Reply to Landon Donovan was right

Forum Index » Soccer

Reply to "Landon Donovan was right"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I recently when down an internet rabbit hole to understand why the US doesn't have better soccer players. The most interesting theory, that I think is likely on point, is that soccer in the US is too structured. Kids only play in leagues but don't play in organic street games like they do in many parts of the world. It's in those informal settings that kids develop the best skills. Think of basketball in the US - many of the top players grew up playing in their streets or neighborhood courts, they weren't shuttled around every weekend to be coached. [/quote]

This is not the only or leading reason, but this is a big reason in my view - think also of how kids play pickup basketball with adults when they hit a certain threshold of growth and/or speed.  We don't have a critical mass of people watching and playing soccer at the levels necessary to produce the MNTs that you might otherwise expect.  That's simply not going to change for a very, very long time.  And it has nothing to do with pay-to-play or parental culture or for-profit incentives for MLS Clubs (which give them a very, very strong incentive to identify and sell talent more effectively than any fantasy of taking money out of sports).[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics