Seems to me that you need to get these super talented kids into dedicated soccer academies / travel programs before they turn 10 for them to have a chance of being high level professional players. Just isn’t the way US youth sports operate. I personally don’t know anyone who had their kid solely focus on one sport until at least middle school, and at that point it’s probably too late to be the type of soccer player we need (not just talking about D1 college players).
Personally, I couldn’t imagine forcing my kid into one sport at 7 when there’s so many options in the US available to them.
I think the "soccer only gets the mediocre athletes in America" thing is half right. I think we field "elite" athletes at the national level in soccer, on par with most other nations, and better than many others, but the thing is we produce so many truly elite athletes in basically every other sport that the truth is
our best athletes are not playing soccer. Does anyone believe that the USMNT represents anything approaching the cream of the American sports crop? Absolutely not, whereas it is conceivable to me that the English, Spanish, French, etc. teams basically represent the very best those nations have to offer in athletics.
Imagine a world where OBJ, Randy Moss, Justin Jefferson, Saquon Barkley, LeBron James, etc. were funneled into soccer. We leave a lot on the table in soccer because our best athletes get funneled into basically every other sport other than soccer in the U.S. Soccer is too foreign for us, the answer lies in making the domestic league cool. American kids grow up dreaming of winning championships in American sports leagues, not winning a FIFA tournament that rolls around every four years. Until winning the MLS Cup is at least in the same realm of cool as winning the NBA Finals, Stanley Cup, or World Series (nothing will ever touch the Super Bowl), soccer is always going to suffer here.
This.
These guys need to show up for it this time around. Musah didn't play in the last one and it probably cost him a spot on the WC team.
Still proud of the team. They gave us 3 weeks of fun and something to celebrate.
Except Pulisic. He's soft, uncommitted, shrinks in the big moments and wants to be courted like a superstar. He doesn't need to be on the team going forward. I don't care what his reputation is or what club team he plays for.
I think Pulisic skipping like a whole year to "best ready" for the WC and then not playing even one full game is going to severely damage his standing in the eyes of American soccer fans, and rightfully so in my opinion. Pulisic is good, but he's not a leader and any team built on the idea he's going to elevate the team is going to always fall short. I agree that some of the takes are extreme, I don't think he should be kicked off the team, but I think he's just another guy on the team in terms of his leadership and his availability to the team.
If America is not going to be able to close the "football culture" gap in the short and mid terms, what we can lead on is what Americans do best: having that MFing dawg in them and playing with an edge. I think Americans can tolerate losing, but we cannot tolerate going out like a bunch of pussies, which is essentially what our team did last night. We have the talent to beat the Belgiums of the world, sadly this has seemingly come at the expense of the fighting spirit of the less talented Donovan/Dempsey squads.
To me it's not about the physical freaks but this is still consistent with the more broad theme.
Lots of kids who could be good simply don't play or dont play beyond little kid youth soccer at the local park. A lot stop travel ball in middle school once football is available.
The successful countries don't have this problem. Soccer is life unless/until the kid shows extreme promise at something else. In Europe and South America, that game is probably tennis. Basketball if they are tall. In Scandinavia and Russia...throw in hockey.
Here, soccer has to compete for interest from the get-go. That's a double-edged sword. It reduces development AND interest in general. I don't think any amount of feasible financial investment can really fix that.
Yes, I already touched on this, but I totally agree. Even if many of these European nations have other strong sporting traditions, what they don't have are sporting traditions that can be leverage into international fame and fabulous wealth other than really soccer. In the U.S., if you are a genetic freak of nature, soccer is about the 4th-5th best option that can be pursued.
