SoCal Schedule

[Socal-Soccer-Dad]

Landon Donovan and Tim Howard - the youth soccer talk starts around the 10 minute mark. US Soccer taking over USYS... first. The goal is to take the money out of the equation.

Good luck with that - this is America - but its a noble cause.

I get that they're legends in US soccer... but I disagree with so much they've said about youth soccer in the past that I can't take them seriously...
They make these routine lazy arguments about youth soccer in the US, particularly about pay to play...

They compare pro youth teams in say like Argentina or Spain or France... to our non-MLS youth clubs here... you can't compare that.

some of the arguments I've heard in the past from them:

1) pay to play in the US is bad. Europe doesn't have that.

facts: this isn't true. there is free to play here too. they're the 30 MLS academies + some other clubs who decide to subsidize their top teams (Surf, TFA, etc). it's just that our country is basically a continent and 30 is drop in the bucket so that gets diluted and we don't notice that because 3000 clubs fill the rest of the need.

2) American youth coaching is too focused on winning instead of producing individual players.

facts: develop and produce players for WHAT? if you're MLS team, you can produce players so you can add them to the senior team roster and save millions of dollars in transfer fees. but if you're a club without a pro team (99% of the clubs in the US), then the business model IS winning.. that's how the bread is buttered.. bills are paid...

Howard and Donovan attribute too much of the gap between the US and Spain/France/England/Argentina to the structure of youth soccer system and not enough to the ENORMOUS culture + selection + incentives + historical ecosystem surrounding the sport.

Soccer in many of those countries is basically our football + baseball + basketball combined.

 

[Socal-Soccer-Dad]

The problems caused by bifurcation of leagues supports your argument, but the US is the greatest free market system in the world, so competition is the culture we have to live in. Clubs, coaches and teams shouldn't look to the government - USSF - to help them they need to create the model that works for them. Since 75% of soccer is community play, 68% of the players are U10, the sport needs a model of local play that grows into regional competition. Southern CA has 26 mln people it can be broken down into 16 or more regions for local play - 30 min drive time ideal - families will love it. The top teams from each local league advance to a regional competition that can be played over 1 or 2 weekends. Rinse and repeat fall and spring with other events like a State Cup sprinkled in. The USSF and MLS etc etc know that Southern California is the #1 soccer market in the US, if clubs, coaches and teams build a common sense structure here that is open, affordable and is attractive to families, it will get their attention in a positive way.

I can 100% get behind this idea.

It just won't happen.

Too much friction. Too much risk.

We are finally consolidating a bit - more so on the boys side but girls too.

I think further consolidation around MLS Next and GA brands will get us closer to where we want to go, even if it's smaller step than we'd like.

 

[Grace T.]

pro players leave teams being relegated all the time... see it every year in the Premier League... and others...

Before they are actually relegated?

 

[Grace T.]

I would argue that kids/families quitting soccer around 13 is universal across most sports... not all... but a lot... and not even just sports... many hobbies... for some, it's a realization that they're not good enough for xx (be it pro path, be it Olympic path, be it college scholarship path, etc).


I feel like everything has risen by 49%... relative to housing/food/cars/gas (except salary of course) 49% rose like everything else and not as an anomaly...


think the data is roughly 6-7% of high school aged soccer players play college soccer of any level. Roughly 2-3% of early youth players make a college roster. D1 odds for any high schooler playing the game is 1-2%.

I do agree with the sentiment that SoCal can definitely lead the way. But it will never work. It'll require too much short term pain for league organizers and club owners to make it happen. It'll require top ECNL clubs and top MLSN clubs and other top performing clubs without letter club access to get together and vow to play locally as a 20-ish team league. I think if they did that, in 2-3 years, scouts and college coaches will come to SoCal to recruit. But you're screwing over juniors and seniors. For big picture, it works but those whose year matters right now, they don't care for the big picture.

The mlsn can’t agree because they serve as fodder for mls academies which are a national league. It’s the same reason they don’t let the p2p kids play highschool. There’s no national high school calendar because of weather differences round the us.

 

[Socal-Soccer-Dad]

Well we have a real life economic example of this too. The valley used to be filled with small clubs playing on fugly fields. They don’t exist today. They’ve been gutted. The market spoke.

my kid played on socal and on fields where grass went up to his knees... and we only had porta potties... was $2000...
now in a lettered league and $3000 but fields are pristine and we've got real bathrooms! and I don't have to step over heroin needles and human feces to get to the parking lot...

call me a spoiled American... but I'd pay for that... is $3000 a lot of money globally? ok sure. does volleyball cost $8000 and hockey cost $10,000? ok yes.

 

[Socal-Soccer-Dad]

Before they are actually relegated?

well, technically "after" but like when it's IN season but it's been determined the team will be relegated than the team sells off an expensive player cause their revenue drop will be massive in 2nd level league. the facilitation happens after but the everyone knows it'll happen and agents/clubs all figure out a way to move out players as soon as the season is over.

 

[watfly]

not picking on you at all... but I hate it when people say "oh yea just pick up your family and immigrate to Europe... oh yea is your job transferable?"

This isn't feasible for 99.99% of the population...

I was being facetious. If you want much better odds of a college scholarship and not move overseas, play soccer until eighth grade then play high school football. No guarantee because the transfer portal means kids have a much harder time getting a scholarship straight out of high school, but still much better odds than playing soccer. Soccer players make great football players.