Is US Mens/Boys Soccer Dead or Dying

W

watfly

DA
Not just given the results of two most recent games (which were terrible), but the lack of interest in those games that were played in a soccer hot bed, are we seeing the decline of American soccer of the men's side? This combined with horrific state of our youth development, the hopes that soccer would be a mainstream spectator sport seem to be dwindling and reverting back to a niche sport. We can't conclude based on two games, but it seems over the past 10 years American national soccer on the and interest has been in a slow decline. (While on the women's side it seems to be doing OK.

MLS seems to do surprisingly well, but that's because of international players and stars, and has very little to do with homegrown players. I know that youth soccer participation is still strong, but declines significantly once kids reach their teen years. Finals for college soccer often only attract a few hundred spectators.
 
watfly said:
Not just given the results of two most recent games (which were terrible), but the lack of interest in those games that were played in a soccer hot bed, are we seeing the decline of American soccer of the men's side? This combined with horrific state of our youth development, the hopes that soccer would be a mainstream spectator sport seem to be dwindling and reverting back to a niche sport. We can't conclude based on two games, but it seems over the past 10 years American national soccer on the and interest has been in a slow decline. (While on the women's side it seems to be doing OK.

MLS seems to do surprisingly well, but that's because of international players and stars, and has very little to do with homegrown players. I know that youth soccer participation is still strong, but declines significantly once kids reach their teen years. Finals for college soccer often only attract a few hundred spectators.
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I think lack of interest is related to no Pro/Rel in MLS.

I was watching a brit talk about viewership of games and he said the end of season Pro/Rel EPL games received more viewership then the finals. I thought this was very interesting.

No Pro/Rel works in the NFL because America is the only country that plays and all the rules are so wacky it gives announcers drama to talk about the entire game. Also because of the start/stop nature of football it lends itself to advertisements which breaks things up which keeps things exciting.

Soccer is more of a sustained pressure if you're engaged. With Pro/Rel there is drama involved in teams coming up + going down. This makes onfield and offfield club decisions more important. Which adds drama making soccer more exciting.
 
Carlsbad7 said:
I think lack of interest is related to no Pro/Rel in MLS.

I was watching a brit talk about viewership of games and he said the end of season Pro/Rel EPL games received more viewership then the finals. I thought this was very interesting.

No Pro/Rel works in the NFL because America is the only country that plays and all the rules are so wacky it gives announcers drama to talk about the entire game. Also because of the start/stop nature of football it lends itself to advertisements which breaks things up which keeps things exciting.

Soccer is more of a sustained pressure if you're engaged. With Pro/Rel there is drama involved in teams coming up + going down. This makes onfield and offfield club decisions more important. Which adds drama making soccer more exciting.
Click to expand...
I think MLS is fairly healthy, but pro/rel would likely add some interest. Maybe it can happen with the USL's expansion into 1st division soccer.

I was thinking more so of the failure of men's soccer as a national American sport. There seems to be little interest or care about the USMNT. Granted, if the USMNT was winning there would be more support, but given the abject failure of our youth development system, that's not likely to happen anywhere outside of CONCACAF. And we just failed in CONCACAF with near zero attendance in a soccer hot bed. Yes, Friday's game was at 4pm, but attendance at Sunday's game was embarrassing, even for a third place game. Of course, US Soccer is the common denominator in behind these failures.
 
watfly said:
I think MLS is fairly healthy, but pro/rel would likely add some interest. Maybe it can happen with the USL's expansion into 1st division soccer.

I was thinking more so of the failure of men's soccer as a national American sport. There seems to be little interest or care about the USMNT. Granted, if the USMNT was winning there would be more support, but given the abject failure of our youth development system, that's not likely to happen anywhere outside of CONCACAF. And we just failed in CONCACAF with near zero attendance in a soccer hot bed. Yes, Friday's game was at 4pm, but attendance at Sunday's game was embarrassing, even for a third place game. Of course, US Soccer is the common denominator in behind these failures.
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The one thing I find interesting about USYNT is when players make it to the top levels and are playing against other country's national teams all kinds of pics come out showing the USM/WNT players all together when they're 12-14 years old.

How did US Soccer know that those specific players would be the top players in 6-10 years down the road? It just doesn't seem believable that US Soccer is so good at identifying talent that only they know who will be the best of the best and it all occurs at 12 years old.

Other sports don't work this way. Why is soccer different?
 
Carlsbad7 said:
The one thing I find interesting about USYNT is when players make it to the top levels and are playing against other country's national teams all kinds of pics come out showing the USM/WNT players all together when they're 12-14 years old.

How did US Soccer know that those specific players would be the top players in 6-10 years down the road? It just doesn't seem believable that US Soccer is so good at identifying talent that only they know who will be the best of the best and it all occurs at 12 years old.

Other sports don't work this way. Why is soccer different?
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It's almost as if US Soccer doesn't know what they are doing.
 
Carlsbad7 said:
The one thing I find interesting about USYNT is when players make it to the top levels and are playing against other country's national teams all kinds of pics come out showing the USM/WNT players all together when they're 12-14 years old.

How did US Soccer know that those specific players would be the top players in 6-10 years down the road? It just doesn't seem believable that US Soccer is so good at identifying talent that only they know who will be the best of the best and it all occurs at 12 years old.

Other sports don't work this way. Why is soccer different?
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Don't we do fairly well against international teams around the U12 age?

Something happens in the U13-U18 time period that our development falls off.
 
watfly said:
Don't we do fairly well against international teams around the U12 age?

Something happens in the U13-U18 time period that our development falls off.
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if you look at our "stars" they go to europe at about 15 if they want to be really good. Pulisic, Reyna, etc. Robinson was in EPL academy system since like 8.
As far as the attendance goes... they made it 4pm on a Thursday in LA and made the ticket prices very high. You can do that with a mature product. If they want people to show up they need to drop ticket prices until they consistently fill the stadium, then raise. Hell give tickets to boys youth teams to fill up the arena. Give them a reason to go not reasons not to.
 
Some where on this forum I previously posted details about a friend of mine who coached for a time at AJAX in the Netherlands and in Spain. Simply put our methods here are inconsistent and not aligned from the club/pro level in how the US develops youth players. We are also obsessed with the physical makeup of a player rather than identifying true potential talent (IQ/Skill) and providing them the right environment to prosper despite their athleticism. AJAX is one of the most dominant clubs in identifying, developing and selling players. Watch his interview from a few years ago. At minute 7 he starts speaking about methods here and how players are developed elsewhere.
 
Don’t even care that much about the results of these recent games , all that matters is next Summer’s world cup

This team though for the last year , just doesn’t seem to have any “fight “ in them

Almost like these guys coming over from Europe are playing not to get hurt, during the international break

The expectation is the same for me , get out of group and if the draw is favorable and with the home crowd maybe QFs

This team is is miles away from the elites of Spain, France , England, Argentina , etc . That gap has not been closed with this so called “golden” generation

I’m still not convinced Pochettino is the coach at next years World Cup, wouldn’t surprise me at all if a big Euro club jumps in and takes him away this summer . Really rough start for Pochetinno . He preaches intensity every time I hear him speak, and I’ve yet to see it translate to the players


We don’t have a clear #1 GK, a CB pairing or striker . Hard to see us doing anything unprecedented next summer
 
If your BOY is good at sports and is an athlete they are not choosing soccer. Sorry but that's the real deal going on for the US and it will always be like that here. US should focus their energy on the women's game.
 
I think on the boys side the performance of the USMNT has less of an impact on interest in the sport. Kids are still following these guys in Europe. It's a lot more fun watching Pulisic play for Milan than for the US. I mean imagine how many kids Haaland and Odegaard are inspiring in Norway. I do think it's different on the women's side -- but so far USWNT are still contenders.
 
SuperSoccerStar said:
If your BOY is good at sports and is an athlete they are not choosing soccer. Sorry but that's the real deal going on for the US and it will always be like that here. US should focus their energy on the women's game.
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I wonder if we had true pro/rel with independent clubs that aren't setup as franchises of a league if things would be different.

Talent would flow to the top clubs and the league wouldn't matter. This makes the clubs responsible for the product they put on the field. The clubs would also get 100% of the revenue from club swag, etc.
 
SuperSoccerStar said:
If your BOY is good at sports and is an athlete they are not choosing soccer. Sorry but that's the real deal going on for the US and it will always be like that here. US should focus their energy on the women's game.
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That might be funniest thing I've read in a long while. What sports are the "athletes" choosing? American Football? Basketball? Both those sports have unique physical requirements that limit who can actually play them. I don't think that is athlete vs non-athlete. Are there some players from those sports that could be good soccer players? Sure....but definitely not that 350lb lineman or that 7'2 center.
 
I'm not sure it's as off-base as you claim. Go to a 5th grade classroom in the US, and ask the boys who the top 5 athletes are. How many of them choose soccer as their primary sport? It's not the sport of choice at any age. Yes - at the professional level the physical requirements alone are insane for some sports - but that masks the fact that the physical requirements are also daunting for professional soccer (and every other sport at the professional level where such $ are at stake).
 
Carlsbad7 said:
I wonder if we had true pro/rel with independent clubs that aren't setup as franchises of a league if things would be different.

Talent would flow to the top clubs and the league wouldn't matter. This makes the clubs responsible for the product they put on the field. The clubs would also get 100% of the revenue from club swag, etc.
Click to expand...
It would break the pyramid scheme they have going by keeping the league afloat through expansions, hence the lack of interest.
 
watfly said:
Don't we do fairly well against international teams around the U12 age?

Something happens in the U13-U18 time period that our development falls off.
Click to expand...
Our academy teams tend to do pretty good even up to the u17 level, at least considering where we are. The issue is really after u17. Yes our athletic base is reduced by other sports, but that huge lineman or tall basketball center isn’t going into soccer. The issue is we don’t have a connector path between the academies to the mls. Unlike Europe, we don’t have a lot of b and c teams where players can cut their teeth. The mls salary caps make the mls choice much less attractive than university. No one is beating the door down at the mls for an $80k year salary…you’d be better off becoming an elementary school teacher with a side gig coaching youth soccer. And college soccer is just awful and is too short to give players the skills to develop into professionals. Because of the immigration laws and foreign player caps it’s very difficult for players to go to Europe for those b and c teams to start out unless they have dual nationalities.
 
Pro/Rel is an integral part of the sport. It is the missing component of soccer top to bottom in America; from viewership of MLS, to USMNT selection, to youth development, and club/league monopolies. It is the parents of players with deep pockets, and the Directors that are prospering off of those who are forking out the cash that resist the change.
 
Code said:
Pro/Rel is an integral part of the sport. It is the missing component of soccer top to bottom in America; from viewership of MLS, to USMNT selection, to youth development, and club/league monopolies. It is the parents of players with deep pockets, and the Directors that are prospering off of those who are forking out the cash that resist the change.
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Are you talking about pro/rel for youth soccer? That would only exacerbate the problems we already have with our youth soccer development. There wouldn't be a first team U13 under 6' if we had pro/rel at that age. ;)
 
watfly said:
Are you talking about pro/rel for youth soccer? That would only exacerbate the problems we already have with our youth soccer development. There wouldn't be a first team U13 under 6' if we had pro/rel at that age. ;)
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Yes. Top to Bottom. It is part of the sport. A bunch of unskilled Giraffes are not going to beat a skilled team of Zebras.
 
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