Anonymous wrote:College is not a feeder system for professional sports. The vast, vast majority of college athletes (99%) have no intentions to play professionally. The goal is to go to college and do something you enjoy (sports). Represent and compete for your school.

Why would you take a system like college sports that is working well for 99% of its participants, and try to change it for the 1% that might be playing professionally?

What exactly is the feeder system for professional sport? 99% of professional athletes (American in America) have come from colleges. We all know it's different for other countries.

Anonymous wrote:I think you all are talking past the issue. Almost all women playing in college, even P5 have little or no desire to go pro and pretty limited desire to play for the national team. They want to go to college and then go into the real world.

That is especially true of the women at the top 50 schools and the high academics where they have used soccer to upgrade their school choice.

I agree. There is not benefit to professional women's soccer as a career. Unless you end up with an amazing commercial deal, it's not very lucrative. Most women would prefer to use soccer to upgrade AND pay for college. It's also a great social setting. Women do not go to college in hopes of becoming a professional soccer player.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

No think your information is out of date. The top European clubs are not investing as much as the men’s side(which is a huge amount)but they are investing a lot more vs the US or NWSL. Remember those clubs already have the infrastructure in place. So adding a women side is a fraction of the cost of a self standing team/Academy. The clubs are actually making a decent profit from the women’s game and all indications are the demand is increasing quickly. Women’s soccer in Europe has shown it can generate the money and now the worry is about the salaries exploding.

This is backed up by crowd size. Look at the dates. As comparison the largest crowd size for NWSL game was 32k. College soccer is lucky if they get 1,000 people. The first two on the list are club play in Europe.

2022: FC Barcelona vs VFL Wolfsburg - Champions League (91,648)
2022: FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid - Champions League (91,553)
1999: United States vs China - World Cup Final (90,185)
2022: England vs Germany - Euro 2022 (87,192)
2023: England vs Brazil - Finalissima (83,132)
2012: United States vs Japan - Olympics (80,203)
2019: England vs Germany - International Friendly (77,768)
2023: Chelsea vs Manchester United - FA Cup Final (77,390)
2023: Australia vs Ireland - World Cup (75,784)
2023: England vs Australia - World Cup Semi-Final (75,784)

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.

There are more professional women’s teams(and players) in Spain vs all of the US by a huge margin. There are the 16 teams of the Liga F with promotion and relegation system. It goes like this.

Liga F 16 teams
Primera Federación 16 teams
Segunda Federación 32 teams
Primera Nacional 96 teams

There are also regional leagues but those are not pro/rel and would be the equivalent of playing college soccer. This is just one country in Europe. The UK is about to explode. So in Spain 164 teams. Their coaches and development program are much better vs the US. Look at the Spanish recent results in the youth national teams. 153rd rank college team would match up with one of the top regional team in Spain.

If anything college soccer is an after thought. It is a middling and underfund amateur league. If you follow college soccer most of the freshman and sophomore are lucky to get in to a game let alone start. It’s just a continuation of ECNL which is not very good soccer. The US women/girls youth national teams have not won a group stage match since 2012.

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.

Soccer development does not stop at 18. From 16-21 the development is just as important as the 9-14. In the US on the girls side develop stops at about 15-16. At that age the girls are on an ECNL team and the teams sole purpose is to provide a platform for college recruiting. In college there is little development.

I will say there are too many ECNL teams because realistically very few girls have a chance at playing professionally. So why put so many through the grid of ECNL? If academics were the real concern parents would not get involved with the huge time commitment that is ECNL.

I think you all are talking past the issue. Almost all women playing in college, even P5 have little or no desire to go pro and pretty limited desire to play for the national team. They want to go to college and then go into the real world.

That is especially true of the women at the top 50 schools and the high academics where they have used soccer to upgrade their school choice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

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.