100,000 thousand hispanic kids in the Los Angeles area, in the un-sanctioned " Mexican Leagues" is a huge untapped pool of players. There seems to be a lack of interest on both, the parents of talented, passionate hispanic players and the USSF to connect with each other. I am wondering how talented inner city black kids become successful in sports like basketball and football?
U.S. Soccer is a for profit business harming the diversity of the sport & holding the national team
- Thread starter younothat
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younothat
PREMIER
That number is on the low end, if you consider all of LA county I heard the number of kids playing in Latin leagues be it at a school, park, warehouse or industrial artificial grass pitches, gyms, etc is closer to 1,000,000 youths from ages U8-U16
When I was walking around at Man City Cup I thought there is real divide, not trying to judge a book but its cover but socioeconomic status seems to be a dividing line and we need to do a better job of integration of all, we want soccer to unite not divide.
InTheValley
SILVER
Why does anything need to change? Most Americans are perfectly ok that we’re mediocre at men’s soccer but great at basketball, football, baseball, swimming, track and field, lacrosse, wrestling, and a bunch of other things. We suck at cricket, and what makes soccer more important than cricket?
Trying to improve the MNT is a waste of time and money. If our free market doesn’t produce great soccer players, great soccer players aren’t worth producing here.
I guess you have care about soccer, to care about the mediocrity of our International team.
Fundamentally I agree. Soccer is more important than cricket from a pure "free market economy" standpoint. There is lots and lots of money in soccer (Billions) and not so much in cricket. The job of our Federation is 3 fold: Field the National Teams for international competition; provide oversight as the USOC National Governing Body for the sport; and promote professional and recreational youth and adult soccer. In short, grow the sport.
I look at this differently. The USMNT and USWNT provide the lion's share of the revenue to the federation. Losing the group stage of the World Cup is worth about $8 million dollars and every team going gets $1.5M to prepare for group. So, the failure of the MNT was about a $9.5M hit, which would have gone to the Federation.
The thing is, the USMNT pay very little towards training these players. Training is effectively left to the pro leagues, so really all the MNT needs to do is pick players that represent the best American products and if done right every 4 years, we should make tens of millions of dollars.
Trying to fix the MLS is not the job of US Soccer.
Trying to protect the MLS (a for profit league) is not the job of US Soccer.
Picking the best US National players from the top leagues is the job. It failed miserably because is cozied up to the substandard MLS.
I applaud you for getting those kids scholarships and into a league, you did a great thing.
I’ve seen some tremendously talented players come out of Mexican leagues and tear up CRL and academy. Who knows how much more talent is in the various Mexican leagues that could play at a high level? I would bet a lot, there are so many kids in that community that play all the time and watch hi level soccer.
Excellent question. My instinct is that it’s not many. Even though there are a lot of boys in Mexican leagues that don’t go club, you still see tons more all Hispanic boys “club” teams than girls. This may be cultural thing in that not as many “girls” of immigrants are even allowed to play. However, even if this is the case, I believe things will change soon. Mexico now has a professional women’s soccer league so perceptions will change. If it ever does come about. it would be very interesting to see if there is any difference in the style of play.
Basketball and football “development” is completely unlike soccer. Can’t compare the 3 sports. Learning to control the ball with your feet vs. hands, running for 90 mins. with only 3 subs vs. unlimited subs. People with great measurables dominate football and b-ball, less so in soccer.
Both my girls started out in "Mexican leagues" as crumb crunchers, playing with boys the same age.
They both transitioned to all girl's "club" soccer programs as they got older.
outside!
DA
Were there many other female players? Were there any girls divisions for the olders?
There was usually one or two girls on a team, but sometimes mine were the only ones.
To be honest, on the girl's side, the competition is much deeper in the higher club leagues like ECNL.
I think the top players get cherry picked by the big clubs.
The skill and speed they learned from the boys was very good for their development at a young age, but as they get older the boys just get too fast.
outside!
DA
It would be great to somehow allow the best teams from the "Mexican Leagues" to compete against club teams. It would give some exposure to a lot of male players. It is unfortunate that for all the soccer culture in the Latino communities that it is focused almost solely on the boys. I am sure there are lots of girls that could be great players in those same communities but they do not get much of an opportunity.
Yes, there is a huge mental element in soccer that enables some very unathletic players to be good soccer players. There’s certain physical measurables you MUST have to be successful in American football or basketball. If you can’t jump, you won’t even make a good high school basketball team because top players will isolate you and dunk on you or shoot over you.
But there are slow, small guys in soccer that can be successful because they are so good at finding pockets of space when defenders are distracted and get off a good shot, or cross or thru ball. And it’s easier to disguise them on defense because there are 11 players on the pitch, and you can use the faster players to cover for the slow player.
That being said, I’m all in favor of dumping any slow player and replacing him with a faster player ASAP. I’ve never seen a smart, slow player get faster. I’ve seen a lot of stupid fast players get smarter. Why waste time with guys whose ceilings are permanently low? Give the playing time and experience to the athlete who can become a soccer player, not the soccer player who will never be an athlete.
No way Us DA would allow that to happen. The closed league won’t even let academy teams play against other club teams sanctioned by the same federation.
Not sure where you are seeing small, slow guys being successful. The smaller guys have to be fast or they'd get killed. The big guys need agility or they get killed. Athletes are not necessarily big, ask any gymnast. A good soccer player has got to be a good athlete-- small or big-- but they also have to be "smart" at soccer. Really - look at college or pro rosters - they are not really all that "big"
And I beg to differ-- you cannot make a "stupid" player "smart" You can make a smart athlete better at soccer though-- but it takes a lot of dedication on the part of the athlete. This big=fast and athletic, and small=slow and maybe skilled???, argument is silly and always indicative of why we struggle at this sport.
It's also indicative of why the lack of measurables makes it harder to ID players, since, obviously, we all have differing views on what makes a player special.
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I was surprised the first time I heard a well-known coach describe a player as "athletic" and realized he meant it as a disparagement.
I find it interesting, while watching Peru vs France, that Peru's leftback Luis Advincula is considered the fastest player in the world, yet he was loaned out to "Lobos Buap", from "Tigres", in the Mexican La Liga. Athleticism is a common important quality, but the " it " factor is just as important.