Everything Soccer

[notredomer23]

Preach.

Had the instant gratification chat with my kids and nephews this weekend while fishing. Told them to put down the devices and pickup a fishing pole and work on their patience and persistence.

Lastly, someone correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Cavan Sullivan (or perhaps another young phenom) leave America at a young age to do academy soccer in EU because of better coaching on top of playing up in age, etc? Maybe I'm not recalling properly, but just trying to piggyback on Bill's point regarding coaching gap and knowledge base here in the US.

Sullivan is still here and plays for the Philadelphia Union at 16. He will be going to Man City once he turns 18 because of Visa Rules. Union have a great academy and set up.

He did play up in age though, his older brother is on the team. Their dad was a college player and played some American professional pre-MLS.

 

[NorthDakota]

yeah they argument for why Brasil are so poor now is that their promising players are getting plucked too young by European academies so they end up with a European football mind and skillset which is alien to their historical game. Also the spread of Evangelism is blamed but you can go on Twitter to read all that lol

The claim is very amusing. Perhaps there is something to it!

 

[jerseyborn1971]

They play up in age overseas while American families are obsessed with reclassifying so they can play against weaker, less developed opponents to look good.

 

[calvegas04]

1) Norway
2) Morocco
3) France
4) Spain
5) Switzerland

All the rest are equally horrible options.

France and Spain?

Weird take

 

[gregm83]

I live in the Cincinnati burbs. FC Cincinnati has an initiative over the last few years to build "mini-pitches" all over the greater Cincinnati area. One just went in earlier this year a few minutes from our house. My 2 sons use the mini-pitch on a regular basis. They dm their friends to meet up there and have some pick up 4v4 or 3v3 games. We need organic development like this to see soccer really gain a foothold. We need kids getting out and playing pick up ball. This is the way.

Small scale these programs work. A nation the size of the usa has a hard time similar setups vs a smaller nation like many european countries. The last 10 years or so MLS/NWSL has helped nearly every youth USMNT/WNT player.
There certainly are growing system that should improve the overall talent but it will likely benefit kids in key areas and those who can afford/willing to train at academies of pro teams.

 

[InKellyWeTrust]

Small scale these programs work. A nation the size of the usa has a hard time similar setups vs a smaller nation like many european countries. The last 10 years or so MLS/NWSL has helped nearly every youth USMNT/WNT player.
There certainly are growing system that should improve the overall talent but it will likely benefit kids in key areas and those who can afford/willing to train at academies of pro teams.

My boys play club but there is only so much improvement that happens in games and training. They need to be doing it outside of organized practice. They need to be playing for fun too.

Somewhere out on the web there is a map with soccer field density. The density in Europe is shocking.

 

[BleedBlueGold]

Sullivan is still here and plays for the Philadelphia Union at 16. He will be going to Man City once he turns 18 because of Visa Rules. Union have a great academy and set up.

He did play up in age though, his older brother is on the team. Their dad was a college player and played some American professional pre-MLS.

Thanks. Maybe I'm thinking of someone else then. Could've sworn I just watched a video about players leaving the US to get their training. My brother in law actually knows a family who did that with their son, so maybe that's my confusion. He was a solid local talent and his parents had the money. He wanted better training so he traveled all over the US and EU. End of the day, once he went to college, he wasn't any different than anyone else and his career ending shortly after.

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

I feel like I should be supporting Argentina because our tax dollars have helped bail them out. Since FIFA is also doing their best to bail them out, I say fuck Argentina.

 

[TNUtoNotreDame]

I feel like I should be supporting Argentina because our tax dollars have helped bail them out. Since FIFA is also doing their best to bail them out, I say fuck Argentina.

Go Ukraine!, Go Nato! Go ________(120 other countries our tax dollars go to and get wasted) !

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

Go Ukraine!, Go Nato! Go ________(120 other countries our tax dollars go to and get wasted) !

That joke was totally wasted on you.

 

[dublinirish]

i agree with Klinsmann here, the key to making the USMNT better is basically to abolish NCAA soccer

 

[IrishLax]

i agree with Klinsmann here, the key to making the USMNT better is basically to abolish NCAA soccer

But ironically Title IX and college soccer is what made our USWNT into a powerhouse before other countries!

I would argue that reform of college soccer is the move, especially in the era of NIL, rather than abolition.

 

[dublinirish]

But ironically Title IX and college soccer is what made our USWNT into a powerhouse before other countries!

I would argue that reform of college soccer is the move, especially in the era of NIL, rather than abolition.

you also made university tuition free I guess!

 

[Dale]

i agree with Klinsmann here, the key to making the USMNT better is basically to abolish NCAA soccer

I’m not sure what abolishing NCAA soccer would do. If anything, NIL as an idea in high school and college is more in line with the European model. What was posted earlier:

“In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year…Training compensation and solidarity payments send a cut of every transfer fee back to the clubs that developed the player, from age 12 onward. Develop one future pro and your academy gets paid for a decade…The kid is the asset. US Soccer refuses to enforce those rules…So American clubs earn zero dollars when a kid turns pro. They earn when a kid enrolls. Which makes the parent the customer, and the product is whatever keeps the parent writing checks: travel tournaments, hotel weekends, $500 showcase events, private training at $100 an hour….A club dependent on fees can't cut its weakest paying players, so rosters optimize for retention over development.”

The NCAA really has nothing to do with holding any of that back. If anything, if some colleges wanted to start throwing around money like some college hockey programs are doing enticing kids out of Canadian juniors because they can earn, the college soccer program could even help as NIL breaks down walls.

 

[jerseyborn1971]

I don't know that it helps having our players spread out across 200 different college teams with varied coaching. And our MLS teams don't have the financial resources to have affordable academies. We gotta find money somewhere so it's not as expensive as I've learned it is from y'all.

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

The USWNT is going down to Brazil in a year and bringing home Number Five.

I've always liked Pochettino. I think he's a great hire and I hope he stays. Emma Hayes, however, is a Babe Ruth 550 foot home run of a hire.

 

[Sea Turtle]

My boys play club but there is only so much improvement that happens in games and training. They need to be doing it outside of organized practice. They need to be playing for fun too.

Somewhere out on the web there is a map with soccer field density. The density in Europe is shocking.

Honestly, what else do they have? Cricket? Darts? F1?

 

[NorthDakota]

They play up in age overseas while American families are obsessed with reclassifying so they can play against weaker, less developed opponents to look good.

I guess it makes sense when much of American sport is about physicality.

I am not a fan of all the reclassifying though.

 

[stlnd01]

I don't know that it helps having our players spread out across 200 different college teams with varied coaching. And our MLS teams don't have the financial resources to have affordable academies. We gotta find money somewhere so it's not as expensive as I've learned it is from y'all.

Pretty sure the MLS developmental academies are free. The issue is they are quite selective, and to make their teams most kids will need to navigate the pay-to-play club world for awhile first.

I tend to agree that the current college soccer landscape isn’t great for developing players elite soccer players. It’s too scattered and there’s no money. But if a handful of schools wanted to throw NIL at the sport and build really good teams, that could be interesting.

 

[TNUtoNotreDame]

Pretty sure the MLS developmental academies are free. The issue is they are quite selective, and to make their teams most kids will need to navigate the pay-to-play club world for awhile first.

I tend to agree that the current college soccer landscape isn’t great for developing players elite soccer players. It’s too scattered and there’s no money. But if a handful of schools wanted to throw NIL at the sport and build really good teams, that could be interesting.

They are, the affiliates cost money though.. The MLS ones take in about 4000 kids.. We need to get that number septupled.

 

[Sea Turtle]

Cosigned. They need to go away at this point. They've survived Cape Verde and Egypt in the knockout round. I hope they run out of lives.

Messi is the best sportsman I've seen in my life. Any player, any sport.

Novak Djokovic

 

[Dale]

Begging a nerd to show soccer coaches a spreadsheet of CB penalty kick percentage makes

 

[NorthDakota]

Begging a nerd to show soccer coaches a spreadsheet of CB penalty kick percentage makes

Begging soccer to do anything but spot kicks to decide the winner of a loser out game

 

[calvegas04]

Swiss advances due to having better luck

 

[NorthDakota]

I only just saw the goal FIFA disallowed for Egypt.

Thats actually criminal

 

[Old Man Mike]

It's Europe (plus Europe-adjacent) vs Messi. Must be a message in there somewhere.

 

[ACamp1900]

I was fairly disappointed in the showing by Columbia in this tournament, I kept waiting for the top tier talent you’d expect to show up and it just never really did for me,… the team was decent though

 

[Irish du Nord]

the math doesn’t add up when a country 1/25th can run roughshod over us though. I’d understand if we played a vastly superior team from a country of 60-70 mill à la England and France. But Belgium is a nation of 12 million people. I just can’t wrap my head around it.

And I understand other large nations aren’t any good at soccer either, but those are mainly nations without the resources the US has.

I disagree with the last sentence. India and China hardly lack resources, they just aren’t particularly soccer obsessed countries.

I've never been a huge Pulisic fan, but some of the stuff that has been being said about him in the last 12 hours is harsh. I will always maintain that he sabotaged his own career by going to Chelsea and it ultimately hurt his trajectory. I'm not going to question anything else about him other than that decision. I realize that when certain offers come you have to go, but Chelsea has proven to be dysfunctional for a while now and Christian found this out the hard way. I don't know what else was available to him at the time, but when you look at the guys who have left Borussia Dortmund and what they've gone on to do elsewhere in Europe, he stands out as one that took a big step back.

That being said, he assisted a goal in a Champions League final that Chelsea won. Few can say that, let alone American players.

As much as we'd all love to have a squad of 24 Clint Dempseys, the reality is we're going to have a roster full of different personalities and skill sets that is up to Pochettino or whomever to manage. With the way youth soccer is set up, we probably don't see a guy like Clint Dempsey again for a while, if ever.

The mercurial winger who plays great in some games but disappears in others is hardly an American problem, let alone a Pulisic problem. Very few guys at that position are consistently dominant and even one of them may not have the on us the game last night.

 

[Irish du Nord]

Lost in all of this is Switzerland making the Quarters, Bravo!

 

[T-Boone]

Messi at 39 is having his best work cup (or most excellent in goal scoring). He is not the dribbling threat he was 10 years ago. It is a very impressive achievement.
On the other hand they have played a bunch of bum teams. Their strength of schedule is not good.
The rest of the Argi team seems plod. They miss that Di Maria fella from the past.