Stupid question, type it in google and you will find years of debate. It's not solvable in the until the national team does something magical to inspire, until then Football, basketball, etc will take priority.

You sound like a petulant child. Learn from what goes on elsewhere if you are smart. Or Whine and insult and tantrum if you want while others pay attention and learn.

Sounds like you should all get the “f” out of my country and go live in Europe, at least if soccer for your kid is all you live, hope and dream for.

The rest of the world has an open pyramid, where professional clubs can rise and fall based on their performance. This creates real pressure to excel and strong incentives to develop youth players. Even small amateur clubs can be paid compensation such as transfer fees, training fees and solidarity fees. This keeps the costs for the families low even in the pay to play clubs. Unlike the USSF, which has different priorities, many other federations make serious investments in grassroots soccer. In Germany, for example, the average cost of playing organized soccer with paid coaches and well-maintained fields is 3.5 Euros a month. https://www.dfb.de/en/news/detail/amateurs-football-is-there-for-everyone-113804/

Anonymous wrote:US soccer is a joke and driven by coaches who leverage parents' desire for their DS to become the next Messi. In the rest of the world, no one is paying $3,000+ a year to play amateur soccer.

On the girls side, many top NCAA women's soccer program have a fair number of foreign players. Iceland seems to have players on every other team. There are players from England or Germany on every team.

I’m glad you mention Iceland, they know how to raise gladiators in that country. They kick our ass in soccer and crossfit games because of the way they raise their kids. They teach them they can do anything, to never give up, to overcome any obstacles.

Here we raise cream puffs. Tell our kids they will never go pro or play in college but the important thing is to have fun and play with your friends.

One thing to note: in Europe clubs have a financial incentive to develop players. Transfer fees, while not huge for U19s and whatnot, can at least finance the cost of the academy system or a few coaches.

We just moved back to the USA from a rather small country last year and into the abyss that is US youth soccer.

In our country, all youth soccer is run through one organization, the Football Association (FA). The league is set up with Premiership, Championship, Development, and Community (Rec) soccer teams and there is promotion and relegation in the regional divisions.

After 13, a new league forms including the professional clubs and they compete with one another and some of the top teams that are left from the old structure.

Is it a mess? For some parents, yes, but by and large, those that are really serious about football leave for bigger countries (like England, Spain, Netherlands, and France) often going through boarding school to get into the systems over there. Those that remain can generally get to the level of playing in a US university if that's what they want or for the local pro side which isn't really a full-time job.

There was a good story posted here awhile ago about Norway's youth system for all sports. Might be informative for you

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/28/sports/norway-youth-sports-model.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does the rest of the world operate like the US with the number of boys youth leagues (equivalent of DA/EDP/NCSL/CCL/ODP etc etc) or is it simpler and more streamlined? Do teams and clubs switch leagues as frequently and is there as much tinkering (e.g., birth year, elimination of certain age groups from DA etc) as here? Please excuse the naïveté - We’re relatively new to how things work in the soccer universe and navigating the whole thing seems unnecessarily complicated. Am I wrong or is this normal everywhere?

Welcome to the US soccer mess.
In European countries, you usually will have only one national association managing all youth clubs (so no DA vs. ECNL non sense). You will start at a young age in your neighborhood/village, and play local teams. If you are a good player, you can consider playing for a better team (in a upper tier of the multi-tier youth system) in middle school years. This may imply a bit of travel, but nothing that you see here so early.
If you are really good, you can try out for the academies of the best clubs, which is really competitive and may imply plenty of travel.
It is not pay-for-play system. You ill have mostly to pay for registration, uniforms and gas.
Soccer will not get you in college, admissions being purely based on academics.

The main downside is that only a few parents can brag about their kids being "elite".

The main difference is that in Europe for most kids, by the age of 12 you know if they could go pro or not.

Anonymous wrote:Does the rest of the world operate like the US with the number of boys youth leagues (equivalent of DA/EDP/NCSL/CCL/ODP etc etc) or is it simpler and more streamlined? Do teams and clubs switch leagues as frequently and is there as much tinkering (e.g., birth year, elimination of certain age groups from DA etc) as here? Please excuse the naïveté - We’re relatively new to how things work in the soccer universe and navigating the whole thing seems unnecessarily complicated. Am I wrong or is this normal everywhere?

Welcome to the US soccer mess.
In European countries, you usually will have only one national association managing all youth clubs (so no DA vs. ECNL non sense). You will start at a young age in your neighborhood/village, and play local teams. If you are a good player, you can consider playing for a better team (in a upper tier of the multi-tier youth system) in middle school years. This may imply a bit of travel, but nothing that you see here so early.
If you are really good, you can try out for the academies of the best clubs, which is really competitive and may imply plenty of travel.
It is not pay-for-play system. You ill have mostly to pay for registration, uniforms and gas.
Soccer will not get you in college, admissions being purely based on academics.

The main downside is that only a few parents can brag about their kids being "elite".

So the clubs in Europe really do not care if their equivalent u17 team has a losing record. It’s all about the first team.

No know cares about the record in terms of wins and loses. It’s about how the kids develop and if these kids will generate money for the club.

It is much more competitive in Europe and fees are paid by pro clubs to the youth clubs for developing a pro player. At Ajax they have a soccer factory that goes from age 7-19 and every year they cut kids and send them home. In France, players like Mbappe are taken out of school at 12 and sent away to Clairefontaine to train full time for three years.

Anonymous wrote:Overseas, there are pro clubs who recruit and scout like mad and there's everyone else. The "everyone else" is just for the kids so it's not taken that seriously... regardless off league, division, whatever.

A parallel would be if you had a kid playing basketball here in the US, you know how competitive it is to play in the NBA and how many kids have that dream are striving every day for it.

Do you care what the structure of the leagues are in your city? probably not. If your kid is in the top 10 top players in your city than maybe you care but otherwise, i doubt you will bother.

Same with soccer in Europe. And the youth leagues have had just as much time to sort themselves out as little league baseball, which barely changes ever.

If you believe this for a minute you are mistaken.

There are levels and leagues and kids compete hard in all of them. And yes pro clubs scout the youth leagues but there are clubs who develop reputations with pro club scouts and playing for those coaches is every bit as important for the networking.

Clubs that can prove that kids can get moved up to higher levels are sought after just like here. The only real difference is in price, which can be far less because the pyramids are more streamlined and the leagues are more compressed geographically reducing travel costs significantly.

But teams play in tournaments all across Europe just like we travel all over.

The main difference is really a soccer culture, transferable soccer culture and a tremendous player pool. But to think that kids who do not make a Pro academy just treat soccer like rec is simply wrong.

US soccer is a joke and driven by coaches who leverage parents' desire for their DS to become the next Messi. In the rest of the world, no one is paying $3,000+ a year to play amateur soccer.

On the girls side, many top NCAA women's soccer program have a fair number of foreign players. Iceland seems to have players on every other team. There are players from England or Germany on every team.

Overseas, there are pro clubs who recruit and scout like mad and there's everyone else. The "everyone else" is just for the kids so it's not taken that seriously... regardless off league, division, whatever.

A parallel would be if you had a kid playing basketball here in the US, you know how competitive it is to play in the NBA and how many kids have that dream are striving every day for it.

Do you care what the structure of the leagues are in your city? probably not. If your kid is in the top 10 top players in your city than maybe you care but otherwise, i doubt you will bother.

Same with soccer in Europe. And the youth leagues have had just as much time to sort themselves out as little league baseball, which barely changes ever.

Does the rest of the world operate like the US with the number of boys youth leagues (equivalent of DA/EDP/NCSL/CCL/ODP etc etc) or is it simpler and more streamlined? Do teams and clubs switch leagues as frequently and is there as much tinkering (e.g., birth year, elimination of certain age groups from DA etc) as here? Please excuse the naïveté - We’re relatively new to how things work in the soccer universe and navigating the whole thing seems unnecessarily complicated. Am I wrong or is this normal everywhere?