy money for those coaches and like club soccer, they really don't have to develop anyone. However, I didn't see any pure ballers.

To suggest that you any of the above mentioned pro players would be great soccer players demonstrates one of the biggest problems we have in this country with soccer development.  It is a real lack of understanding of the game of soccer. Plain and simple. It will be better in 25 to 30 years.


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## MWN (Nov 21, 2017)

This article is not very good and relies too heavily on the CEO of U.S. Club Soccer, who is hopelessly conflicted.  Then you have a single H.S. Coach who thinks kids don't know what foot to play a ball on.  None of these guys are involved in selecting or recommending players for the national team.  Why not get the opinions of DA coaches, ODP coaches, MLS coaches, or those from outside the country.  Certainly coaching education is one of the problems, the practical unavailability of scholarships at the college level, low pay for professionals, etc., etc.

All of that said, Mr. Payne's point is sound in that the US youth soccer landscape isn't concerned with core development in as much as wins and loses.  The irony here is Mr. Payne's organization perpetuates the very win, win, win attitude that Mr. Payne complains about.  Hypocritical.  When US Club Soccer can say its multi-million dollar tournaments are now showcases his opinion will have more weight.


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## davin (Nov 21, 2017)

El Clasico said:


> It is always interesting to see all the same silly arguments about "our best athletes" not playing soccer. Or how H.S. soccer screws up our players....wait, no...it is college that screws up our players. Yeah, that's it.
> 
> Consider this...all those "Super Star" athletes (almost every single one of them) that are playing in the NFL or the NBA have a few things in common.
> 1. They played High School Ball
> ...


You are off on the club basketball thing. ALL the top basketball players in the country play club ball and travel all over the country doing so. Most of the top players play in EYBL, a club basketball league sponsored by Nike that is/was equivalent to ECNL for girls soccer. The attendence list of college coaches at EYBL events is a who's who of college basketball. ALL the top coaches go to these events to recruit.
http://www.nikeeyb.com


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## sweeperkeeper (Nov 21, 2017)

El Clasico said:


> It is always interesting to see all the same silly arguments about "our best athletes" not playing soccer. Or how H.S. soccer screws up our players....wait, no...it is college that screws up our players. Yeah, that's it.
> 
> Consider this...all those "Super Star" athletes (almost every single one of them) that are playing in the NFL or the NBA have a few things in common.
> 1. They played High School Ball
> ...


I think you misunderstand the sports landscape.  I agree that pickup games and playing for many hours is one way to get better but every sport  has club/travel ball.  Basketball has AAU (which all of the top players played in) baseball has a similar program.

The main difference between soccer and baseball/football is that the rest of the world plays soccer while none of them play football.  My entire point is that the elite of the sport at age 18 should be focusing on becoming a professional versus dealing with college and the NCAA.


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## Grace T. (Nov 21, 2017)

El Clasico said:


> It is always interesting to see all the same silly arguments about "our best athletes" not playing soccer. Or how H.S. soccer screws up our players....wait, no...it is college that screws up our players. Yeah, that's it.
> 
> Consider this...all those "Super Star" athletes (almost every single one of them) that are playing in the NFL or the NBA have a few things in common.
> 1. They played High School Ball
> ...


Davin's right on this.  Basketball has changed for the iGen and is now very club oriented for the kids coming up.  College is also increasingly being cut out as some NBA players choose to pass on college and go straight to the pros, if the rewards outweigh the safety net of a college degree for the particular athlete.  It's even beginning to be the same for football, if you watch the series "Friday Night 'Tykes".  The Europeans don't understand why we "waste" (their words, not mine) 4 years of player development in college.

Another of the reasons we struggle with US soccer is because the parents didn't play.  So 1) they don't introduce the game early enough to their kids, 2) they can't help along the way, and 3) they aren't knowledgeable about the training which leads to be taken by sales pitches, or chasing the wins over development.  And while YMCA basketball or TYFA football may have coaches that have played, too often in AYSO we get parents who don't.  That will change as more years pass (and has changed on the girls side quicker than on the boys since many of the girls playing now had parents introduced to the sport in the 90s).  Even in AYSO it's changing since the EXTRAs and United coaches tend to have played in the past, but it's still not to the point where you can walk onto any AYSO team and trust the parent has some basic level of knowledge.

Which BTW is the reverse problem with international basketball.  Internationally other nations have been catching up.  Some, like Russia and China, because of the long state-sponsored athletic programs.  Others, like the Europeans, by importing American coaches.  But they still aren't to the point where if you didn't play you can send your kid to rec basketball and have them receive solid instruction.  While the US dominance is slipping (we did have to shift from a college to a pro based Olympic team because of what the Soviets were doing to us, and increasingly the DreamTeams are encounter decent opposition), it will still be decades before it looses its dominant position.  Note too that loss of dominance has occurred with baseball, which has been around in some nations longer than basketball has.


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## BigSoccer (Nov 21, 2017)

Well thank goodness we are focused on the DA right.  ehh.. I believe there are many Pulsic's out there that do not have access to DA either do to geographic area or exposure opportunity (size, speed etc) at 14yrs old and is turned away.  We are throwing all our eggs into the DA basket.  As for 4yrs in college, that is what we are told to do.  The likelihood of our kids going pro is so small the safe bet is to take the education as their brains can make them more than their feet in the long run.  USL is not paying enough for a player to sustain long term MXII or what ever the second Mexico division is pays less than that.  What does a first tier Albanian player make on average.  The opportunity is there but at what risk?


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## Dargle (Nov 21, 2017)

Context for this article:  It was written by Eric Sondheimer, who has had the HS beat for the LA Times for eons.  Kevin Baxter normally writes a Sunday soccer column, but he has been pulled in a variety of directions lately, covering UCLA Women in the NCAA tournament, the Lakers, and even drag racing.  Baxter got a break from writing his column this Sunday and either he or his editors thought Sondheimer and the HS angle would be a natural substitute (especially given the seasonal transition in HS sports this time of year meaning fewer games).  So, you can be happy you're getting a soccer article at all, but with the understanding that it's really a HS soccer article from a guy who mostly knows HS sports, not soccer in particular.  Sondheimer likely should have double-downed on his HS expertise and just gone with talking to HS soccer coaches about the issue, but he tried to get some broader perspective and it came off under-researched, which it was and may have been because he got the assignment last minute and/or because he didn't have his own contacts for this kind of story and wasn't going to develop them for a one-off.


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## timbuck (Nov 21, 2017)

davin said:


> You are off on the club basketball thing. ALL the top basketball players in the country play club ball and travel all over the country doing so. Most of the top players play in EYBL, a club basketball league sponsored by Nike that is/was equivalent to ECNL for girls soccer. The attendence list of college coaches at EYBL events is a who's who of college basketball. ALL the top coaches go to these events to recruit.
> http://www.nikeeyb.com


I think that shoe contracts pay most of the way for these kids to play.  So the cost is relatively low to play.  Yet coaches are making good money.  And are steering kids to the "right" college.  My  understanding is that it's a pretty shady world.  Not sure we want to open this up to soccer in the US.


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## SBFDad (Nov 21, 2017)

Mr. Mac said:


> The main problem is our country's greatest athletes are not playing soccer. Pick any running back in the NFL, or or just about any NBA player and teach them good fundamental soccer from the same age they learned their current sport, and we would be a force to be reckoned with, if not the absolute #1 team in the world.


Our main problem? Not even close. This a massive over-simplification. Iceland, a country with a population of 332k, qualified in Europe. The US, a country with a population of 323M, failed to qualify in CONCACAF. This has very little do to with the “best” athletes picking other sports. It has to do with the lack of a soccer culture and identity in this country. It has to do with the poor identification and development of talent in this country. There are so many shortfalls in the system, from culture to league structure. Not enough time to get neck deep here, but you should know that you are way off base.


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## Sunil Illuminati (Nov 21, 2017)

Mr. Mac said:


> The main problem is our country's greatest athletes are not playing soccer. Pick any running back in the NFL, or or just about any NBA player and teach them good fundamental soccer from the same age they learned their current sport, and we would be a force to be reckoned with, if not the absolute #1 team in the world.


Ok....so why are non of the best players in the World built like running backs?


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## Sunil Illuminati (Nov 21, 2017)

LASTMAN14 said:


> A uniformed curriculum is one piece that is necessary.


Why? Nothing produces more vanilla players than a uniform curriculum. If it was as simple as a curriculum every country would succeed. If anything that’s the problem with USSDA thousands of kids playing the same mundane way


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## davin (Nov 21, 2017)

Sunil Illuminati said:


> Ok....so why are non of the best players in the World built like running backs?


If he grew up in the United States, Ronaldo would've been put on a weight training program starting in high school and would've been playing wide receiver and linebacker. He would've continued with that weight training program in college and played receiver or safety. He would be lot thicker than he is now with the training regimen.

Messi, if he grew up in the US, would've also been on a weight training program from high school onwards. He would've played tailback in high school, and would've been converted to slot receiver in college(think Cole Beasley from the Cowboys). He'd also be a lot thicker.


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## Tiki_Taka (Nov 21, 2017)

Our youth program is the same for both the girls and boys right?  Our women's national team is considered the best in the world.  Our men's national team is not competing at the highest level because men's soccer does not attract the most talented athletes like most other countries.  Isn't that the difference?  Imagine LeBron James, Amari Cooper, Russell Westbrook, Stephan Curry, Russel Wilson on the pitch.  I suspect there are basketball forums in other countries lamenting about how their national basketball teams don't compare to the US because their youth programs are lacking.


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## Sunil Illuminati (Nov 21, 2017)

davin said:


> Messi, if he grew up in the US, would've also been on a weight training program from high school onwards. He would've played tailback in high school, and would've been converted to slot receiver in college(think Cole Beasley from the Cowboys). He'd also be a lot thicker.


Not true.....he would have been dismissed as too small and not a good enough athlete....probably would have received the same critique for soccer too.


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## LASTMAN14 (Nov 21, 2017)

Sunil Illuminati said:


> Why? Nothing produces more vanilla players than a uniform curriculum. If it was as simple as a curriculum every country would succeed. If anything that’s the problem with USSDA thousands of kids playing the same mundane way


Well tell that France and Germany. They have a uniformed curriculum and it works.


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## Sunil Illuminati (Nov 21, 2017)

Tiki_Taka said:


> Our youth program is the same for both the girls and boys right?  Our women's national team is considered the best in the world.  Our men's national team is not competing at the highest level because men's soccer does not attract the most talented athletes like most other countries.  Isn't that the difference?  Imagine LeBron James, Amari Cooper, Russell Westbrook, Stephan Curry, Russel Wilson on the pitch.  I suspect there are basketball forums in other countries lamenting about how their national basketball teams don't compare to the US because their youth programs are lacking.


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## Sunil Illuminati (Nov 21, 2017)

LASTMAN14 said:


> Well tell that France and Germany. They have a uniformed curriculum and it works.


Did Zidane follow that curriculum? Henry when he was playing in the streets? Ozil? Curriculum creates standards, which you can give value to. but if we were given the same “French” or “German” curriculum we would not win the World Cup that’s neither the issue or solution


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## davin (Nov 21, 2017)

Sunil Illuminati said:


> Not true.....he would have been dismissed as too small and not a good enough athlete....probably would have received the same critique for soccer too.


Huh?

Cole Beasley is 5'7 -5'8, 175 lbs, and the best slot receiver in the NFL. Messi is 5'7, 155 lbs(while never being on a football weight program), fast, and quicker than shit, just like all slot receivers in the NFL.

Ronaldo is 6'2, 185 lbs without a football weight program, and faster than shit. The perfect size for an NFL receiver or safety. Outside linebacker if he bulked up enough.

Have you ever seen how small many high school football players are?


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## Sunil Illuminati (Nov 21, 2017)

davin said:


> Huh?
> 
> Cole Beasley is 5'7 -5'8, 175 lbs, and the best slot receiver in the NFL. Messi is 5'7, 155 lbs(while never being on a football weight program), fast, and quicker than shit, just like all slot receivers in the NFL.
> 
> Ronaldo is 6'2, 185 lbs without football weight program, and faster than shit. The perfect size for an NFL receiver or safety. Outside linebacker if he bulked up enough.


Messi was on growth hormones from the age of 11/12


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## LASTMAN14 (Nov 21, 2017)

Sunil Illuminati said:


> Did Zidane follow that curriculum? Henry when he was playing in the streets? Ozil? Curriculum creates standards, which you can give value to. but if we were given the same “French” or “German” curriculum we would not win the World Cup that’s neither the issue or solution


No to Zidane and Henry. But they changed because they too failed like the US. And now how an entire team of the most talented players in the world who did learn under the curriculum. Ozil is a yes. I did not say use the French or German curriculum, just to have one. Hopefully one that fits.


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## LadiesMan217 (Nov 21, 2017)

SBFDad said:


> Our main problem? Not even close. This a massive over-simplification. Iceland, a country with a population of 332k, qualified in Europe. The US, a country with a population of 323M, failed to qualify in CONCACAF. This has very little do to with the “best” athletes picking other sports. It has to do with the lack of a soccer culture and identity in this country. It has to do with the poor identification and development of talent in this country. There are so many shortfalls in the system, from culture to league structure. Not enough time to get neck deep here, but you should know that you are way off base.


Iceland also won the World Championships in handball. 332K against 7.5 billion in the world. Lack of soccer culture is exactly what Mr. Mac is referring to. Identification is not even a subject in countries where soccer is a mainstream sport.


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## davin (Nov 21, 2017)

Sunil Illuminati said:


> Messi was on growth hormones from the age of 11/12


What's that got to do with anything? He is what he is, growth hormones or not. He would've been on growth hormones in the US, as well, to deal with his condition.


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## LadiesMan217 (Nov 21, 2017)

davin said:


> Huh?
> 
> Cole Beasley is 5'7 -5'8, 175 lbs, and the best slot receiver in the NFL. Messi is 5'7, 155 lbs(while never being on a football weight program), fast, and quicker than shit, just like all slot receivers in the NFL.
> 
> ...



And both would have played football here is the US and laughed at soccer.


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## Sunil Illuminati (Nov 21, 2017)

LadiesMan217 said:


> And both would have played football here is the US and laughed at soccer.


Why would they?


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## INFAMEE (Nov 21, 2017)

Tiki_Taka said:


> Our youth program is the same for both the girls and boys right?  Our women's national team is considered the best in the world.  Our men's national team is not competing at the highest level because men's soccer does not attract the most talented athletes like most other countries.  Isn't that the difference?  Imagine LeBron James, Amari Cooper, Russell Westbrook, Stephan Curry, Russel Wilson on the pitch.  I suspect there are basketball forums in other countries lamenting about how their national basketball teams don't compare to the US because their youth programs are lacking.


It wouldn't matter if you had all those athletes playing soccer. They still wouldn't be able to compete against the little Iniestas, Xavis, Messis etc. from around the world. Size and athleticism is not a factor, the environment is. U.S. just doesn't have it in which to produce such talent.


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## Mr. Mac (Nov 21, 2017)

SBFDad said:


> Our main problem? Not even close. This a massive over-simplification. Iceland, a country with a population of 332k, qualified in Europe. The US, a country with a population of 323M, failed to qualify in CONCACAF. This has very little do to with the “best” athletes picking other sports. It has to do with the lack of a soccer culture and identity in this country. It has to do with the poor identification and development of talent in this country. There are so many shortfalls in the system, from culture to league structure. Not enough time to get neck deep here, but you should know that you are way off base.


That's basically the same argument. Thanks. I agree there is no soccer culture here for our boys..hence the best athletes aren't playing because it doesn't interest/excite/motivate/whatever adjective fits. Yes it's over simplifying it, but I have zero interest in expanding on the who, what, when where or why when it's not going to change.


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## Mr. Mac (Nov 21, 2017)

SBFDad said:


> Our main problem? Not even close. This a massive over-simplification. Iceland, a country with a population of 332k, qualified in Europe. The US, a country with a population of 323M, failed to qualify in CONCACAF. This has very little do to with the “best” athletes picking other sports. It has to do with the lack of a soccer culture and identity in this country. It has to do with the poor identification and development of talent in this country. There are so many shortfalls in the system, from culture to league structure. Not enough time to get neck deep here, but you should know that you are way off base.


That's basically the same argument. Thanks. I agree there is no soccer culture here for our boys..hence the best athletes aren't playing because it doesn't interest/excite/motivate/whatever adjective fits. Yes it's over simplifying it, but I have zero interest in expanding on the who, what, when where or why when it's not going to change.


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## Mr. Mac (Nov 21, 2017)

Dunno how that replied twice..my bad.


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## MWN (Nov 21, 2017)

Sunil Illuminati said:


> Why would they?


Because football and basketball are much better investments from both a scholarship and professional pay scale.  Soccer is one of the worst investments for boys.  Let's look at the NCAA-I to see how this works:

NCAA-I / Men
Football: 254 teams at 85 scholarships = 21,590 scholarships for 1.08M HS football players or 2% chance.  Average NFL pay = $1.9 million.
Basketball: 351 teams at 13 scholarships = 4,563 scholarships for 550k HS basketball players or .08% chance (almost 1%).  Average NBA pay = $5.15 million.
Soccer: 205 teams at 9.9 scholarships = 2,029.5 scholarships for 450k HS soccer players or .04% chance (less than 1/2 percent)  Average MLS pay = $226k

Realistically, scholarships are only available for the top 5% of athletes, so normalizing the data for just the top 5%, it looks like this:

NFL: 54k players chasing 21k scholarships (40%)
NBA: 27.5k players chasing 4.5k scholarships (16%)
Soccer: 22.5k players chasing 2k scholarships (8%).

Soccer in the US = superbad investment for young athletes that can choose their sport and then once you get to the pinnacle of the profession, expect to be one of the lowest paid professional athletes.


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## Chalklines (Nov 21, 2017)

money......money.....$$$$$$


Belows an old sample from 2015

http://www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2015/1/26/visualizingmlssalaries
*
League* *Average* *Median Yr*
MLS $226,454 $91,827
NFL $1,900,000 $770,000
MLB $3,818,923 $987,500†
NHL $2,696,069 $2,000,000
NBA $4,153,249 $1907,364

Why bust your ass throughout your child hood and into your teens for penny's on the dollar compared to bigger american sports?

What happens after a 3yr playing career and injury? 3 x $92k = $276k. If you didnt spend a dime your paying that money directly to a university now to get an education so your able to live. You cant retire on $276k at 23 years old.

Bottom line money in mens and certainly womans soccer needs to increase dramatically in the US.


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## Sunil Illuminati (Nov 21, 2017)

MWN said:


> Because football and basketball are much better investments from both a scholarship and professional pay scale.  Soccer is one of the worst investments for boys.  Let's look at the NCAA-I to see how this works:
> 
> NCAA-I / Men
> Football: 254 teams at 85 scholarships = 21,590 scholarships for 1.08M HS football players or 2% chance.  Average NFL pay = $1.9 million.
> ...


Now I understand.....if it’s a sport that has competition from other countries it’s better to invest time in more traditional activities! It’s lucky for Messi and Ronaldo that their countries are not so focused on Basketball and Football I guess

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/forbespr/2016/06/08/forbes-releases-the-worlds-highest-paid-athletes-list-2016/amp/


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## watfly (Nov 21, 2017)

MWN said:


> Because football and basketball are much better investments from both a scholarship and professional pay scale.  Soccer is one of the worst investments for boys.  Let's look at the NCAA-I to see how this works:
> 
> NCAA-I / Men
> Football: 254 teams at 85 scholarships = 21,590 scholarships for 1.08M HS football players or 2% chance.  Average NFL pay = $1.9 million.
> ...


I hope no one considers what they pay for youth sports as an investment in a college scholarship or professional career.  Regardless of what the sport is they're all just variations of really horrible investments.  That's awesome if your child ends up with a scholarship and/or a pro career, but just consider that a bonus to your child's sport's experiences growing up. A 529 plan is an investment, sports are not.


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## Lambchop (Nov 21, 2017)

LadiesMan217 said:


> Iceland also won the World Championships in handball. 332K against 7.5 billion in the world. Lack of soccer culture is exactly what Mr. Mac is referring to. Identification is not even a subject in countries where soccer is a mainstream sport.


Well if your average yearly temperature is 35 degrees, I guess you would spend a great deal of time playing a sport indoors.


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## timbuck (Nov 21, 2017)

Chalklines said:


> money......money.....$$$$$$
> 
> 
> Belows an old sample from 2015
> ...


You become a coach.  Coach 4 teams. Run a few summer camps. Do private training.   You can make more than the salary of a low/mid level player.  And get a bonus if you can pretend to have a British accent.


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## ballme (Nov 21, 2017)

davin said:


> You are off on the club basketball thing. ALL the top basketball players in the country play club ball and travel all over the country doing so. Most of the top players play in EYBL, a club basketball league sponsored by Nike that is/was equivalent to ECNL for girls soccer. The attendence list of college coaches at EYBL events is a who's who of college basketball. ALL the top coaches go to these events to recruit.
> http://www.nikeeyb.com


Agreed with Davin.  Check out “At All Costs”, a good documentary on Netflix about the rise of AAU / club basketball.


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## Grace T. (Nov 21, 2017)

If you read "Soccernomics" one of the conclusions is that you need to follow the money.  The high performing clubs are legacy clubs (Manchester United, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich) that pull in talent based on their reputations, or clubs with big markets and a deep pocket owner (Chelsea, Arsenal).  It leads to a lop sided situation where you have 2-3 teams that dominate their leagues, a handful that can hold their own and sometimes surprise, and the also rans.

The MLS, because of the salary caps and pooled money, doesn't have teams that have consistently dominated the league.  The structure is there to protect the owners instead of train players.  The transfer structure isn't there either, and their academies have only recently gotten off the ground and are irregular throughout the league.  It's going to be a huge problem for the Galaxy, for example, because even if they wanted to dump Gio, his DP status locks the Galaxy out of getting new high priced acquisition.  One immediate reform they could implement is to remove the acquisition spend rules.  It would mean, for example, if the Galaxy had a deep pocket owner that wanted to throw money at the team, they could acquire significant players from Europe...it may mean 1-3 teams would dominate the MLS, but it would also put an upward pressure on salaries since some players wouldn't be forced to take little because of the team bumping up against the cap.  Right now players from Trinidad and Tobago benefit from the MLS caps in place because even at the low salary, they can retire back to Trinidad and exist comfortably for a bit on the money earned due to the lower cost of living....worst case they get a job coaching here.  By contrast, Americans are reluctant to play because of the low salaries, and don't get the experience of playing with quality European professionals until those Europeans are past their prime and retire to the MLS.  Forcing Americans to move to Europe to play is difficult because they are young, may have ties here already to family and friends, there's the language barrier, and the Europeans already have a full pipeline because of their academies...it's a good answer but not a great one.

The other change would be to create a second MLS division, rather than continued expansion, and provide for relegation into/out of the second division.  It would recognize that realistically college soccer (given the limited season) is not a stepping stone into the pros, would provide a wider base of opportunities with the possibility of promotion into the first league, and encourage owners to spend the money to avoid the fate of relegation (rather than reward them with draft picks).


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## JJP (Nov 22, 2017)

Mr. Mac said:


> The main problem is our country's greatest athletes are not playing soccer. Pick any running back in the NFL, or or just about any NBA player and teach them good fundamental soccer from the same age they learned their current sport, and we would be a force to be reckoned with, if not the absolute #1 team in the world.


This argument is wrong, complete loser.  Hand-eye coordination is so much easier to develop than foot-ball-eye coordination.  In basketball, jumping ability and height is so critical because u can take to the air and shoot over defenders.  As a defender, if u r short or can’t jump, u r a defensive liability.  In soccer, the ball is at your feet, so height is not a huge advantage.  You just have to be big enough where it’s not easy to push you off the ball.  Center back and target 9 are really the only positions where height really matters, and there are plenty of exceptions to this rule in soccer.

American football players, only WRs and CBs have the bodies that could cut it in soccer, the rest of the guys are too bulky and would not last 90 mins. on the pitch.

Too much height and bulk is actually a disadvantage in soccer.  You don’t want to carry extra weight for 90 minutes.  The ideal soccer body looks like a combo of a cross country runner and sprinter, which is not what NFL or NBA bodies look like.

American football and basketball, more than any other sports, rely on freak athleticism.  There are tons of basketball and football players who picked up the sport late, but they were awesome anyway because they had great bodies.  There’s no such thing as a great soccer player who started playing late.  You have to start early, train a lot and play a lot through your youth to have any shot.


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## Josep (Nov 22, 2017)

timbuck said:


> You become a coach.  Coach 4 teams. Run a few summer camps. Do private training.   You can make more than the salary of a low/mid level player.  And get a bonus if you can pretend to have a British accent.


There’s a guy in Southern California.  He charges kids $100 for four sessions, one per week.  At each session is roughly 8 kids. He does three hours of these sessions 4 nights a week.  

It’s all cash.  That’s $600 per night, 4 nights a week.  He’s pulling down almost $120k in cash working four nights a week. He long ago gave up club coaching. So no weekends. But he does go out and try to catch his kids’ games. 

Not a bad gig.


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## Simisoccerfan (Nov 22, 2017)

Josep said:


> There’s a guy in Southern California.  He charges kids $100 for four sessions, one per week.  At each session is roughly 8 kids. He does three hours of these sessions 4 nights a week.
> 
> It’s all cash.  That’s $600 per night, 4 nights a week.  He’s pulling down almost $120k in cash working four nights a week. He long ago gave up club coaching. So no weekends. But he does go out and try to catch his kids’ games.
> 
> Not a bad gig.


That hardly seems true.  Just look at the math.  Parents are paying this guy $25 per hour to train with 7 other kids?   That's $1300 per year.  Say he has an amazing retention rate and 80% of his slots are filled by return customers.  To fill the other 20% he would need 250 kids to pay for his services in addition to the 77 kids paying him every month.  That's a lot of kids and money.


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## LASTMAN14 (Nov 22, 2017)

Simisoccerfan said:


> That hardly seems true.  Just look at the math.  Parents are paying this guy $25 per hour to train with 7 other kids?   That's $1300 per year.  Say he has an amazing retention rate and 80% of his slots are filled by return customers.  To fill the other 20% he would need 250 kids to pay for his services in addition to the 77 kids paying him every month.  That's a lot of kids and money.


If Josep is referring to the trainer I think he is referencing then quite possibly his number is a bit high per evening, but very possible with this individual. Not sure throughout the year he is hitting the number suggested. We have been to his training's and he does get the numbers. He does multiple sessions per day.


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## MWN (Nov 22, 2017)

JJP said:


> ... American football and basketball, more than any other sports, rely on freak athleticism.  There are tons of basketball and football players who picked up the sport late, but they were awesome anyway because they had great bodies.  There’s no such thing as a great soccer player who started playing late.  You have to start early, train a lot and play a lot through your youth to have any shot.


I disagree with the argument that soccer athletes are fundamentally different than the athletes of football, baseball or hockey.  Basketball does rely on height for most forward and center positions, but the guards are in play.  At the professional levels every athlete in their chosen sport designs their body through weight training, core strength development, etc., based on the needs of the sport.  If you are a 6'3" tight end, you build a body that is different than that of a 5'11" running back or that of a 6'2" tackle.

As you point out, soccer is unique in that the skills needed to play at a high level (moving the ball with your feet) require years to develop ... 1,000's of touches, but if these freak athletes devoted the same amount of time in the school yard, parks, organized training, etc., to develop those skills then there is no reason our current crop of profession football, baseball and hockey players would not excel at soccer because their weight training would simply move from building mass needed for football to building leaner muscles needed for soccer.

The money argument is sound.  All of these freak athletes, especially the millions of disadvantaged kids ignore soccer as a sport because it doesn't represent the opportunity to hit the lottery that football, baseball, basketball and hockey do.  What would happen if just 20% of these freak athletes focused on soccer, rather than football?

Likewise, the negative cultural aspect of soccer in America argument is also sound because it is the root of our problem.  Our kids don't value soccer, so they don't play in the school yard, the parks, etc., and only a few kids get the training needed.

The lack of coaching knowledge is a sound argument because we waste talent with coaches that don't know how to develop a practice or effectively teach the game.

In short, there are many reasons and many fixes that we need if we want our top athletes to play the game.


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## Tiki_Taka (Nov 22, 2017)

JJP said:


> This argument is wrong, complete loser.  Hand-eye coordination is so much easier to develop than foot-ball-eye coordination.  In basketball, jumping ability and height is so critical because u can take to the air and shoot over defenders.  As a defender, if u r short or can’t jump, u r a defensive liability.  In soccer, the ball is at your feet, so height is not a huge advantage.  You just have to be big enough where it’s not easy to push you off the ball.  Center back and target 9 are really the only positions where height really matters, and there are plenty of exceptions to this rule in soccer.
> 
> American football players, only WRs and CBs have the bodies that could cut it in soccer, the rest of the guys are too bulky and would not last 90 mins. on the pitch.
> 
> ...


First of all, most football players are bulky because their sport demands it.  What we're talking about is the fact that our most athletic 6 to 9 yr old boys (before they get bulky) are gravitating to other sports besides soccer in the US.  That's one of many fundamental problems.   In terms of height, an overwhelming majority of professional players in Europe's top 5 leagues are above average in height.  Messi aside, the top tier clubs generally have taller players when compared to MLS and second or third tier leagues.


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## timbuck (Nov 22, 2017)

Tiki_Taka said:


> First of all, most football players are bulky because their sport demands it.  What we're talking about is the fact that our most athletic 6 to 9 yr old boys (before they get bulky) are gravitating to other sports besides soccer in the US.  That's one of many fundamental problems.   In terms of height, an overwhelming majority of professional players in Europe's top 5 leagues are above average in height.  Messi aside, the top tier clubs generally have taller players when compared to MLS and second or third tier leagues.


I agree...for now.  But I think we are seeing a massive shift away from football.  Between concussions and the rise (albeit gradual) of soccer being a bit more mainstream, you are going to see more uber-athletic kids playing soccer.  Walk around the mall or an elementary school -  I bet you see almost as many kids wearing some sort of pro soccer jersey/shirt/hat as you do wearing pro football team gear.
I do think that having a stronger high school soccer system would drive more kids to want to play.  As strange as it sounds, many teenage boys gravitate to whatever gets them attention from teenage girls.  If high school soccer games were as popular as high school football games, you'd see more boys wanting to play soccer.


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## SBFDad (Nov 22, 2017)

Tiki_Taka said:


> First of all, most football players are bulky because their sport demands it.  What we're talking about is the fact that our most athletic 6 to 9 yr old boys (before they get bulky) are gravitating to other sports besides soccer in the US.  That's one of many fundamental problems.   In terms of height, an overwhelming majority of professional players in Europe's top 5 leagues are above average in height.  Messi aside, the top tier clubs generally have taller players when compared to MLS and second or third tier leagues.


I agree with this. This lends itself to the culture argument. These arguments about money and scholarships are kinda silly. Likely all of us on this forum are raising soccer players. Which one of you sat down with your family or with your kid early on and discussed the value of pursuing soccer from a college scholarship or pro career point of view? I certainly didn’t. Not when he was 6 and just starting out and not now as a young teenager about to enter high school. The reasons for the gravitation to other sports is about culture, not money.

Sports for kids are a way of life around the world because they fulfill the basic need and desire to be a part of and excel at something, meeting both social and personal needs. Kids in the US become interested in other sports because those sports are more mainstream and identifiable, and honestly they are easier to be seen as “talented” in if you are a superior athlete. Soccer requires a different level of patience and a long-term commitment to become truly talented, even as a hyper athlete. Kids will many times gravitate to sports their friends or society see as important (social) and sports that they are perceived to be good at (personal). Soccer in this country will always be a step behind other nations because soccer is seen as “just another sport”, and it is at least 4 levels down the scale of importance...at least for now.


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## Grace T. (Nov 22, 2017)

SBFDad said:


> I agree with this. This lends itself to the culture argument. These arguments about money and scholarships are kinda silly. Likely all of us on this forum are raising soccer players. Which one of you sat down with your family or with your kid early on and discussed the value of pursuing soccer from a college scholarship or pro career point of view? I certainly didn’t. Not when he was 6 and just starting out and not now as a young teenager about to enter high school. The reasons for the gravitation to other sports is about culture, not money.
> 
> Sports for kids are a way of life around the world because they fulfill the basic need and desire to be a part of and excel at something, meeting both social and personal needs. Kids in the US become interested in other sports because those sports are more mainstream and identifiable, and honestly they are easier to be seen as “talented” in if you are a superior athlete. Soccer requires a different level of patience and a long-term commitment to become truly talented, even as a hyper athlete. Kids will many times gravitate to sports their friends or society see as important (social) and sports that they are perceived to be good at (personal). Soccer in this country will always be a step behind other nations because soccer is seen as “just another sport”, and it is at least 4 levels down the scale of importance...at least for now.



This is very true.  Culture is very important.  Was just at a park the other day where we saw dads practicing with their sons football, basketball, and baseball (DYS was the only one with a trainer practicing soccer).  But money does have something to do with it too.  Leave aside that the statistics show soccer success follows the programs where money is spent.  Money comes in play 2 places: 1) when the parents are first directing their kids into a sport at the point where everyone sees their kid as the unique wunderkid...if you want them to be a pro athlete, money may influence that decision as does family history as to the kids body type, and 2) as others have pointed out, we do pretty well until the 18-19 year old range...the money to persuade boys to go pro just isn't there in the MLS and most upper middle class parent (since these are the families that have the money to afford pay-to-play, at least in the pre-DA years) will steer their kids to the safe choice of college over going to Europe, Mexico, or the lowpaying MLS.   Upper middle class parents are risk averse anyways, so college is the logical choice for many.  And while colleges are great at producing scholar-athletes, the training just doesn't compare to that the young adult would receive at an entry level pro team, for a variety of reasons including the limited season and the lack of exposure to international play.   I think both sides are right: it's both the culture and the money, which makes this problem a big one.  The culture will fix itself with time as kids who play have kids...the other requires serious reforms.


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## outside! (Nov 22, 2017)

timbuck said:


> I agree...for now.  But I think we are seeing a massive shift away from football.  Between concussions and the rise (albeit gradual) of soccer being a bit more mainstream, you are going to see more uber-athletic kids playing soccer.  Walk around the mall or an elementary school -  I bet you see almost as many kids wearing some sort of pro soccer jersey/shirt/hat as you do wearing pro football team gear.
> I do think that having a stronger high school soccer system would drive more kids to want to play.  As strange as it sounds, many teenage boys gravitate to whatever gets them attention from teenage girls.  If high school soccer games were as popular as high school football games, you'd see more boys wanting to play soccer.


I agree, but you left out the female factor. Soccer is now one of the most popular girls high school sports. As I have said many times, when these women are parents, they will probably sign their kids up for soccer. At some point there will be an inflection point and the critical mass of youth soccer players will make soccer THE single most popular youth sport. After that, it is only a matter of time until it is simply the most popular American sport.


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## MWN (Nov 22, 2017)

ATRTDT said:


> The women need to make more. They are getting paid burger king salary's. $38,000 - $72,000 a year is slave wages for what they do and nothings being done but we have fast food workers pushing for $18-20 hr to flip burgers and our state and citys keep meeting demands for increases???????
> 
> Somethings not right.
> 
> 40 x $20 = $800 x 52 = $41,600


Its right and makes perfect sense given the economics of woman's team sports.  There is no profitable woman's team sport league in the U.S. (e.g. basketball, soccer, hockey, etc.).  They all lose money and exist for purely marketing reasons.  $41.6k to pay players that will not make the club/league any money is bad business if profits are the goal.

How much should the women be subsidized?  The fast food worker argument is rubbish because they work for a profitable enterprise and the free market economy works in their favor.  Your better argument is to look at what bankrupt business pay their employees.  Woman's MLS is a money loosing proposition, has and never will make a profit in the U.S.

The national team is a different story.  Its profitable and the national team players are paid well, assuming they win (top 5 women make over 1.1 million).  The national team is an excellent investment for U.S. Soccer, but paying women to play soccer at the pro level is a money losing proposition and charity.   Heck, the MLS is still a money losing proposition and will be for quite some time.

See, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/sports/soccer/usmnt-uswnt-soccer-equal-pay.html?action=click&contentCollection=Soccer&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

I suggest not bringing women's soccer into any discussion of men's soccer because it detracts from the economic realities of soccer in the U.S.


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## Lambchop (Nov 22, 2017)

MWN said:


> Its right and makes perfect sense given the economics of woman's team sports.  There is no profitable woman's team sport league in the U.S. (e.g. basketball, soccer, hockey, etc.).  They all lose money and exist for purely marketing reasons.  $41.6k to pay players that will not make the club/league any money is bad business if profits are the goal.
> 
> How much should the women be subsidized?  The fast food worker argument is rubbish because they work for a profitable enterprise and the free market economy works in their favor.  Your better argument is to look at what bankrupt business pay their employees.  Woman's MLS is a money loosing proposition, has and never will make a profit in the U.S.
> 
> ...


The women have generated more revenue than men's soccer in 2015, 2016 and appears 2017 as well but alas are way below the men in compensation!


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## Chalklines (Nov 22, 2017)

MWN said:


> Its right and makes perfect sense given the economics of woman's team sports.  There is no profitable woman's team sport league in the U.S. (e.g. basketball, soccer, hockey, etc.).  They all lose money and exist for purely marketing reasons.  $41.6k to pay players that will not make the club/league any money is bad business if profits are the goal.
> 
> How much should the women be subsidized?  The fast food worker argument is rubbish because they work for a profitable enterprise and the free market economy works in their favor.  Your better argument is to look at what bankrupt business pay their employees.  Woman's MLS is a money loosing proposition, has and never will make a profit in the U.S.
> 
> ...


Forget food service. Min wage will be $20 hr in LA shortly. 

Your telling me paying these women min wage is too much?


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## Dr. Richard Hurtz (Nov 22, 2017)

USA is only good at identifying athletes.  USA hasn’t learned how to identify soccer players yet. That’s because soccer players have higher intelligence then a Forrest Gump who runs fast with the football. Soccer is so so much more than being a good athlete. Socccer is freedom.. a player on the pitch can do whatever he likes; move wherever he wants. There’s no one calling out plays from upstairs or coaches calling for a time out to discuss things over. It’s two teams each with eleven players doing whatever the hell they want..  and an Iniesta or Ronaldinho, Zindane, Messi, Ronaldo will out smart you every time. Until America stops looking for athletes and starts looking for intelligent players only then will we be able to compete with the rest of the world. And that’s what a true soccer player is “intelligent “.


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## JJP (Nov 22, 2017)

MWN said:


> As you point out, soccer is unique in that the skills needed to play at a high level (moving the ball with your feet) require years to develop ... 1,000's of touches, but if these freak athletes devoted the same amount of time in the school yard, parks, organized training, etc., to develop those skills then there is no reason our current crop of profession football, baseball and hockey players would not excel at soccer because their weight training would simply move from building mass needed for football to building leaner muscles needed for soccer.


You sound like a really smart guy, but you are incorrectly assuming freak abilities transfers to soccer, and soccer is a unique sport precisely because athletic ability from other sports doesn’t transfer so easily to soccer.

What makes the NBA athletes freaks?  Their size, length and explosiveness.  If you look at the dimensions of top basketball players, their arms and legs are longer.  NBA athletes, if they played soccer, would have huge strides.  But when dribbling with the ball, huge strides are actually a minus, it’s the ability to run with the ball in tight spaces that makes a good dribbler, and the body dimensions required for tight dribbling skills are different than the body dimensions of NBA players.  Most great dribblers have shorter legs and run with high knees so they can use their knee-elbow combo to shield the ball and hit the ball high to low to put backspin on it.  It’s a highly inefficient running style and uses tremendous energy and creates a different type of muscular development.  Soccer players legs look different than basketball players legs. It is also for this reason that taller players rarely dribble.  Carrying extra weight and running in the inefficient soccer dribbling style takes too much out of the bigger player.

How many great basketball players are 6’1”? Very few.  How many great soccer players are 6’1” or shorter? So many, practically all of them, and it seems like Jose Mourinho wants to collect all of the players taller than 6’1” on Manchester United.

There are probably some point guards in the NBA that could have been great soccer players, but guys like LeBron could only play the 3, 4 or target 9.

The same goes for NFL players.  There is no distance running in the NFL.  Its all short sprints followed by rest.  There is no rest for a soccer player.  You are either sprinting or jogging into position to sprint again.  The NFL is loaded with fast twitch players, guys who are capable of extremely fast sprints but then require a rest to recover  their fast twitch muscles.  In contrast, scientific studies have shown that soccer is the ONLY team sport where the athletes have less fast twitch muscle than the average man on the street.  Basically, soccer is loaded with the subset of humans who are fast without excessive fast twitch muscle.  I would guess some NFL cornerbacks could be pretty good soccer players, but most would not come anywhere close to being able to run the full 90 minutes, so I actually believe most NFL players would not cut it as soccer players except as a 9, because nobody expects a 9 to play a full game because once their sprint speed slows down they get subbed out.  International soccer allows 3 subs but in practice it’s really 2 subs plus the 9 because once a 9 gets tired he can’t score.  I don’t think it’s coincidence that Lukaku stopped scoring for Man U. when Mourinho failed to sub him out for 10+ straight games.



> The money argument is sound.  All of these freak athletes, especially the millions of disadvantaged kids ignore soccer as a sport because it doesn't represent the opportunity to hit the lottery that football, baseball, basketball and hockey do.  What would happen if just 20% of these freak athletes focused on soccer, rather than football?


I’ve already told you, what makes NBA and NFL freaks, length, size and loads of fast twitch just doesn’t translate to soccer. And there is plenty of money in soccer. The top soccer players are making assloads of cash.  Off the field marketing for soccer is greater than any other sport because it is the most popular sport in the world.  I’m pretty sure C. Ronaldo makes more money off the field in terms of endorsements than any other athlete.

I really think what makes great players is someone with athletic ability, a good balance of fast twitch and slow twitch muscles, reasonable size (not small but don’t have to be a giant), and love for the game.  You have to love the game to do the countless hours of practice and drilling to be great, and you have to love the game to watch countless hours of games to develop your soccer IQ.  There are a lot of NFL and NBA players who don’t love their game, watch zero film on their own, but it doesn’t matter because of their athletic freakishness.  That never happens in soccer.  The best players are always the guys that played all the time.


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## Round (Nov 22, 2017)

It's funny how much all of these words sound like all of the words us stupid parents have been writing on this forum for years.

I'm pretty sure we as a country were doing better before little kid soccer was monetized.  Parents weren't spending hours driving  for games and practices unless they lived where there were no options.  Grown men in track suit and Fahrenheit were isolated to selling salad shooters  at the fair or fronting digital camera stores.  Things were better.

DA for boys has done nothing for anyone but those track suit wearers.  We have troubles right here in River City they said.  Now look at it, we aren't special.  They made a musical about how stupid we are and were.  Time for a new musical.

Instead of ending it, we have allowed them to expand girls?  We are fools and we know it, but we all individually believe we and are kids are different.  That's  what the track suit wearers live off of.


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## Grace T. (Nov 22, 2017)

JJP said:


> I’m pretty sure C. Ronaldo makes more money off the field in terms of endorsements than any other athlete.
> 
> .


I agree with everything you say about NBA/NFL athletes and how they'd perform in soccer.  But it is also about the money.  The Ronaldos in the world are very few and far between.  And they play for only a handful of mega clubs that dominate their local leagues (2 in Spain, 3 or 4 in England, 2-3 in Germany, 1 in Russia).  A goalkeeper for a 2nd tier club like Sevilla FC in Spain makes about $1M a year.  La Coruna in contrast spends $17M for its entire squad.  If you get down to the division 2s and 3s you are getting below MLS wages.  (You can argue US baseball salaries work similarly if you consider Europe one superstate...but the U.S. dominance in baseball has already slipped so it sort of also proves the point).

So basically, to pull down that salary, a US player would have to forgo college and go directly to Europe.  Pulisic, arguably our best USMNT player, is pulling down a little north of $1M.  He has upside potential...but for an American player starting out, that seems to be the high mark one can aim for.  Add to that a bunch of disincentives the American player has to face to play in Europe: it's a long way from friends and family; they might not speak the local lingo; they have to break through the European academy system which already produces great players and to do that they may need to make the transition as early as high school; the US government double taxes them on their foreign earnings; their soccer education may not be up to an equivalent athlete raised in Europe due to our soccer culture and/or the level of training available; there are immigration issues with Americans resident in Europe; the list goes on.  You'd need a player good enough to compete with the Europeans for the highest level clubs and who's willing to forego the safe option of college and take a risk in Europe for the few potential very high pay days (given the odds for a person getting into Harvard or becoming a Hollywood movie star are better for an American than breaking into a tier 1 European club, let alone becoming it's Ronaldo).


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## JJP (Nov 22, 2017)

Lambchop said:


> The women have generated more revenue than men's soccer in 2015, 2016 and appears 2017 as well but alas are way below the men in compensation!


I find this hard to believe. And if it’s true, it can only be true because numbers were parsed in a way to exclude a huge revenue year for the men.  I’m sure the men’s soccer team earns the greater percentage of revenue by far.

I’m not putting down women’s soccer.  I don’t have a daughter, but if I did I would have her playing something because I wouldn’t want her sitting around never getting in shape. I think it’s great that there are a lot of sports for girls to choose, have fun, and get in shape for.  And I actually do watch women’s soccer during WC years, I try to catch every game I can.

But this idea that girls sports needs equal funding to men, IMO, is just wrong.  Women’s sports has basically taken money from men’s sports for their funding.  And honestly, I don’t see that situation changing any time in the foreseeable future.  So IMO, the first priority always has to be to develop the revenue earning sport first, basically make the men’s game better and more competitive so that it can earn more money.  After the men’s game has earned more money, then a chunk of that extra money, IMO should without question be put into the women’s game to develop it.

I just think it’s backasswards and terrible business sense to prioritize the non-revenue portion of the sport.  Right now, since we have been bounced from the WC, we need to prioritize fixing men’s soccer in the US as our first priority.


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## Ballon d'Or (Nov 22, 2017)

Mr. Mac said:


> The main problem is our country's greatest athletes are not playing soccer. Pick any running back in the NFL, or or just about any NBA player and teach them good fundamental soccer from the same age they learned their current sport, and we would be a force to be reckoned with, if not the absolute #1 team in the world.


Gawd! No wonder we as a country suck in soccer because we still have a lot of friggen idiots like these. I'm sorry to be so bluntly insulting but just have gotten so tired of this stupid, repeated argument which proves a poster's lack of soccer knowledge.

It's not that U.S. Soccer lacks great athletes. It LACKS sophisticated soccer trainers and parents!!! Most coaches at the top clubs just inherit and recruit the top athletes and don't develop their players' skills or tactical awareness measurably. And most parents just think their kids winning more this season than last is development. World-class soccer involves phenomenal speed of thought, awareness and creativity on top of physical movement, which we lack collectively in a group of 11. There are very, very few parents, youth coaches, high school coaches and college coaches who can develop that beyond the normal mediocre level found in the U.S. And we end up with a national team full of great athletes but little sophistication. Like taking a bunch of great checkers players to a global chess tournament. Yay!

The biggest hurdle putting us behind other countries is our child labor laws. While academies in other countries develop kids from a young age then profit modestly to enormously when they become full-fledged professionals, they don't have to concern themselves with wins and losses to stay solvent. They're vested in the long-term development of kids. Not so in this country. They just have you from year to year and are at the mercy of the whim of the unknowledgeable parents whose biggest hope is that their kid lands a college scholarship at best, not a professional contract in Europe.

There's even recent proof of what I'm talking about in this country. A former Barcelona transplant took a group of girls, none being exceptional athletes, and developed them from a young age into the top '98 team in the entire nation for several years. Yep! Look up De Anza Force 98 Girls and coach Andres Deza. A sophisticated soccer dad. He's an exception. So are Christian Pulisic's parents.

Until more exceptions appear and prosper so it becomes normal, or at least until there's at least 11 for each gender, we as a country will always be mired in mediocrity.

Forget about getting all the top atheletes. Enough play soccer in this *country. We need the best coaches and smarter parents.

Rant over. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!


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## Josep (Nov 23, 2017)

Simisoccerfan said:


> That hardly seems true.  Just look at the math.  Parents are paying this guy $25 per hour to train with 7 other kids?   That's $1300 per year.  Say he has an amazing retention rate and 80% of his slots are filled by return customers.  To fill the other 20% he would need 250 kids to pay for his services in addition to the 77 kids paying him every month.  That's a lot of kids and money.





LASTMAN14 said:


> If Josep is referring to the trainer I think he is referencing then quite possibly his number is a bit high per evening, but very possible with this individual. Not sure throughout the year he is hitting the number suggested. We have been to his training's and he does get the numbers. He does multiple sessions per day.



Don’t forget the holiday week camps. Granted he’s paying for fields, but he’s got a strong system.


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## BarcaLover (Nov 23, 2017)

Ballon d'Or said:


> There's even recent proof of what I'm talking about in this country. A former Barcelona transplant took a group of girls, none being exceptional athletes, and developed them from a young age into the top '98 team in the entire nation for several years. Yep! Look up De Anza Force 98 Girls and coach Andres Deza. A sophisticated soccer dad. He's an exception. So are Christian Pulisic's parents.
> 
> Until more exceptions appear and prosper so it becomes normal, or at least until there's at least 11 for each gender, we as a country will always be mired in mediocrity.
> 
> ...


Give Deza or Brian Kleiban our National Teams and we would see a DRAMATIC change in our team’s style of play and results.  

Our problems as a country are we have too many coaches that don’t know how to coach and parents that think winning records at U8 is what development is all about.


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## Lambchop (Nov 23, 2017)

BarcaLover said:


> Give Deza or Brian Kleiban our National Teams and we would see a DRAMATIC change in our team’s style of play and results.
> 
> Our problems as a country are we have too many coaches that don’t know how to coach and parents that think winning records at U8 is what development is all about.


I guess the Italians better improve their youth development program too since they didn't qualify for World Cup!


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## MWN (Nov 24, 2017)

JJP said:


> I find this hard to believe. And if it’s true, it can only be true because numbers were parsed in a way to exclude a huge revenue year for the men.  I’m sure the men’s soccer team earns the greater percentage of revenue by far.
> 
> I’m not putting down women’s soccer.  I don’t have a daughter, but if I did I would have her playing something because I wouldn’t want her sitting around never getting in shape. I think it’s great that there are a lot of sports for girls to choose, have fun, and get in shape for.  And I actually do watch women’s soccer during WC years, I try to catch every game I can.
> 
> ...


@JJP - While we may disagree regarding football athletes potential to make good soccer players, we do agree on this point (sort of).

@Lambchop - There is no disagreement (even by US Soccer) that the USWNT's revenue exceeded expectations and the winning women have/will make a profit v. the losing men when it comes to game revenues.  A 2016 NY Times article recognized: "But in 2015, the women’s team won the World Cup and then embarked on a scheduled 10-city victory tour that yielded an eight-figure bump to U.S. Soccer’s bottom line.  As a result, the women brought in more than $23 million in game revenue, about $16 million more than the federation had projected. An anomaly? Yes. And a welcome one if you are U.S. Soccer." (NY Times Article, 2016)

When it comes to Olympic and Wold Cup efforts participation by the US (men or women) is not just about money, but a point of national pride.  The investment, even if break even, is worth it and we know that US Soccer through game revenues, FIFA bonuses and the sale of merchandise and rights has the war chest to adequately fund the efforts.  The problem is the men's program is substantially more profitable than the woman's program from a FIFA perpective.  For example, U.S. Soccer received from FIFA $9 million when the men’s team advanced to the second round of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, but only about $2 million when the women won the 2015 World Cup in Canada.  Each of those bonuses were paid because of on-field performance and arguably earned by the respective teams, is it fair to deny the men their bonus and direct those funds to the woman?  As long as the men's program remains what the world will tune too, the pay disparity will exist.  If somebody can figure out how to get the world to watch the slower speed of the woman's game at the same rate as the much faster men's game, then the pay gap will equalize.

Notwithstanding the above, the fact remains that professional women's team sports in the U.S. are unprofitable ventures that lose millions.  The WNBA, NWSL, NPF (National Pro Fastpitch) have yet to turn a single dollar of profit.  You simply don't pay athletes millions of dollars when the leagues lose millions of dollars, to do so would bankrupt the league and drive these benevolent long-term investors away.  Simple economics.


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## jsmaxwell (Nov 24, 2017)

davin said:


> Huh?
> 
> Cole Beasley is 5'7 -5'8, 175 lbs, and the best slot receiver in the NFL.


Funny. I'm guessing you think Dez Bryant is the best wideout in the NFL as well?


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## Lambchop (Nov 25, 2017)

MWN said:


> @JJP - While we may disagree regarding football athletes potential to make good soccer players, we do agree on this point (sort of).
> 
> @Lambchop - There is no disagreement (even by US Soccer) that the USWNT's revenue exceeded expectations and the winning women have/will make a profit v. the losing men when it comes to game revenues.  A 2016 NY Times article recognized: "But in , the women’s team won the World Cup and then embarked on a scheduled 10-city victory tour that yielded an eight-figure bump to U.S. Soccer’s bottom line.  As a result, the women brought in more than $23 million in game revenue, about $16 million more than the federation had projected. An anomaly? Yes. And a welcome one if you are U.S. Soccer." (NY Times Article, 20
> 
> ...


So you believe everything the Times writes about.   Time will tell.  Frankly, the men's game is faster but very boring when they constantly loose.  My family and friends would rather watch a winning game than a boring one


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## Lambchop (Nov 25, 2017)

MWN said:


> @JJP - While we may disagree regarding football athletes potential to make good soccer players, we do agree on this point (sort of).
> 
> @Lambchop - There is no disagreement (even by US Soccer) that the USWNT's revenue exceeded expectations and the winning women have/will make a profit v. the losing men when it comes to game revenues.  A 2016 NY Times article recognized: "But in 2015, the women’s team won the World Cup and then embarked on a scheduled 10-city victory tour that yielded an eight-figure bump to U.S. Soccer’s bottom line.  As a result, the women brought in more than $23 million in game revenue, about $16 million more than the federation had projected. An anomaly? Yes. And a welcome one if you are U.S. Soccer." (NY Times Article, 2016)
> 
> ...


Ya simple economics, and you believe everything you read in the Times.   Frankly, the men's game is faster but it is very boring to watch a losing game and we do not attend games for a losing team.  I would much rather watch a winning game.  Time will tell.  As for FIFA, they are incredibly corrupt and there is so much that needs to change from within the organization.  Hopefully the women will continue to qualify for future WC, so forward and onward.  Interesting how men equate fast with good and better.


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## MWN (Nov 25, 2017)

Lambchop said:


> Ya simple economics, and you believe everything you read in the Times.   Frankly, the men's game is faster but it is very boring to watch a losing game and we do not attend games for a losing team.  I would much rather watch a winning game.  Time will tell.  As for FIFA, they are incredibly corrupt and there is so much that needs to change from within the organization.  Hopefully the women will continue to qualify for future WC, so forward and onward.  Interesting how men equate fast with good and better.


@Lambchop,
Please don't confuse pro-woman's team sports with the Olympic or National team.  These are two separate issues.  One is not profitable, but the later is profitable.  The facts reported by the Times are the facts.  Opinions of those facts may differ.  What the Times reported is what other news outlets also report, so yes, I tend to believe these indisputable facts.  Here is another article confirming the ultimate point of the Times article: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-womens-soccer-team-gets-2-million-world-cup-win-germany-got-35-million-2014.  

The revenues generated by the men's game are not just a percentage increase, but multiples compared to the woman's game.  Nobody is arguing we abandon support of the national teams, rather, the failure to recognize the economic realities of professional soccer in the US for both men and women is a major disconnect by those seeking to solve the ultimate question "How to improve US soccer."


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## JJP (Nov 25, 2017)

Lambchop said:


> Ya simple economics, and you believe everything you read in the Times.   Frankly, the men's game is faster but it is very boring to watch a losing game and we do not attend games for a losing team.  I would much rather watch a winning game.  Time will tell.  As for FIFA, they are incredibly corrupt and there is so much that needs to change from within the organization.  Hopefully the women will continue to qualify for future WC, so forward and onward.  *Interesting how men equate fast with good and better.*


Everybody, including women’s coaches is looking for speed.  Speed of foot and speed of thought.  The difference between academy and flight 1, at least among the boys, is the speed of play.  Every level you move up the players in general get faster, both mentally and physically.  So I would say yes, on an individual and team level, more speed is good and better.

Whether speed makes the game more enjoyable to watch, that is up to individual taste.  For example, I usually prefer men’s team sports because I’m used to the speed of the men’s game so the women’s game seems slow, but I enjoy women’s volleyball more than men’s volleyball.  The men spike so hard and fast points are over too quick.  The slower speed and less explosiveness of the women’s game, for me, makes it more enjoyable to watch.  Plus the girls look great in volleyball uniforms.


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## jimbohonky (Nov 26, 2017)

We need to follow the example of all the top world class soccer academies and clubs and recruit our talent from high school basketball and American football teams!
Wait, what?


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## Vin (Nov 26, 2017)

Is Tom Byer the answer


https://www.si.com/soccer/2017/10/26/tom-byer-us-soccer-pilot-program-seattle-sounders-japan-china


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## Real Deal (Nov 26, 2017)

Vin said:


> Is Tom Byer the answer
> 
> 
> https://www.si.com/soccer/2017/10/26/tom-byer-us-soccer-pilot-program-seattle-sounders-japan-china


Interesting, but I am confused.  Japan's women play more of a Tiki-Taka style of play.  I've watched, and they make short rapid passes, playing completely as a team.  In this article, he seems to be suggesting a more "Ronaldo-esque" style, using just your own skills to move the ball, instead of team play, (as the Japan women do) where you use your teammates to move the ball.  Am I missing something? 

Sure, of course the kids could benefit by having their international coach parents start to train them from birth (HEHE)... But I am almost certain that US Soccer already values kids that have some success trying to play like Ronaldo...


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## JJP (Nov 27, 2017)

Real Deal said:


> Interesting, but I am confused.  Japan's women play more of a Tiki-Taka style of play.  I've watched, and they make short rapid passes, playing completely as a team.  In this article, he seems to be suggesting a more "Ronaldo-esque" style, using just your own skills to move the ball, instead of team play, (as the Japan women do) where you use your teammates to move the ball.  Am I missing something?
> 
> Sure, of course the kids could benefit by having their international coach parents start to train them from birth (HEHE)... But I am almost certain that US Soccer already values kids that have some success trying to play like Ronaldo...


No he is advocating development of ball control in tight spaces via repetition of coerver style soccer drills from simple to increasing complexity.  Doing all those drills takes so much time and effort, Byers is saying only a parent (right now dads but in the future moms too) can take the time to train young soccer players.

This is basically what I did with my son.  It’s a great way to develop ball control but my kid (and from what I have seen most kids) get bored of doing these drills.  Also, I was not a good enough player or trainer to go beyond the most basic of these coerver drills, or show my kid how to translate the skills he acquired from coerver drills to actual play.

However, nobody else was doing this and it helped him reach a hi level of play before he hit the wall of where my limited coaching abilities could take him.


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## younothat (Nov 27, 2017)

"The reasons given for the United States’ World Cup qualifying failure funnel down to one or two issues: We simply don’t have the talent. Or we don’t properly develop talent"
http://thefederalist.com/2017/11/27/structural-changes-soccer-worthy-goal-no-guarantee-success/

The latter seems more likely to me...

"The youth system in this country isn’t ideal. The pay-to-play structure has produced a discouraging participation rate as measured by income. Only the upper-middle-class and rich can consistently afford the thousands of dollars a year it costs just for one child to play club soccer.

On top of that, player development loses out to the focus on winning. Bigger and faster players often take priority over skills as a result. But I’m skeptical of the focus on (mostly European) developmental structures as the cure-all for America’s soccer woes, at least in the short term"

European countries only have to scout and develop eligible talent the square mileage of one or two _states_. That’s with dozens and dozens of _professional _clubs (England alone has nearly 100) who have development academies. Many have a century or more of entrenchment in their community. Soccer also competes with maybe one or two other sports in terms of popularity. It will grab the best players in Europe almost by default.

The only successful soccer nation that even compares in size and population to the United States is Brazil. We’ll just never have the soccer culture they enjoy. And we do not want to mimic their club system.

Of course, competent youth systems that encourage development help. But the United States is a nascent soccer nation. Soccer does not enjoy the financial stability at any level that football, baseball, or basketball does. Neither U.S. Soccer nor Major League Soccer benefit nearly as much from an essentially free development league in college like the National Football League or National Basketball Association.

CEO of U.S. Club Soccer Kevin Payne says parents in his organization spend around $1.5 _billion_ annually on soccer. That certainly isn’t the only club soccer organization in this country. Who foots that bill to end pay-to-play? U.S. Soccer has a $130-140 million surplus. Put all of that into U.S. club soccer and you’ve chipped away at 10 percent of the cost for a single organization.

We should certainly seek to end pay-to-play club systems and increase focus on playing the game properly. I just don’t think it’s going to be that easy or quick to fix"


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## watfly (Nov 27, 2017)

JJP said:


> No he is advocating development of ball control in tight spaces via repetition of coerver style soccer drills from simple to increasing complexity.  Doing all those drills takes so much time and effort, Byers is saying only a parent (right now dads but in the future moms too) can take the time to train young soccer players.
> 
> This is basically what I did with my son.  It’s a great way to develop ball control but my kid (and from what I have seen most kids) get bored of doing these drills.  Also, I was not a good enough player or trainer to go beyond the most basic of these coerver drills, or show my kid how to translate the skills he acquired from coerver drills to actual play.
> 
> However, nobody else was doing this and it helped him reach a hi level of play before he hit the wall of where my limited coaching abilities could take him.


There was a great segment about Tom Byer on a recent episode of Real Sports (HBO).  They also interviewed Kyle Martino who was a big proponent of Byer's methodologies.  To be successful Byer believes that "soccer starts at home" (also the name of his book) at a very young age which happens in the dominate World Cup countries but doesn't happen in the US.  This is another cultural aspect of soccer that the US doesn't have.  His ideas have worked in other countries...will it work in the US? IDK but I think US Soccer should give it a shot, because what they are doing now clearly isn't working.

On another note, I don't buy in to the premise that the best athletes don't play soccer.  Our participation in youth soccer dwarfs that of other World Cup successful countries.  We certainly have a large enough talent pool to choose 26 of the world's best athletes.  I've never looked at the USMNT and thought they weren't athletic.  But I have looked at our teams and thought they lacked touch, creativity and good decision making.


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## LASTMAN14 (Nov 27, 2017)

watfly said:


> There was a great segment about Tom Byer on a recent episode of Real Sports (HBO).  They also interviewed Kyle Martino who was a big proponent of Byer's methodologies.  To be successful Byer believes that "soccer starts at home" (also the name of his book) at a very young age which happens in the dominate World Cup countries but doesn't happen in the US.  This is another cultural aspect of soccer that the US doesn't have.  His ideas have worked in other countries...will it work in the US? IDK but I think US Soccer should give it a shot, because what they are doing now clearly isn't working.
> 
> On another note, I don't buy in to the premise that the best athletes don't play soccer.  Our participation in youth soccer dwarfs that of other World Cup successful countries.  We certainly have a large enough talent pool to choose 26 of the world's best athletes.  I've never looked at the USMNT and thought they weren't athletic.  But I have looked at our teams and thought they lacked touch, creativity and good decision making.


Saw that piece on HBO. Really interesting. I think Byer's ideas (though not original) are a great launching point. Yet, he may be the right person for the job.


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## JJP (Nov 27, 2017)

watfly said:


> There was a great segment about Tom Byer on a recent episode of Real Sports (HBO).  They also interviewed Kyle Martino who was a big proponent of Byer's methodologies.  To be successful Byer believes that "soccer starts at home" (also the name of his book) at a very young age which happens in the dominate World Cup countries but doesn't happen in the US.  This is another cultural aspect of soccer that the US doesn't have.  His ideas have worked in other countries...will it work in the US? IDK but I think US Soccer should give it a shot, because what they are doing now clearly isn't working.


Byer is responsible for the Coerver revolution in Japan, and the spread of Coerver methods in Japan is the reason why there are so many highly technical, skilled Japanese soccer players, both men and women.  What worked in Japan could work in America, but I have my doubts because 1) I think American kids and Japanese kids are different in their attitudes towards training, 2) you need huge batches of kids, not just an isolated few, to really get the benefits of Coerver training, and 3) Coerver training benefits the women’s game IMO more than the men’s game.

The drills Byer advocates are great and they will improve in tight ball control, but they are boring for most kids to do and very few kids, like practically none, want to spend a lot of time doing them.  I solved this problem with my own kid by just forcing him to do the drills, but I’m pretty hard assed when it comes to training and technique, and it was a pain in the ass to make the kid do it.  The kids are more willing to do it if they are doing it with other kids, but no matter how many kids I tried to get to do these drills with my son, none of them would do it beyond a session or two, and several told me they hated doing those drills even though it was making them better.

I think the Japanese people have a great attitude in terms of being willing to put in time and sacrifice to be great or perfect (who else would devote 20 year’s of training to learn how to craft a samurai sword), so if you can convince the Japanese, yea these drills are hard and boring as hell, but if you do them every day for 5 years your kid will be awesome, Japanese parents will make their kids do those drills for 5 years.  I think it will be MUCH, MUCH harder to get American kids to do these type of drills as much as you need to do them to get the full benefits.

I also think the Coerver drills are most useful in futsal and the women’s game, not so much the men’s game.  Almost all of these Coerver fast footwork drills can’t be done at full speed, and they are easier to do without error when wearing futsal shoes, the studs on cleats make the moves harder.  You are not running full speed very much in futsal, and you have to move the ball at crazy angles in tight spaces, so the Coerver moves work really well in futsal.  The slower speed of the women’s game also made it easier to do Coerver moves, the slower you run it’s easier to do the move.  Plus, unless the female player is built like a slim boy, the women’s change of direction, TBH, is brutally slow.  Because these Coerver moves are usually change of direction moves, they are highly effective in tripping up the girls.

My son used to play lot of indoor soccer and he used to look like Ronaldo playing vs high school or even college girls as a 6th or 7th grader.  But when he tried the same moves on boys outdoors, he got stripped and abused.  The boys were so much harder to beat with the initial move, and even if you beat them, their recovery was so fast most of the moves just didn’t work.

What I’m saying is, Byers approach is better than what we have now and will improve US soccer if we can get kids to do it, but at least for the men’s game, it is not a magic bullet that will solve our problems.  It is just one key tool in the toolbox.



> On another note, I don't buy in to the premise that the best athletes don't play soccer.  Our participation in youth soccer dwarfs that of other World Cup successful countries.  We certainly have a large enough talent pool to choose 26 of the world's best athletes.  I've never looked at the USMNT and thought they weren't athletic.  But I have looked at our teams and thought they lacked touch, creativity and good decision making.


I agree we have enough athletic talent.  But the soccer training is so haphazard in this country the best soccer athletes are not always getting the best training.  The reality is, especially at younger age groups, the best kids were trained by dads who know what they are doing, but their sons might not necessarily be the best soccer athletes.


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## watfly (Nov 27, 2017)

JJP said:


> Byer is responsible for the Coerver revolution in Japan, and the spread of Coerver methods in Japan is the reason why there are so many highly technical, skilled Japanese soccer players, both men and women.  What worked in Japan could work in America, but I have my doubts because 1) I think American kids and Japanese kids are different in their attitudes towards training, 2) you need huge batches of kids, not just an isolated few, to really get the benefits of Coerver training, and 3) Coerver training benefits the women’s game IMO more than the men’s game.
> 
> The drills Byer advocates are great and they will improve in tight ball control, but they are boring for most kids to do and very few kids, like practically none, want to spend a lot of time doing them.  I solved this problem with my own kid by just forcing him to do the drills, but I’m pretty hard assed when it comes to training and technique, and it was a pain in the ass to make the kid do it.  The kids are more willing to do it if they are doing it with other kids, but no matter how many kids I tried to get to do these drills with my son, none of them would do it beyond a session or two, and several told me they hated doing those drills even though it was making them better.
> 
> ...


I don't know the detailed technical aspects of Byer's or Coerver's training, but my overall impression was that it was more about Byer's philosophy that the parents should be involved with their childs soccer development (touch and relationship with the ball) at a very early age (i.e. soccer starts at home).  This concept certainly has played a role in Pulisic becoming a great American player. 

Your question of will it work in the US is a good one.  Unfortunately, most American parents just want to pay the money to drop their kid off with a coach to teach them soccer for 3-6 hours a week.  They would rather delegate the authority and pay someone than do it themselves.   Ironically, its probably some of the same parents that are complaining on another thread about how Club soccer is a scam.  While I don't care for the sales tactics and BS that many clubs/coaches spew,  you can't expect even a great coach to turn your kid into a World Cup player with only a few hours of training a week.  If we want our kids to play at the highest level, we as parents need to take more ownership in our kids training.   While training your own kid is way easier said then done you can still encourage your child to get touches at home, play with other kids in the backyard, etc.


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## Grace T. (Nov 27, 2017)

JJP said:


> I also think the Coerver drills are most useful in futsal and the women’s game, not so much the men’s game.  Almost all of these Coerver fast footwork drills can’t be done at full speed, and they are easier to do without error when wearing futsal shoes, the studs on cleats make the moves harder.  You are not running full speed very much in futsal, and you have to move the ball at crazy angles in tight spaces, so the Coerver moves work really well in futsal.  The slower speed of the women’s game also made it easier to do Coerver moves, the slower you run it’s easier to do the move.  Plus, unless the female player is built like a slim boy, the women’s change of direction, TBH, is brutally slow.  Because these Coerver moves are usually change of direction moves, they are highly effective in tripping up the girls.
> .


I think you are absolutely right that the effectiveness of the Coerver moves depend on the speed of the player.  I think it's therefore easier for girls to do the moves than boys, but that doesn't mean the moves are more effective for girls.  Indeed, many of the moves are named after the male players that made them famous-- whether the Ronaldo chop, the Maradona spin, or the Messi fake.

The problem with Coerver is that while it's really great at improving ball handling, it doesn't do a great job at some of the other skills.  If you look at their pyramid of skills, ball mastery (where much of the basic Coerver course is devoted) occupies the huge space at the bottom of the pyramid, below receiving/first touch (which others routinely say is the most critical skill).  They do give proper nods to the passing game, but the bias is clearly that if the player is able they should try to beat the opposition, rather than back or short pass it.  It's very different from the tiki-taka system.  Also, the teaching materials aren't all created equally (the finishing, for example, is much weaker than the ball moves section and I don't remember seeing anything on off ball movement).  I've been through the goalkeeping course.  I wasn't impressed..it was like they were trying to build a goalkeeping philosophy to cram into a pyramid rather than generate a comprehensive new philosophy.  If we ever do get a national curriculum Coerver has its place, particularly in the early ages, but it's not a silver bullet.

My son had great success with Coerver at the U8 in AYSO...with just a handful of moves routinely able to beat slower players who didn't know about the moves.  I see that less in the youngers for club, particularly on the smaller fields with less room...the emphasis is more on the passing game or run and boot soccer (I've seen both types of coaches yell at the player for trying to beat an opponent on the dribble when a passing or running option was available).  And then it's not always taught correctly....it's not enough to learn the move but you have to know which moves are appropriate for what circumstances....I remember once seeing a Coerver trained striker try to beat a younger keeper on the one v one with the roulette....keeper smoothered on the one v one and the striker went flying into the goal....a toe poke or the chip would have been better options (or even a rollover towards center if the keeper has left the far post open and hesitates).


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## JJP (Nov 27, 2017)

Grace T. said:


> I think you are absolutely right that the effectiveness of the Coerver moves depend on the speed of the player.  I think it's therefore easier for girls to do the moves than boys, but that doesn't mean the moves are more effective for girls.  Indeed, many of the moves are named after the male players that made them famous-- whether the Ronaldo chop, the Maradona spin, or the Messi fake.


Both the top boys and top girls can do the coerver moves, what I’m saying is that a huge percentage of the Coerver moves, which will work vs. girls, will not work vs. boys.  That is because as girls mature, their ability to change direction gets much worse, whereas the boys are able to come to a full stop,and change direction extremely fast.  I saw my son and another stud academy player (my son was in 7th grade, his friend was in 8th grade) do the whole litany of coerver moves vs scholarshipped college girls breaking their ankles for half hour straight before they got tired and the bigger girls used their size and weight to hip slam or shoulder them off the ball.

The reason is that as the girls mature, their hips get wider and causes their knees to angle in making them a little knock kneed, so they can’t plant hard and push off to change direction.  Whereas boys will jam their foot into the turf and smash their full weight onto the knee and ankle, flex their knee, and explode off their planted foot to change direction, the girls can’t do that.  They have to take 2 or 3 little steps when they are running fast to change directions, they can’t just plant and move because their knee can’t take the pressure.  Plus they carry extra weight on their hips and chest which keep moving in the original direction the girl was traveling, so the weight shift needed to smoothly change direction is just not possible for mature girls.

That’s why I say the Coerver moves are more effective for the women’s game.  The attacking player has a greater advantage due to the women having limited change of direction, so the Coerver moves are more effective.



> The problem with Coerver is that while it's really great at improving ball handling, it doesn't do a great job at some of the other skills.  If you look at their pyramid of skills, ball mastery (where much of the basic Coerver course is devoted) occupies the huge space at the bottom of the pyramid, below receiving/first touch (which others routinely say is the most critical skill).  They do give proper nods to the passing game, but the bias is clearly that if the player is able they should try to beat the opposition, rather than back or short pass it.  It's very different from the tiki-taka system.  Also, the teaching materials aren't all created equally (the finishing, for example, is much weaker than the ball moves section and I don't remember seeing anything on off ball movement).  I've been through the goalkeeping course.  I wasn't impressed..it was like they were trying to build a goalkeeping philosophy to cram into a pyramid rather than generate a comprehensive new philosophy.  If we ever do get a national curriculum Coerver has its place, particularly in the early ages, but it's not a silver bullet.


I agree with you.  A parent can train basic coerver moves, but without greater expertise and more bodies to run passing drills, training your own kids in passing/receiving, except for the most rudimentary basics, is not possible.  There is a need for good coaches and top notch academies.  My point is, kids should go into academy having mastered their 1v1 and coerver skills, by practice on their own, and playing small sided games.  Otherwise, IMO those kids are wasting their time in academy.



> My son had great success with Coerver at the U8 in AYSO...with just a handful of moves routinely able to beat slower players who didn't know about the moves.  I see that less in the youngers for club, particularly on the smaller fields with less room...the emphasis is more on the passing game or run and boot soccer (I've seen both types of coaches yell at the player for trying to beat an opponent on the dribble when a passing or running option was available).  And then it's not always taught correctly....it's not enough to learn the move but you have to know which moves are appropriate for what circumstances...


Yea I agree, coerver is a first step and then you need good coaching to teach them how to combine coerver moves with pass/receive, good shape, give and go, etc.  It’s a critical first step, but just a first step.


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## JJP (Nov 27, 2017)

watfly said:


> Your question of will it work in the US is a good one.  Unfortunately, most American parents just want to pay the money to drop their kid off with a coach to teach them soccer for 3-6 hours a week.  They would rather delegate the authority and pay someone than do it themselves.   Ironically, its probably some of the same parents that are complaining on another thread about how Club soccer is a scam.  While I don't care for the sales tactics and BS that many clubs/coaches spew,  you can't expect even a great coach to turn your kid into a World Cup player with only a few hours of training a week.  If we want our kids to play at the highest level, we as parents need to take more ownership in our kids training.   While training your own kid is way easier said then done you can still encourage your child to get touches at home, play with other kids in the backyard, etc.


Agree 100%.  But it is difficult training your own kid, so I don’t blame parents who want someone else to do it.  The issue is, I’m not sure you can even pay someone else to do it.  It takes a certain amount of “Tiger Mom” parenting to get the kid to do a lot of Coerver drilling in my experience, and only a parent can really do that.


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## Not_that_Serious (Nov 28, 2017)

Mr. Mac said:


> I don't know..but seeing men that are 6'7" and have the quickness they do plus their jumping ability.. I am pretty sure they could at least be great defenders or holding mids. They have cardio for days too.  But I agree about Hockey or any non lineman in the NFL, and I would even say most MLB player's except for pitchers, first basemen and Albert Pujols would great too. Haha.
> 
> It's a shame too..Our best female athlete's have been playing since they were toddlers and look at our USWNT and their success (until Jill Ellis started going coo coo that is!)


Thats no our biggest issue. The problem is training. If kids at Rec level where trained like club kids, the amount of kids that would remain in the system would increase - they'd have confidence and ability to play. when kids are competent in what they do, they have more fun. The more kids we have that are competent doing the basic things, the better the competition will be at rec level. Better competition means better development. With more competition at bottom level, these kids will flow into higher level programs - Signature/Plus. As our rec levels increase in quality, the levels above it will benefit. To use the other major sport references, kids should know how to field/catch a ball, properly throw a ball and properly swing a bat - then they can move into situational play. more kids knowing how to do these things make games better. One key component missing in these discussions are Clubs dont usually have rec programs - i can probably count the number that do, in So Cal, on one hand. So Clubs have no investment at that level and just want to pluck kids up to make $.


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## Grace T. (Nov 28, 2017)

Not_that_Serious said:


> Thats no our biggest issue. The problem is training. If kids at Rec level where trained like club kids, the amount of kids that would remain in the system would increase - they'd have confidence and ability to play. when kids are competent in what they do, they have more fun. The more kids we have that are competent doing the basic things, the better the competition will be at rec level. Better competition means better development. With more competition at bottom level, these kids will flow into higher level programs - Signature/Plus. As our rec levels increase in quality, the levels above it will benefit. To use the other major sport references, kids should know how to field/catch a ball, properly throw a ball and properly swing a bat - then they can move into situational play. more kids knowing how to do these things make games better. One key component missing in these discussions are Clubs dont usually have rec programs - i can probably count the number that do, in So Cal, on one hand. So Clubs have no investment at that level and just want to pluck kids up to make $.


Agree, but there's a reason most clubs don't have a rec program: if you want professional coaches you'd have to pay them, which essentially means the same expense as club, only with fewer players (5-7 on a team) bearing the salary.  Otherwise, you have to rely on volunteers, and we have AYSO for that.  And the main problem being with AYSO volunteers is that the parents didn't play, and since your coach is picked at random, you never know what you are going to get unless you volunteer yourself.  Their curriculum is actually pretty good and focuses on the basics, though it's come under criticism for using too many lines and too much skill-based education, instead of the let them play philosophy of US Soccer.  RealSoCal, for example, has the WVSL affiliated with it, but that program is also volunteer based.  Simi Premier has one too.  I've reffed a few of the games at both...about the same quality of AYSO (biggest difference is a little more flexibility in forming teams, which means some of the teams are more lopsided, while AYSO leans more towards randomized equal teams though one gifted kid can easily throw off that balance).   This all changes though as the kids to have come up in the late 90s and 00s begin to have kids of their own that are playing age, and will be very different once the current crop has kids.  European rec soccer works in large part because it has parents that played.


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## LASTMAN14 (Jan 5, 2018)

Got this article/interview from Goal Nation. Interesting perspectives on soccer in US.
http://mailchi.mp/a947299e7bac/jbbmi4eni8-1191785?e=6f8c858048


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## smellycleats (Jan 5, 2018)

Mr. Mac said:


> The main problem is our country's greatest athletes are not playing soccer. Pick any running back in the NFL, or or just about any NBA player and teach them good fundamental soccer from the same age they learned their current sport, and we would be a force to be reckoned with, if not the absolute #1 team in the world.


Might be true on the men’s side but not on the women’s side. Best American female athletes  play soccer.


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## Soccer43 (Jan 6, 2018)

interesting articles - I especially liked this quote from Brian Smith:
_
"Replace national team players who are entitled and comfortable, with fighters who love the country and live and love what it means to win for the United States of America!


I’ll take a kid with work ethic, vision, and a desire to scrap for his country over a gifted or talented athlete who isn’t sure where they come from or what they’re playing for."_


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## Not_that_Serious (Jan 6, 2018)

Grace T. said:


> Agree, but there's a reason most clubs don't have a rec program: if you want professional coaches you'd have to pay them, which essentially means the same expense as club, only with fewer players (5-7 on a team) bearing the salary.  Otherwise, you have to rely on volunteers, and we have AYSO for that.  And the main problem being with AYSO volunteers is that the parents didn't play, and since your coach is picked at random, you never know what you are going to get unless you volunteer yourself.  Their curriculum is actually pretty good and focuses on the basics, though it's come under criticism for using too many lines and too much skill-based education, instead of the let them play philosophy of US Soccer.  RealSoCal, for example, has the WVSL affiliated with it, but that program is also volunteer based.  Simi Premier has one too.  I've reffed a few of the games at both...about the same quality of AYSO (biggest difference is a little more flexibility in forming teams, which means some of the teams are more lopsided, while AYSO leans more towards randomized equal teams though one gifted kid can easily throw off that balance).   This all changes though as the kids to have come up in the late 90s and 00s begin to have kids of their own that are playing age, and will be very different once the current crop has kids.  European rec soccer works in large part because it has parents that played.


Aldo Clubs need field space and rent - money. LAGOC just started program lil ones to rec to midlevel to club. The correct path/gateway. You dont need pro coaching at lil ages - just a system parents/volunteers get versed in. USSF could do a mass push to get thousands and thousands to F/D levels but doesnt make them $. It would in long run but they want quick ROI. MX based teams in so cal tend to get good training, as well as bad habits, because coaches have played. The key is in other countries is the fact clubs are community based - via school or local academy. Imo system needs to be built out this way. Would help with club fees, get more kids inolved (many cities stip % scholarship players) and clubs would have to be more ethical in business practices. You can also get more people involved to get sponsored training. Yes you would still get people who might not have played, but dont need that at under 8-9 years of age - just passionate educated people with ONE method of training for that club. MLS/USSF has skated, for decades now, with putting cost on parents. Now they have money, time to tweak the system and require all clubs to build from rec up as well


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## GoldenFjord (Jan 12, 2018)

SBFDad said:


> Our main problem? Not even close. This a massive over-simplification. Iceland, a country with a population of 332k, qualified in Europe. The US, a country with a population of 323M, failed to qualify in CONCACAF. This has very little do to with the “best” athletes picking other sports. It has to do with the lack of a soccer culture and identity in this country. It has to do with the poor identification and development of talent in this country. There are so many shortfalls in the system, from culture to league structure. Not enough time to get neck deep here, but you should know that you are way off base.


The kicker for the Raiders was an incredible soccer player. He switched in high school because no one cared about soccer. Probably didn't hurt that kicking is stupidly easy in comparison.


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