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.
LA TIMES: Is youth soccer training to blame for American team failure to make WC?
- Thread starter Vin
- Start date
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.
Lambchop
GOLD
Well if your average yearly temperature is 35 degrees, I guess you would spend a great deal of time playing a sport indoors.
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.
Agreed with Davin. Check out “At All Costs”, a good documentary on Netflix about the rise of AAU / club basketball.
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).
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).
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.
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.
Simisoccerfan
PREMIER
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.
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.
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.
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.
outside!
DA
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.
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/...atedCoverage®ion=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.
Chalklines
GOLD
Dr. Richard Hurtz
SILVER
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 “.
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.
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.
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.
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.