US Olympic Soccer mens
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Anonymous
You need more, out of the mls,usl,upsl how many is that around 100? Academy teams and idk if this is correct but some of those usl or upsl teams don’t have U little teams where the real foundation of a player is started… 100 academy’s for this countries size is too small. England doubles that and most countries smaller than the U.S have more academy’s. Maybe I’m not understanding your statement about recruiting but recruiting happens at all the big clubs around the world…Real Madrid recruits from brazil youth system. We don’t have a large enough academy system to support the amount of potential talent we have… |
Anonymous
My statement on recruiting is about the where scouts spend their efforts to look. They only focus on bigger clubs to look for talent and overlook smaller organizations. The US soccer opinion is that the bigger a club is, the better the talent must be. There are kids with great talent at smaller clubs that don't get seen because they don't play at a big club. Scouts also only focus on the national platforms like ecnl, GA, mlsnext. There are tons of players who have far more talent outside of those levels but can't foe one reason or another. We have enough academies but they aren't looking at all of them, just the big ones. International academies are better at developing talent but they have been doing it a lot longer. It will be another decade or two before US soccer, at least on the men's side, is competing at the same level as Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Spain, or England. |
Anonymous
| It all comes down to revenue money. There isn’t enough of it in soccer yet in this country. That’s why we don’t have more pro teams. That’s why recruiting is limited to the big clubs. That’s why it’s pay to play. If pro soccer made the kind of money that NFL/MLB/NBA do, these problems could be solved. Soccer is growing so there is hope but it is still a long way from where we need it. |
Anonymous
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Yeah I agree I’m just saying with more academies you would get more scouts instead of just having the top leagues recruit the best players.
It is about revenue and it’s a culture thing. Clubs around the world have had like a 70 year head start. Also why the men’s team can’t compete cause the federation makes dumb decisions. It’s fine to be corrupt cause almost every federation is but you can’t keep making dumb decisions |
Anonymous
Oblivious rich parents that think their little Ryan or Ellie are the next super stars and don’t mind paying whatever to keep this dream alive. |
Anonymous
Try again. Other sports also have rich parents who don’t mind paying but we are still able to dominate or be competitive internationally in those sports. Why doesn’t soccer work like these other sports? |
Anonymous
It's simple. European clubs are seen as community institutions who have a duty to the community. They sponsor teams and academies in other sports that are pure red on the balance sheet. That isn't the mindset of professional sports in the US where teams exist to extract money from the community. You also have the problem with selling players. Great academies on the mens side can be self sufficient by selling players they develop. The legality of that setup in the US is questionable at best |
Anonymous
| Again, the issue is the lack of real soccer dev. Is all about size in the US, hence the results. |
Anonymous
I promise there is no team at the top of the sport that can afford to have the kid referenced above take up a roster spot. If there is an athlete that can’t ball on the team, and they didn’t earn that spot it will kill the team culture. High performing teams are very unique cultures, and the athletes police the team just as much, if not more than the coaches do. The most telling thing is when people who have never breathed that rare air talk about the inequities of competition - those that have even gotten a whiff of that rare air know. Parents like the above kill theirs kids chances at greatness! Mindset matter so much. And yea, a chip on the shoulder can be motivating, but the above isn’t a “I had to earn what you were given” - the above is “I don’t have it, and you don’t deserve it, but I deserve it and you have it.” Just hurts my heart for the kid. |
Anonymous
| If a prospective player's parents have to pay 5-10k a year for their kid to be seen, we will never be able to compete. |
Anonymous
Right?! The USMNT all stand almost 8 inches over their French counter parts. The US players are genetic freaks! They all could probably be backup anchors on the men’s relay for the US in a pinch too. Just too bad none of them can handle a football, then we’d be unstoppable. I mean, I wonder if all of those young men played soccer before the U23 roster was released for The Olympics. Can you image if we got these guys, like 14 years ago and were able to work with them on soccer instead of whatever sport (probably CrossFit) they’d been playing before the Olympics? We’d be unstoppable! Wait…how many teams qualified for the Olympics soccer? How’d we qualify? From the senior team play? Or did these athletic-non footballers have to qualify first? Korea’s mens team has some solid pros in Europe! I can’t wait to watch them in the Olympics. Wait what?! They didn’t qualify? Ohwell, I’ll look forward to Brazil, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. What?! They didn’t qualify too?! But the US did? I guess the US qualified based on height! Thank goodness for that. |
Anonymous
How much do you think it costs to develop a pro player? Not even a top league pro? Most academies estimate it to be around $250k minimum. FIFA requires a 5% (minimum) training fee be sent to the academy when the player goes pro - and that fee keeps going for every transfer until that player is 24yo. So the academies are fine with that, because it all balances out to stay in business. If that’s what you want, you can get a job in one of 47 different European countries, establish residency and try your luck there, where as outside talent, it’s much harder to break into the system. In the US the $250k (minimum!) is largely footed by families. But the barrier to entry is lower - everyone gets a shot! And if you can’t afford it, but you’re a genuine baller, or you’ve got clear potential, the clubs will sponsor you! I held my DD out of a tournament that looked to be a shit show (it turned out to be, and glad we opted out) and the owner of the club offered to pay for everything just to get her there because “they needed her” - and I don’t have a “can’t afford it” problem - there is ALWAYS money and opportunity if your kid can ball in the US. BUT if your kid can’t ball, then yeah, you gotta pay to be seen, and probably more than the ECNL teams do to attend a showcase…because you’re going to have to go to 10 ID camps to get the eyeballs the ECNL team got at 1 event. And if your kid can’t ball then they also wouldn’t have a shot in Europe…and guess what…you’d end up at a pay-to-play academy there too! But! Without a pathway to the pros OR college! And Yes, Europe has pay academies too! It’s not all “free for students, paid for by EPL Club X” (Guess how much DC United Academy costs?…same as the European academies…it’s just in dollars not Euros) |
Anonymous
Maybe you an convince the NCAA and youth league to change how soccer hear is officiated. US soccer is much more of a contact sport than international soccer and it shows when American players play the best International teams. Put Big10 refs out there and call it like an American game and those smaller guys with great touches would all be spending most of the game on the ground. |
Anonymous
+1 Totally agree. In addition, the France team is pretty stacked because they are the home team. There are other US players who might have played in the Olympics who either didn't play because they played for the senior team in the Copa America or their clubs would not release them for this event. Yes, I know there are also top French players who aren't there. However, it was a better performance than the score suggested, and in fact, the first-half performance was strong. |
Anonymous
Someone should let you know how Olympic qualifications work. Do you think the US emerged out of the same qualification pool as Germany and Netherlands? |