Make of it what you will but I set a bunch of parameters for grok including the appeal of scholarships and professional opportunities, the lack of transferability of certain athletic gifts to other sports, the popularity of sports including the rising interest in international soccer competitions, the limited professional track in US soccer, the respective size of teams and slots available in the other sports, the popularity of the sport at the age of academy selection, concerns over gridiron football and the reduced popularity of both football and baseball in recent years, the dominance of basketball and football coverage in media. It depends on the inputs, but for what it's worth, grok's best guess is that the higher end club talent pool from which the academies get to pick athletes from is reduced by somewhat 15-20% by the other sports. Significant (I'd argue at least on par with the Latino talent we are losing because academies start late and pay to play) but not in and of itself disastrous, as grok itself pointed out our soccer athletic pool in southern california is equivalent to panama.
Is US Mens/Boys Soccer Dead or Dying
- Thread starter watfly
- Start date
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Seems reasonable. It's hard to switch contexts quickly, and people conflate them often both intentionally and unintentionally. When we're talking about the USMNT (or the top team of any other country), it's talking about identifying that needle in a haystack, and doing it 20 times. It's not about the top 25%, or top 10%, or even top 1%. It's much, much, smaller. The better countries are at doing that - the better the resulting team has the potential to be. Anything that makes it any less likely that a stellar athlete will choose the soccer path instead of alternatives - the worse the resulting team has the potential to be.
It's not just the raw totals for population. Countries with an athletic pool a fraction the size of the US can identify, attract, and develop individuals/teams to compete well on the world stage. We can't. And haven't. And likely won't.
It's not just the raw totals for population. Countries with an athletic pool a fraction the size of the US can identify, attract, and develop individuals/teams to compete well on the world stage. We can't. And haven't. And likely won't.
Karlton Athletic
SILVER
You seem to be equating “best athlete” with “most popular with cheerleaders”, which if we go back to your original premise of asking kids to name the 5 best athletes at school may well be the case, but it’s not necessarily factual.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Why isn't it factual? What makes it non-factual for you? The fact that you don't like it, or that you don't believe it?
The primary issue, which every one of these downstream effects is a direct result of, is that soccer isn't as attractive a lure as other competing sports in the US.
While I had no clue what Grok was until you posted, I think 15-20% seems like a plausible number, although there is no way to really know and I don't trust AI for factually related things. But it makes sense, for every 1 player you lose, 4 continue with soccer. With our population that's plenty of athletes available to soccer. However, I don't believe there is any correlation between athleticism and soccer IQ.
To improve US soccer we need to focus less on perceived athleticism and focus more on decision making and scanning abilities.
aong cangkol
SILVER
That is more indication of failure in development. We picked the biggest, fastest, strongest players against "mini-messi" of other countries.
According to FIFA statistics, only 15% of U-17 national team players made it to senior team. Stats come from U17 world cup to actual/senior world cup.
You can guess what is the percentage from U-12 national team made it. must be less than 10%
Exactly. We struggle with player identification at an early age and we fail at developing players. We attract plenty of athletes. The numbers don't lie. But glad you've come around.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
If you mean I've changed my mind, I've done no such thing. However, I'm also glad that you're not completely out to lunch. The best athletes (and everybody else) are less attracted to soccer because it's not as popular a sport. When talking about the USWNT - everybody else doesn't matter - and the only applicable discussion is why the best athletes in the US are often making the rational choice to forego soccer. Our population isn't so large - and our identification/development isn't so good - to overcome the fact that some of the strongest candidates can clearly determine a better individual path.
This is the Michael Jordan theory of soccer. “What if Michael Jordan picked soccer”. I think we’ve established that it’s not a 1 to 1 trade. We’re losing some potential players to other sports (just as we are losing some poorer kids to pay to play). They are factors. But then the question is what if we are losing Michael Jordan? Well we had a sampling of how that went when he tried to shift to baseball. Fortunately for basketball fans but unfortunately for us we never got to see how far he’d get (nor if he had shifted to baseball over basketball earlier). We have however it’s not a 1:1 transfer: we are talking about some basketball point guards (not centers except maybe as gks), track stars, wide receivers, maybe some hockey players. That might be the explanation for why we aren’t beating England or France in the semi finals of the World Cup were we ever to get there. It’s not the explanation for why we don’t have a bench deep enough to beat Panama or why Canada (a country which is our skill peer but only has a handful of mls teams, has hockey as the dominant sport, has poor weather 9 months of the year, and has a population - fraction of ours) is doing roughly our equivalent.
A look at the gk spot is illustrative. It was the 1 spot where the us used to dominate and men like Ian Feuer could go (with relatively little training compared to these days) play in the premier league. Now we are struggling in the 1 role we used to dominate in because Turner can’t play with his feet. Yes the backpass rule but the other thing that changed in Europe started funneling kids into the gk roles as early as age 7 (whereas our rec was no full time goalkeeper until 12). If the kid isn’t tall enough or flamed out too bad so sad. We are as a result struggling to find a no 1 where that was our easy starting point where we would shine.
For most high school age male athletes, “most popular with cheerleaders” is a well reasoned and time honored measure of success.
whatithink
GOLD
Do you really think we used to dominate - versus who? It was a position we were well served in with solid players from Keller to Friedel to Howard. None of them was exceptional on the world stage, with Howard getting to the highest level, club wise, playing 3 seasons with Man Utd.
I had to lookup Ian Feuer.
Fair if you think i oversold. You had to look up Ian? He’s a local and one of the most well known gk coaches in the country.
whatithink
GOLD
Just shows my kids are not GKers!
Exactly
This is where you got your head in the sand.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
For most
Keep on believing in your "feelings". That will take you and others far.
RandomSoccerFan, the expert on what kids dream about.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
NorCalDad - the "I'm rational dude" (with a huge blind spot).
well the bottom line is your wrong in thinking that American Boys are choosing Soccer for their primary sport and the fact you want to argue about it is absolutely hilarious. Keep on dreaming that America will ever have a top tier men's soccer program.
Hmmm....this is interesting. Anyone seen the new MLSN pilot program drop in conjunction with Taka? In U13 and U14 they are introducing "quality of play" rankings . It doesn't say what it will really entail other than it moves it away from a pure athleticism/winning the game focus but instead will encourage teams to develop traits like "dominates possession".