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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is why we don't have US soccer stars.  The kids in the pay-to-play system don't NEED soccer for a better future. They have parents that can afford a nice lifestyle and sent them to a great college.  They have kids that it makes more sense to go into a STEM or IT field or a great MBA program.   There are kids all over the World where Futbol is their ticket and only way out of certain circumstances or social classes.  That's a hunger that 99.9999% of kids in the pay-to-play system do not have.[/quote]

???  There is so much wrong in the generalizations made above, including:

-- only kids of affluent parents can afford to play travel soccer -- this is a gross generalization and ignores the huge number of kids in the US from "non-affluent" families who play soccer, including for elite travel teams.  Don't get me wrong, the pay-to-play system has more than its fair share of problems, but your statement is absurd on its face;

-- only kids who don't NEED soccer for a better future have the hunger to become stars -- this gross generalization also ignores the countless stars whose parents were well off.  Off hand, I am near certain that Andrea Pirlo (arguably one of the best defensive midfielders ever), Frank Lampard (England and Chelsea legend), Robin Van Persie (Netherlands and Arsenal legend), Gerard Pique (centerback for Spain and Barcelona) and Hugo Lloris (goalkeeper for France and Tottenham) all came from "affluent" families;

-- soccer (or other sports) is the "only way out" of poverty for kids from non-affluent families -- give me a break.  I will grant you that it is incredibly (and increasingly more) difficult for kids to rise above their parents' socioeconomic "status," but it is ignorant to think that becoming a professional athlete is the "only way out."

[/quote]

But what about Jordan and Kobe?  Doesn't that prove that you can only really develop that true hunger and drive to succeed if you grow up in the hood?   Suburban culture could never produce that.

And didn't Klinsman say the same thing comparing the German national team to the US, that all their players grew up poor while ours were all rich kids?  [/quote]

I don't disagree with your general points that affluent suburbs produce the majority of our soccer players as a result of pay-to-play system, but you picked a really bad examples of a hood bread hunger to win with Kobe and Jordan.  Both are ultimate competitors, but none of them grew up in the "hood."  Kobe's father is a former NBA player (i.e. a millionaire or at least well off), Kobe speaks speaks fluent Italian because he spent part of his childhood in Italy, he was even named after a very expensive type of beef from Japan.  These are not hallmarks of a kid from the hood.  Jordan's mom was working in banking and his dad was equipment supervisor, which sounds to me like a middle class family. [/quote]

I’m the original pp of that comment.  Somebody else jumped in with the basketball comparisons.  I know absolutely nothing about basketball.

There are thousand of players playing soccer outside of pay-to-play that are hungry.  I never discounted that.  But, our system does next to nothing to find them.  The few scouts we have go to showcase events with pay-to-play teams and most of the DA teams filter through Clubs or word of mouth from travel clubs/coaches.  Very few travel clubs provide financial support, but for a very, very small amount of the kids in that pool of players that can’t afford the system or get the rides to practices.  Yes, you have one in a million kids like Pulisuc that have an insatiable drive, but the parents here that think their kids are working so hard—I can guarantee you they aren’t putting in the amount of individual hard work that somebody of that caliber is/was.

Our basketball, football systems do it differently.  Much more open.

[/quote]

Read the NY Times piece.  I appreciate it just looked at basketball, but my guess would be that the results would be the same if you looked at the backgrounds of soccer, NFL, MLB and other professional athletes.  [/quote]

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