The "What If" USMNT of 2012

What do the most successful countries, i.e., Brazil, Holland, Italy, Germany, Spain, etc., do?

 

Heather, I have no idea how much money US Soccer is spending on youth development or whether those recent youth WC results represent atypically bad ones for the US. My point is that the US has done a pretty intense overahaul of the youth development system. I would wager it's more intense than what the other countries mentioned in that Bigsoccer post have done. The world class players of today were developed by professional clubs not the youth coaches in their nation's football federation. Ajax is a factory of world class youth soccer players not the Dutch national youth teams. Only a handful of our MLS clubs are even able to provide free training for their top prospects. We dont have a decent reserve league because MLS doesnt have the money for one. There is only so much US soccer can do, especially in such a large country.

For the 18 - 23 age range, the money and the facilities are at the 300+ colleges and universities that have soccer programs. That is just a fact. Maybe the U20s arent doing well because too many of them are floundering on some MLS reserve side that only plays about 8 - 10 pretty meaningless games a year. I understand that college isnt for everyone. My point about academics is for the 18 and under ages. Academics needs to come first at this age group, the way it does with high school athletics. You need to maintain your grades in order to play for a US academy team. This is not happening right now and it is a mistake that will have an even greater impact now that US Soccer has decided to prohibit academy players from playing with their high school teams. Only 1% of players ever make the pros. It is not right to take advantage of a kids dreams and not expect them to get an education so they have something to fall back on. They will be better soccer players if they are well educated anyway. The Generation Adidas program has shown that the players who had at least some college are more likely to have a successful pro career.

While I agree that college shouldnt be for producing professional athletes, that's the way it is for every sport except baseball. There is big money it it and I dont see that changing. Is not just the facilities; it's where the best coaching is. The Ohio State football coach is highest paid public employee in all of Ohio by a long shot. Plus at 18 - 23 you still dont know if a kid will have what it takes to make it in the pros so I think we should feel some responsibility to encourage them to continue their education.

 

Their clubs have youth academies that scout and develop youth players. From what I've read US soccer traveled around the world to see what the top soccer nations do to develop youth players. They developed the current US development academy system based upon what was successful with the Bradenton, FL academy and what the top soccer countries do. The problem is a lot of these academies have very little in the way of resources. At our Cleveland area academy all the coaches have day jobs, luckily for most of them that is coaching at a local university (yet another reason our college programs are important). US Soccer's requirements about the facilities you need to have to be an academy are pretty high. Our club has to rent these facilities and it isnt cheap and therefore contributes to fees that are prohibitively high for some players. Also, I dont know what it is like in the rest of the country but in Ohio clubs in general do not scout and recruit. Being an academy improves this because the academies do eventually draw most of the best players, but you still cant get the concentrations of talent that you would see at a famous club like Ajax. And our academies certainly dont attract players from other countries who could raise the average level of play. On my son's team there is a kid (11 yr old) who had offers from Dynamo Zagreb and Pachuca to sign with their academies.

 

Another new development with the US soccer landscape is that US Club Soccer was started in 2001. It is a youth system under the USSF but separate and different from US Youth Soccer. It was started by a former USSF guy on the belief that clubs are the best places for developing youth players. They felt too much time and effort was spent governing youth soccer rather than focusing on growth and what is best for player development. US Youth Soccer, and the state federations under them, are too much about rules and too little about just letting kids play soccer. My youngest son has played on teams under each organization and our experience is that US Club Soccer is far superior when it comes to player development. The clubs are allowed to play out of state, switch their rosters around in order to insure competitive matches, and basically do what is in the best interests of their teams and players. US Youth Soccer is about control. Some of that need for control is well intended, or instance to keep things fair, but some of it is not.

Theorhetically, based on what has happened in the US in the last 15 yrs, our player pool and talent level should be on the rise. Sorry for all the writing but you guys know this is a subject I really like talking about.

 

What if we'd stuck with Bob Bradley?

 

Ha! Wait. What if he really is? Nahhh.