Reply to Stanford vs Georgetown women game last Sunday

Forum Index » Soccer

Reply to "Stanford vs Georgetown women game last Sunday "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]College soccer has been getting more serious about the spring, which is something!

It would be hard to advise someone without a senior national team spot to completely skip college soccer given the limited financial upside of being a pro, especially with the new influx of NIL money. Stanford's next home game against Santa Clara is already sold out. The college game is growing in popularity and should provide some $$ moving forward too. I think it should be a legit revenue sport in 10 years like women's basketball has become if it keeps developing.

Stanford's current team is good but isn't as star-studded (remember Thompson was committed prior to going pro). They've had Sullivan, Smith (who left early), Girma, Cook, Macario, Davidson, and Campbell who have all earned USWNT caps. Multiple while they were at Stanford too.

O'Hara and Press had overlap in the late 2000s too. I didn't mean to slight the current team but in terms of top-shelf talent, it isn't the best the school has had partially because top players are now exploring other avenues than college soccer.[/quote]

I think 75% of the Stanford players have US national youth team experience. So the players are some of the best as identified by US Soccer(what ever that means). Playing college soccer for the women is similar to putting your development on ice for 3-4 years. The speed of play is just too slow, the technical skills are not there and the defense gives way too much space. The last point is a big one. Usually you play like you practice. If you are not playing defense hard in practice it hurts the other players because they are not under playing under pressure. 
As for the women college game growing. I do not know. A lot of the games are really physical and ugly(not enjoyable to watch). If you are a soccer fan, you want to see the women’s game played like it is at Barca or Super league. The women champions league games are drawing 90k. [/quote]

Isn't the problem just as big if not bigger before college though? Outside of IMG and a few academies, Americans have been far less willing to truly make school secondary to sports at a young age. I think this is actually a good thing but it is something big that happens way before college in many other countries. 
Having college teams with high level talent is a positive. Players like Sophia Smith and Naomi Girma went against each other regularly at Stanford as did Macario and Davidson. Those few elite teams are probably actually better development wise for the US than having a bunch of pretty good teams each with one great player.[/quote]

The problem is Sophia Smith and Naomi Girma are not practicing or playing against high quality opponents while at Stanford. The vast majority of the players they play with or against are not on the level of a professional players. 4% of college players go on to play professionally. Here is the difference.

[quote]That same year, 2018, U.S. Soccer’s director of talent identification, Mirelle van Rijbroek, studied the Under-17 Women’s World Cup, and compared her players to those in Spain and elsewhere. She looked at strikers, for example. “And just look at their pathways,” van Rijbroek told Yahoo Sports five years later, this June. Canada had Jordyn Huitema, who was training daily at a specialized Vancouver soccer academy. Spain’s Claudia Pina was being schooled by Barcelona. The U.S. striker, meanwhile, was playing for her high school and local youth club.

“And compare those three now,” van Rijbroek said. “Just look at the experience, the level, the games that they've been playing.”

Huitema went to PSG at age 18, and now starts for Canada’s senior team.

Pina plays for Barcelona’s first team, and had been playing for Spain before the fight between Spanish players and their federation cost her a spot at the World Cup.

The U.S. forward, meanwhile, just finished up her senior year of college.[/quote]

https://sports.yahoo.com/womens-world-cup-uswnt-future-spain-england-210341858.html?guccounter=1

The quality is just not there is college soccer. Which is fine but you will not develop playing 23-24 games(for the few teams that make a run in the NCAA tournament) a year with maybe 3-4 competitive games. Add in the the practice hour restriction and practicing level. Last year Pac12 4 teams had a winning conference record and that’s with California 5-3-3.

The first thing you notice when you go to Europe and watch a practice is the sound. The ball actual pops and the tempo is so much faster. College soccer practices are just not close to the same level.

Take Salma Paralluelo 18/19 years old. Would be a college freshman in the US this year. She is playing for Barca, being coaches by Jonatan Giráldez and playing against and with world class players in practice and games. In 4 years she will be a seasoned player in her prime. The same woman in the US will be graduating college.[/quote]

I think you are incorrect about the quality of the European club teams' youth programs and van Rijbroek is speaking with a pretty clear agenda as to what she wants more at the youth level (the article is much more about younger pipeline with just a mention about college). There are a few of good ones but they are the exception and not the rule in women's soccer. The investment isn't there in Europe in nearly the same way as it is with the men. The European countries would love for it to be what the article was describing.
Paralluelo (19) would be best compared with a US outlier like the slightly younger Thompson (18), who was good enough to bypass college soccer completely. In those pro and USWNT cases, they should skip college in the US since there is financial security and they'll be playing against top competition right away. That is totally different than trying to develop on a middling and underfunded European youth team at 18-19. You need to look at the U18-21 youth teams not the superstars who are already playing against senior competition at 18 when making the college comparison.

The unwillingness to put academics in the back seat with middle and high school kids and the lack of $$ for women's academies are the bigger issue, not college soccer. I think 
van Rijbroek and the author would agree too. [/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