How the USWNT’s pipeline got fractured by a youth soccer turf war

[Anonymous]

https://sports.yahoo.com/us-soccer-girls-youth-development-ecnl-000044659.html

Great article.

[Anonymous]

With all the talent in the US, the women’s team selection needs to be about getting the best players not the “big” name over the hill players.

A soccer field player’s prime age is about 25-28. The current team has about 7 players in the range and not all of those will start.

[Anonymous]

Good read, thanks for sharing.

[Anonymous]

Great article. The Europeans are going to gain ground quickly, now that they have opened the academies to girls. They know exactly what they are doing.

[Anonymous]

The pay to play model will not ever be good for development. There would have to be money and structure coming from above to establish a path - local club Rec, local club travel, regional club travel, national club (pro team affiliated?) travel - with incentives for the coaches to identify and push talent to the appropriate level.

Right now in the US you are not incentivized to develop players but to win, for which you build teams, retain your best, recruit, and play to win rather than develop in many cases - because your money comes from the families and the families come based on results and reputation. You fight against your neighbors rather than collaborate.

It’s hard in the US because we don’t have the density/number of professional clubs and the ones that are there are not as rich - so they can’t do what is going on in Spain and England where you have a pro environment and professional club money. Money would have to come from US soccer and they have shown they are not willing, they are fine with pay to play and college bearing the costs. We also don’t really have a model of development in other major American sports - they use drafts that pick kids built by others - none of them put money into developing players, they leave it to the pay to play and college models.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The pay to play model will not ever be good for development. There would have to be money and structure coming from above to establish a path - local club Rec, local club travel, regional club travel, national club (pro team affiliated?) travel - with incentives for the coaches to identify and push talent to the appropriate level.

Right now in the US you are not incentivized to develop players but to win, for which you build teams, retain your best, recruit, and play to win rather than develop in many cases - because your money comes from the families and the families come based on results and reputation. You fight against your neighbors rather than collaborate.

It’s hard in the US because we don’t have the density/number of professional clubs and the ones that are there are not as rich - so they can’t do what is going on in Spain and England where you have a pro environment and professional club money. Money would have to come from US soccer and they have shown they are not willing, they are fine with pay to play and college bearing the costs. We also don’t really have a model of development in other major American sports - they use drafts that pick kids built by others - none of them put money into developing players, they leave it to the pay to play and college models.

Even if USA soccer tries, there is nothing to stop pay to play leagues and colleges will still scout those leagues. You'll also have the current senior teams more than a little upset if they are making next to nothing while millions is being spent to prop up youth leagues. Europe has a dense network of very rich mens clubs used to subsidizing other sports including youth and womens. That just isn't how US clubs work and the NSWL is too broke to subsidize anything

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great article. The Europeans are going to gain ground quickly, now that they have opened the academies to girls. They know exactly what they are doing.

Academies in the US wouldn't work unless girls start skipping college. If the spirit had an academy and invested heavily, they would never get any benefit because the girls would end up at Stanford and UNC not being sold to other clubs. In order for academies to work, the clubs need to be able to sell the players and that doesn't work in the US for a myriad of reasons.

[Anonymous]

The big clubs in the DC area will develop players at younger ages but so rare to see a coach willing to develop a player at the older ages. They will recruit players developed elsewhere instead. It is play to win only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The big clubs in the DC area will develop players at younger ages but so rare to see a coach willing to develop a player at the older ages. They will recruit players developed elsewhere instead. It is play to win only.

For high schoolers, what do you expect? How many will play pro? How many will play even D1? If you're done playing after high school, why not play to win? Developing implies an end goal, but for a kid who won't play at the next level winning may be more important that further developing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big clubs in the DC area will develop players at younger ages but so rare to see a coach willing to develop a player at the older ages. They will recruit players developed elsewhere instead. It is play to win only.

For high schoolers, what do you expect? How many will play pro? How many will play even D1? If you're done playing after high school, why not play to win? Developing implies an end goal, but for a kid who won't play at the next level winning may be more important that further developing

A Coach can play to win and still develop players at the same time - AND THEY SHOULD STILL BE DEVELOPED EVEN IN HIGH SCHOOL.

If you don’t, if you take only the players with the fine-tuned skills who you don’t need to develop, you’re going to miss out on the girl who played Classic through middle school but who is an amazing athlete. Or the girl who was focused on basketball or swimming but realized she loves soccer. In fact, you might miss out on the next Alex Morgan who only started playing travel at 12.

I’ve seen plenty of girls with wonderful skills developed over many years with the big clubs, but they just aren’t athletic enough, not strong and aggressive, or most often - just slow.

Shouldn’t a coach put the great HS athlete who is fast and aggressive on the team and try to develop her skills? Then again, you'd have to be a really good coach to see that projectable talent. Much easier to take the kid who had been with the club for years and years and has the skills but not the athleticism.

We see it all the time — and it’s “pay to play” and that’s why we are where we are in US soccer. Maybe US Soccer could establish some guidelines - like each coach had to take on 2-3 developmental girls each year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big clubs in the DC area will develop players at younger ages but so rare to see a coach willing to develop a player at the older ages. They will recruit players developed elsewhere instead. It is play to win only.

For high schoolers, what do you expect? How many will play pro? How many will play even D1? If you're done playing after high school, why not play to win? Developing implies an end goal, but for a kid who won't play at the next level winning may be more important that further developing

A Coach can play to win and still develop players at the same time - AND THEY SHOULD STILL BE DEVELOPED EVEN IN HIGH SCHOOL.

If you don’t, if you take only the players with the fine-tuned skills who you don’t need to develop, you’re going to miss out on the girl who played Classic through middle school but who is an amazing athlete. Or the girl who was focused on basketball or swimming but realized she loves soccer. In fact, you might miss out on the next Alex Morgan who only started playing travel at 12.

I’ve seen plenty of girls with wonderful skills developed over many years with the big clubs, but they just aren’t athletic enough, not strong and aggressive, or most often - just slow.

Shouldn’t a coach put the great HS athlete who is fast and aggressive on the team and try to develop her skills? Then again, you'd have to be a really good coach to see that projectable talent. Much easier to take the kid who had been with the club for years and years and has the skills but not the athleticism.

We see it all the time — and it’s “pay to play” and that’s why we are where we are in US soccer. Maybe US Soccer could establish some guidelines - like each coach had to take on 2-3 developmental girls each year.

The coaches can do whatever they want, but the kids playing for their school want to win. If that goes along with development, great. If not, oh well. That kid who has been with the club for years has also paid the club tens of thousands over the years. If a club gets a reputation for cutting it's own in high school to make way for development projects, then maybe the next crop of parents start at a different club

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big clubs in the DC area will develop players at younger ages but so rare to see a coach willing to develop a player at the older ages. They will recruit players developed elsewhere instead. It is play to win only.

For high schoolers, what do you expect? How many will play pro? How many will play even D1? If you're done playing after high school, why not play to win? Developing implies an end goal, but for a kid who won't play at the next level winning may be more important that further developing

A Coach can play to win and still develop players at the same time - AND THEY SHOULD STILL BE DEVELOPED EVEN IN HIGH SCHOOL.

If you don’t, if you take only the players with the fine-tuned skills who you don’t need to develop, you’re going to miss out on the girl who played Classic through middle school but who is an amazing athlete. Or the girl who was focused on basketball or swimming but realized she loves soccer. In fact, you might miss out on the next Alex Morgan who only started playing travel at 12.

I’ve seen plenty of girls with wonderful skills developed over many years with the big clubs, but they just aren’t athletic enough, not strong and aggressive, or most often - just slow.

Shouldn’t a coach put the great HS athlete who is fast and aggressive on the team and try to develop her skills? Then again, you'd have to be a really good coach to see that projectable talent. Much easier to take the kid who had been with the club for years and years and has the skills but not the athleticism.

We see it all the time — and it’s “pay to play” and that’s why we are where we are in US soccer. Maybe US Soccer could establish some guidelines - like each coach had to take on 2-3 developmental girls each year.

The coaches can do whatever they want, but the kids playing for their school want to win. If that goes along with development, great. If not, oh well. That kid who has been with the club for years has also paid the club tens of thousands over the years. If a club gets a reputation for cutting it's own in high school to make way for development projects, then maybe the next crop of parents start at a different club

Pay to Play. And of course the big Clubs cut their own in HS and MS too. You should know that going in.

[Anonymous]

Alex Morgan started playing Club soccer at 14.

Can you imagine her today? The big Clubs would be like “no sorry, we don’t have any roster slots for a freshman who never played Club. We have a bunch of girls already who’ve been with the Club for years and years.”

[Anonymous]

- The "turf war", first between ECNL and Girls DA and now between ECNL and GA, is extremely counterproductive. To produce the best talent you need to have the best against the best as much as possible. We need a more unified system.

- I don't think it's realistic to expect clubs to put player development over results. Their business model is based on keeping the customers (aka parents) happy. And that means winning games.

- Don't all youth sports in the US focus on results? I doubt there are many high school football coaches giving playing time to an undersized QB so that the team can compete for the title in 3 years.

- I would imagine NWSL clubs will start creating their own academies and the league will implement homegrown rules similar to what MLS uses. Their goals would be more about player development vs. results and those would be the players who would end up on the national team. So that could be a positive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Alex Morgan started playing Club soccer at 14.

Can you imagine her today? The big Clubs would be like “no sorry, we don’t have any roster slots for a freshman who never played Club. We have a bunch of girls already who’ve been with the Club for years and years.”

No she was very fast and physical. She would have a spot.