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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Kids in Europe start at U7 at the academies and are in professional academy environment and start breaking into first teams at 16, 17.

Guess who has a better chance to develop into a quality pro?   [/quote]

Umm, I know!  The kids who grow up in a mature soccer culture, such as those in Europe and South America, where there is a very strong, well established professional hierarchy in place to develop and identify talent, providing players with the incentive to make soccer their primary sport, and for clubs to find the best talent to strengthen their player base and their balance sheets, in the long run.

I wonder if soccer forums in India and China also bemoan their "underperformance" in international play.  I mean, c'mon, they have several billion people between then vs countries of 20 million kicking their butts!   Or maybe they are intelligent enough to realize that their soccer culture and system isn't as mature as that in the better performing areas in the world, therefore the numbers don't mean much.

Yes, that's probably true, because there are a lot of smart people in those two nations.[/quote]

It is true that soccer culture is an important ingredient, but I don't think India and China are the best comparison for the US.  India does not have much investment in soccer and infrastructure and is more concerned about feeding millions that live in poverty.  China only started to invest into soccer recently, but in a more centralized government controlled way.   A better example is Japan, which established its professional league around the same time as MLS was established, did not have much of traditional soccer culture and has comparable infrastructure to the United States.  We built a closed system with the MLS, while Japan built a traditional open system, where the place in the top league must be earned on the field.  Today Japan has 3 division with promotion/relegation and its team almost made to quarterfinal in the WC for which we failed to qualify.  They had a great game against Belgium and led 2-0, before Belgium had a great come back at the end of the second half.  [/quote]

Japan and China did some of the same things, including hiring world-class coaches to lead their club and national teams and integrating world-class (and not just washed-up) players into their squads. The Kashima Antlers, which almost beat Real Madrid in the Club World Cup final two years ago, was once coached by Brazilian great Zico, who also played for the team. Zico also coached Japan's NT in the 2010 World Cup. Chinese Super League teams have had World Cup winners as coaches, including Luiz Felipe Scolari and Fabio Cannavaro. They aren't xenophobic like the USSF.

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