Not true. Again looking at any clubs boy top team and compare it to their third team. The main difference you’ll see is the top team is simply taller. The reason is it takes the zebras a long time to develop that skill. But early on in a pro rel environment there are several short cuts to winning: don’t build from the back, outrun the defenders, esp if they can’t head it put the ball in the air, hit it over the goalkeeper. The giraffes can use these cheat codes to win, the giraffes get recruited to the top team, the giraffes develop due to the favorability shown top teams, the zebras never develop their skill.
Where it impacts on the pro level is the salary caps and inability to develop marquee franchises that can not only attract popular support but throw money at players.
I agree. Mediocracy is rewarded in youth soccer. Clubs get MLSN or ECNL and they are set. They just need to do "enough" and maybe have a hot team every now and again and they can just coast.
Biobanding will never work until the top teams/clubs are required to keep placement directors who will evaluate incoming players and put them in the proper tier and existing players for movement up/down. Otherwise, with coaches solely in charge of the decision, they are only looking at the outcome for their teams (including not letting important b players move up) instead of the good of the club. So the impetus to use biobanding is to bring older players down to either prevent them from leaving the club or to help out the lower aged teams, which is not how biobanding is inended. If I have a December/November 10 kid and am looking to place them in MLSN I first have to go to the 10 coach to have him selected, the 10 coach has to talk to the 11 coach (for whom he has no stake) about moving the kid down, the 11 coach then has to try out the kid, then they have to get the DOC to agree to jump through the hoops and get the league to sign off, rather than go to a single placement director who will appropriately place the kid in the proper age/tier. It's just easier for everyone to take the older kid near the age line and hope it works out.
Nope, but half-skilled Giraffes will, or maybe the better analogy is half-skilled Elephants.
While I don't disagree, how pathetic is it that missing two full backs could make the difference against a team whose country is just over 1/100 of the population of the US. LA County alone has twice the population of Panama. While soccer has competition from other sports in the US, we still have far more soccer players and resources than Panama, yet we don't have the depth to compensate for missing two projected starters?
There are many high schools where more boys tryout for soccer than football. It is to the point at some schools that they don't have enough football players to form a JV team.
That's life. Look at Croatia, still over achieving with 3M people and led by a 39 yo, or Italy missing world cups.
That's the exception rather than the rule. Football games are packed, and the whole town goes. Basketball games are packed, and the whole town goes. Even baseball games are well attended. Varsity soccer, even in the good programs, is lucky if half of the team's parents come out to watch the games.
That may be the reality, but I don't know that I'd say its just life (which implies there is nothing we can do about it). It's mostly a failure of our soccer system. I don't deny their is a cultural element to it, but look how Europeans have made progress in NBA basketball and in some cases their players are dominating. Arguably our most competitive USMNT was 30 years ago, and we really haven't made in meaningful progress since.
My point is that we have zero "right" to think we can compete, just because we are a big country with a big population and spend a ridiculous amount of money on youth soccer. I'd say the current crop are way better than the team from 30 years ago, but that's probably true of most national teams tbh, esp. in terms of fitness and tactical awareness and ability to play multiple formations to beat teams.
US Soccer can't even manage the national teams.
We are no doubt missing some talent by not starting the academies earlier. The example is the kids on my Latino league team. But the time they are 12 they are already behind because they can’t afford the private trainers and big clubs….few will be able to develop the skills to get selected in the academy try out. U14-u17 we are doing just fine…that part of the system is working given we already start in the hole. Where things collapse is at u18 and the transition to adult.
Based on my experience and that of my son's peers, I just don't see it that way. Maybe I'm just too cynical, but why would we send younger kids to academies to have coaches suck the passion out of them at an even earlier age? I think we both agree that academy soccer is like a job. At U18 and above the bulk of the development should have occurred other than some fine tuning. (though, there are certainly issues with the competitive framework at that age).
I think you may be misunderstanding my bet. Not who they think best 5 pro athletes are. Who are the best 5th-grade boy athletes in their class.
I think we do pass up talent. I've seen it. We have a Latin American based population in SoCal as into soccer as Panama yet can't produce the same talent. It's not like immigrants suddenly became bad at soccer by crossing the border. The European system (which started at 12 as recently as a decade ago) keeps getting pushed back younger so it's 6-8 now. The system needs bodies to keep churning and needs to cast as wide a net as possible. I agree, however, it is not THE major problem. That's the transitional age at U18 out of the academy.
