Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The story that was mentioned about Pulisic is exactly the issue. In the US, we focus on the fastest and the strongest and bet that their skills will catch up. In Europe, they focus on technical ability and bet that the physical side will even out once everyone grows. Most of the time, the European bet wins. This is exacerbated by how few professional level academies per capita there are in the US - developing kids is to some extent a lottery, and they’re buying 1000 tickets for every 10 that we buy.

This is like 75% the way there.

Most academies in the US don’t focus on size anymore.

It’s really simpler - the best model is focusing on controlling the controllable. Teaching skill, soccer IQ, good teamwork etc is controllable. The physical side is somewhat, but the genetic component isn’t. So they just control what they can.

At the end of the day speed matters a lot at the top level. At the top levels everyone can do the technical requirements - it’s speed that separates those that keep climbing and those that don’t. Size helps, but it isn’t really a huge factor when you’re talking about a handful of inches in a sport largely played on the ground.

It's speed of play that increases at the highest levels. Not speed.
Speed of play is driven by IQ making quicker good decisions.

Not about how fast one runs.

Not sure why you assumed speed was only defined as one’s running speed. If I meant running speed I would have said running speed.

Anonymous wrote:Technical skill isn't important in America. They want ' athletic strong' aka large, fast, and really aggressive over skills. The amount of parents I've talked to who are extremely frustrated with coaches just flat out saying their kid doesn't fit on their roster because they're highly technical but on the smaller side is indicative of this. If you look at who dominates in ECNL it's West Coast and Texan players who are big and just throw their bodies at people over having actual foot skills. Sure, they can all blast the ball extremely hard to the back of the net; but then we wonder why we get obliterated in international play when actually technical players absolutely shut our national team players down in both men's and women's soccer. Anyone who disagrees with this can just watch an almost 40-year-old Messi absolutely dribble circles around an entire back line of American MLS players completely past his prime as though he's just taking a leisurely walk down the field before scoring.

Here's to hoping at some point we stopped treating soccer like American football in this country.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The story that was mentioned about Pulisic is exactly the issue. In the US, we focus on the fastest and the strongest and bet that their skills will catch up. In Europe, they focus on technical ability and bet that the physical side will even out once everyone grows. Most of the time, the European bet wins. This is exacerbated by how few professional level academies per capita there are in the US - developing kids is to some extent a lottery, and they’re buying 1000 tickets for every 10 that we buy.

This is like 75% the way there.

Most academies in the US don’t focus on size anymore.

It’s really simpler - the best model is focusing on controlling the controllable. Teaching skill, soccer IQ, good teamwork etc is controllable. The physical side is somewhat, but the genetic component isn’t. So they just control what they can.

At the end of the day speed matters a lot at the top level. At the top levels everyone can do the technical requirements - it’s speed that separates those that keep climbing and those that don’t. Size helps, but it isn’t really a huge factor when you’re talking about a handful of inches in a sport largely played on the ground.

It's speed of play that increases at the highest levels. Not speed.
Speed of play is driven by IQ making quicker good decisions.

Not about how fast one runs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The story that was mentioned about Pulisic is exactly the issue. In the US, we focus on the fastest and the strongest and bet that their skills will catch up. In Europe, they focus on technical ability and bet that the physical side will even out once everyone grows. Most of the time, the European bet wins. This is exacerbated by how few professional level academies per capita there are in the US - developing kids is to some extent a lottery, and they’re buying 1000 tickets for every 10 that we buy.

This is like 75% the way there.

Most academies in the US don’t focus on size anymore.

It’s really simpler - the best model is focusing on controlling the controllable. Teaching skill, soccer IQ, good teamwork etc is controllable. The physical side is somewhat, but the genetic component isn’t. So they just control what they can.

At the end of the day speed matters a lot at the top level. At the top levels everyone can do the technical requirements - it’s speed that separates those that keep climbing and those that don’t. Size helps, but it isn’t really a huge factor when you’re talking about a handful of inches in a sport largely played on the ground.

It's speed of play that increases at the highest levels. Not speed.
Speed of play is driven by IQ making quicker good decisions.

Not about how fast one runs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The story that was mentioned about Pulisic is exactly the issue. In the US, we focus on the fastest and the strongest and bet that their skills will catch up. In Europe, they focus on technical ability and bet that the physical side will even out once everyone grows. Most of the time, the European bet wins. This is exacerbated by how few professional level academies per capita there are in the US - developing kids is to some extent a lottery, and they’re buying 1000 tickets for every 10 that we buy.

This is like 75% the way there.

Most academies in the US don’t focus on size anymore.

It’s really simpler - the best model is focusing on controlling the controllable. Teaching skill, soccer IQ, good teamwork etc is controllable. The physical side is somewhat, but the genetic component isn’t. So they just control what they can.

At the end of the day speed matters a lot at the top level. At the top levels everyone can do the technical requirements - it’s speed that separates those that keep climbing and those that don’t. Size helps, but it isn’t really a huge factor when you’re talking about a handful of inches in a sport largely played on the ground.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all seem to miss the point of the argument. You really can’t dispute that there are NFL/NBA athletes that have far more base athletic ability (which would transfer over and be beneficial in soccer) than most professional soccer players. If they were put in the same proper soccer training environments at the same ages they would likely have become elite soccer players.

But we miss many of those kids - for some it’s the pull and glamour and cultural deference to NFL/NBA, others it is knowledge, access and cost or underserved communities.

With that said, we still have more kids playing soccer than some better countries have in total population - we should be doing better.

The intelligent people who understand the combination of skills required to be an elite soccer player are disagreeing with your emotional romantic argument because it's not based on logic nor evidence nor facts nor truth.

What evidence can you provide that shows because someone is good at basketball as an adult they would have been as good at soccer?

Define "base athletic ability" and tell us when this ability is measured in children?
Where can we view the nationwide results?
Who administers the tests?

There actually are baseline tests for this with metric bands for various athletic abilities. Sports science has made some huge leaps over the past 30 years.

Anonymous wrote:The story that was mentioned about Pulisic is exactly the issue. In the US, we focus on the fastest and the strongest and bet that their skills will catch up. In Europe, they focus on technical ability and bet that the physical side will even out once everyone grows. Most of the time, the European bet wins. This is exacerbated by how few professional level academies per capita there are in the US - developing kids is to some extent a lottery, and they’re buying 1000 tickets for every 10 that we buy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all seem to miss the point of the argument. You really can’t dispute that there are NFL/NBA athletes that have far more base athletic ability (which would transfer over and be beneficial in soccer) than most professional soccer players. If they were put in the same proper soccer training environments at the same ages they would likely have become elite soccer players.

But we miss many of those kids - for some it’s the pull and glamour and cultural deference to NFL/NBA, others it is knowledge, access and cost or underserved communities.

With that said, we still have more kids playing soccer than some better countries have in total population - we should be doing better.

The intelligent people who understand the combination of skills required to be an elite soccer player are disagreeing with your emotional romantic argument because it's not based on logic nor evidence nor facts nor truth.

What evidence can you provide that shows because someone is good at basketball as an adult they would have been as good at soccer?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all seem to miss the point of the argument. You really can’t dispute that there are NFL/NBA athletes that have far more base athletic ability (which would transfer over and be beneficial in soccer) than most professional soccer players. If they were put in the same proper soccer training environments at the same ages they would likely have become elite soccer players.

But we miss many of those kids - for some it’s the pull and glamour and cultural deference to NFL/NBA, others it is knowledge, access and cost or underserved communities.

With that said, we still have more kids playing soccer than some better countries have in total population - we should be doing better.

The intelligent people who understand the combination of skills required to be an elite soccer player are disagreeing with your emotional romantic argument because it's not based on logic nor evidence nor facts nor truth.

What evidence can you provide that shows because someone is good at basketball as an adult they would have been as good at soccer?

Define "base athletic ability" and tell us when this ability is measured in children?
Where can we view the nationwide results?
Who administers the tests?

Anonymous wrote:The story that was mentioned about Pulisic is exactly the issue. In the US, we focus on the fastest and the strongest and bet that their skills will catch up. In Europe, they focus on technical ability and bet that the physical side will even out once everyone grows. Most of the time, the European bet wins. This is exacerbated by how few professional level academies per capita there are in the US - developing kids is to some extent a lottery, and they’re buying 1000 tickets for every 10 that we buy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all seem to miss the point of the argument. You really can’t dispute that there are NFL/NBA athletes that have far more base athletic ability (which would transfer over and be beneficial in soccer) than most professional soccer players. If they were put in the same proper soccer training environments at the same ages they would likely have become elite soccer players.

But we miss many of those kids - for some it’s the pull and glamour and cultural deference to NFL/NBA, others it is knowledge, access and cost or underserved communities.

With that said, we still have more kids playing soccer than some better countries have in total population - we should be doing better.

The intelligent people who understand the combination of skills required to be an elite soccer player are disagreeing with your emotional romantic argument because it's not based on logic nor evidence nor facts nor truth.

What evidence can you provide that shows because someone is good at basketball as an adult they would have been as good at soccer?

Anonymous wrote:You all seem to miss the point of the argument. You really can’t dispute that there are NFL/NBA athletes that have far more base athletic ability (which would transfer over and be beneficial in soccer) than most professional soccer players. If they were put in the same proper soccer training environments at the same ages they would likely have become elite soccer players.

But we miss many of those kids - for some it’s the pull and glamour and cultural deference to NFL/NBA, others it is knowledge, access and cost or underserved communities.

With that said, we still have more kids playing soccer than some better countries have in total population - we should be doing better.