RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Emotionally Over-Invested Parents” should be the title of this thread.

Passion for a sport is a good thing. The over-invested parents are the ones buying into the sh*t and kissing up ruthlessly. The normal ones are the ones fed up with the BS.

And, you have got the premise and message of this thread completely wrong. Parents are tired of the myth. They are tired of the crooks. They are tired of coaches taking the love of sports from kids and shoving it down their throats beginning with mini-kickers at age 3.

Let the coaches and Club officials and US youth soccer crooks come out and start bashing parents. That's the MO.

OMG, it is youth soccer. Get a grip. There is no reason to be "fed up with the BS". It is a game that your kids play nothing more. If your kid chose Piano or dance would be so concerned about the State of American piano playing?

I think you belong on the 'music forum'. This is a soccer forum. And the discussion isn't YOUTH soccer based it's the market for ADULT soccer, the World Cup, etc. Kid activities are hashed around in the 'elementary school' forum, btw.

The title of this thread is "Travel soccer parents - you’re the reason US soccer is failing", the topic is youth based. Let the kids play for the love of the game, find the right training for your kid and what happens happens. Travel soccer is not intended to to develop a "National Team". It is intended for kids to enjoy playing soccer at a competitive level that fits their talent level.

We do not have kids play piano or any other recreational activity with the intention of being a part of a nationalized system of talent collecting. So yes, stop worrying about World Cup, none of our kids will ever play in it. With each generation the game is growing and will do so organically.

Just enjoy watching your kid play and stop worrying about the international game.

Nope. Travel soccer segregates kids whose parents can afford to pay for it. It has little or nothing to do with athletic ability, as proved out by poor kids from marginal countries who put US in the shade.

Are you suggesting that US Soccer should be a Socialist System where travel parents with money have to subsidize the poor so they can play soccer? In other countries, youth soccer is heavily subsidized by Professional Teams with very deep pockets. MLS & NWSL are poor due to low public interest, game attendance and TV deals. Move to Venezuela if your kid has talent and you don’t want to pay for travel soccer. They have a great socialist system.

I'm tempted to respond with the clip of the Danish politician refuting the notion that socialist countries like Denmark are as miserable as Venezuela, but let's correct a few other things:

1. Average MLS attendance is higher than most of the leagues in the world, and it's not far behind Italy, Spain and France. (Germany and England are in a class of their own.) The average is actually higher than the averages for the NBA and NHL, though those leagues play more games and have smaller venues.

2. Attendance for the NWSL is many times that of Germany's league: https://www.worldfootball.net/attendance/frauen-bundesliga-2017-2018/1/

Even the Women's Champions League drew far less than the NWSL until Lyon got rolling and attracted Portland-level crowds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9318_UEFA_Women%27s_Champions_League_knockout_phase

And yet a lot of these teams are able to pay decent money.

A lot of this is sponsorship, some spilling over from the men's side. Some clubs got creative -- a few years ago, a lot of Wolfsburg players were employed at the town's big employer and team sponsor, VW.

Then you have national scouting and development systems, some of it with direct and indirect government support.

So the point Sunil Gulati often made is somewhat valid. We're not going to get the same government support here that they have in some countries. (I've been pitching a story on how Universal Basic Income might help athletes and artists succeed, but that's another thread.) So if someone wants to pay $3,000 to play travel soccer and the club can subsidize people who'd be left out, that seems OK. The only problem is that the families who can't afford the money often can't afford the time, either. Those of us who can are self-employed or run our own companies can take off whenever. The reality for a lot of families is two wage-earners who might be stuck with some weekend shifts.

The average income tax in Denmark is 60%. NO THANK YOU! Sorry, but no one is going to pay $10,000 a year for travel soccer to subsidize others.

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has there been any proof whatsoever that underserved communities will have this wealth of untapped talent that will lift US soccer out of this hole? I keep seeing these analyses but what are they based on? Yes, generally widening your talent pool helps bring more talent out but that's just a theory. Is the next Nemar living in DC? I doubt it.

Don't get me wrong, US soccer should widen the pool to underserved communities as much as possible but it sounds like analysts are hanging their hat on this saving US soccer and there is much more to our lack of talent IMO.

Let's flip this around. Where's the proof that the current system that favors those with money is working?

Most of the evidence on underserved communities is anecdotal, but it's compelling. Pros like Kyle Martino will sometimes tell you they knew a kid who was more talented than they were but couldn't afford the time or money to keep up. If there's a player better than Kyle Martino out there, shouldn't we do more to get him in the system?

(I say "him," but this is starting to become an issue on the girls' side as well.)

RSD, sometimes you say the dumbest things. The current system is pay to play, so obviously those who cannot pay, do not play. Advantage, paying players.

On the second point, you're basically saying that somehow underserved communities house either more gifted athletes, or more trainable athletes... diamonds in the rough so to speak. Superstars who will eclipse the current talent pool?
Rubbish. There are stars in wait there for sure, but if they train in the US system, they will be no more prolific than the rest. What is added when you expand to include more players, is more depth.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Emotionally Over-Invested Parents” should be the title of this thread.

Passion for a sport is a good thing. The over-invested parents are the ones buying into the sh*t and kissing up ruthlessly. The normal ones are the ones fed up with the BS.

And, you have got the premise and message of this thread completely wrong. Parents are tired of the myth. They are tired of the crooks. They are tired of coaches taking the love of sports from kids and shoving it down their throats beginning with mini-kickers at age 3.

Let the coaches and Club officials and US youth soccer crooks come out and start bashing parents. That's the MO.

OMG, it is youth soccer. Get a grip. There is no reason to be "fed up with the BS". It is a game that your kids play nothing more. If your kid chose Piano or dance would be so concerned about the State of American piano playing?

I think you belong on the 'music forum'. This is a soccer forum. And the discussion isn't YOUTH soccer based it's the market for ADULT soccer, the World Cup, etc. Kid activities are hashed around in the 'elementary school' forum, btw.

The title of this thread is "Travel soccer parents - you’re the reason US soccer is failing", the topic is youth based. Let the kids play for the love of the game, find the right training for your kid and what happens happens. Travel soccer is not intended to to develop a "National Team". It is intended for kids to enjoy playing soccer at a competitive level that fits their talent level.

We do not have kids play piano or any other recreational activity with the intention of being a part of a nationalized system of talent collecting. So yes, stop worrying about World Cup, none of our kids will ever play in it. With each generation the game is growing and will do so organically.

Just enjoy watching your kid play and stop worrying about the international game.

Nope. Travel soccer segregates kids whose parents can afford to pay for it. It has little or nothing to do with athletic ability, as proved out by poor kids from marginal countries who put US in the shade.

Are you suggesting that US Soccer should be a Socialist System where travel parents with money have to subsidize the poor so they can play soccer? In other countries, youth soccer is heavily subsidized by Professional Teams with very deep pockets. MLS & NWSL are poor due to low public interest, game attendance and TV deals. Move to Venezuela if your kid has talent and you don’t want to pay for travel soccer. They have a great socialist system.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Emotionally Over-Invested Parents” should be the title of this thread.

Passion for a sport is a good thing. The over-invested parents are the ones buying into the sh*t and kissing up ruthlessly. The normal ones are the ones fed up with the BS.

And, you have got the premise and message of this thread completely wrong. Parents are tired of the myth. They are tired of the crooks. They are tired of coaches taking the love of sports from kids and shoving it down their throats beginning with mini-kickers at age 3.

Let the coaches and Club officials and US youth soccer crooks come out and start bashing parents. That's the MO.

OMG, it is youth soccer. Get a grip. There is no reason to be "fed up with the BS". It is a game that your kids play nothing more. If your kid chose Piano or dance would be so concerned about the State of American piano playing?

I think you belong on the 'music forum'. This is a soccer forum. And the discussion isn't YOUTH soccer based it's the market for ADULT soccer, the World Cup, etc. Kid activities are hashed around in the 'elementary school' forum, btw.

The title of this thread is "Travel soccer parents - you’re the reason US soccer is failing", the topic is youth based. Let the kids play for the love of the game, find the right training for your kid and what happens happens. Travel soccer is not intended to to develop a "National Team". It is intended for kids to enjoy playing soccer at a competitive level that fits their talent level.

We do not have kids play piano or any other recreational activity with the intention of being a part of a nationalized system of talent collecting. So yes, stop worrying about World Cup, none of our kids will ever play in it. With each generation the game is growing and will do so organically.

Just enjoy watching your kid play and stop worrying about the international game.

Nope. Travel soccer segregates kids whose parents can afford to pay for it. It has little or nothing to do with athletic ability, as proved out by poor kids from marginal countries who put US in the shade.

what is taught in top european or south american soccer academies is not rocket science and can be taught anywhere.

The difference is that they are starting off with super-advanced U8/U9 players who grow up soaking in a soccer culture 24/7 where social status of being a pro soccer player is the best thing that can happen to you. So parents, friends, family, is all pushing and encouraging them from age 6 to make it into an academy by age 8 or 9. Plus they have to compete against thousands of other kids, but the rewards are there.

Here we have no such environment for soccer. We do for football/baseball/basketball, though.

Biesla isn’t even mentioned in the top 20. Leave it to a bald guy: Zidane or Pep.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something resembling the Marcelo Bielsa school of thought would be ideal for American players and our culture as a nation.

I want PEP! To the pp on this thread that told me great leaders don't swear to get their point across---ha, ha!

https://www.givemesport.com/1374542-pep-guardiola-delivered-a-fascinating-speech-to-man-city-players-before-10-chelsea-win

Man City had a 16-point lead mind you…
“We are tired? F*ck you!” Notice he even flips the finger at them while telling them they are not tired.
“You are not tired if you want to be champions.”

The man creates winners wherever he goes-...Barca, Bayern, Man City....

Pep has said on many occasions that he considers Bielsa to be the best coach in the world, especially when it comes to bringing through young players and maximizing their potential. When he was still on the fence about becoming a coach, Pep went to Argentina and had an 11 hour meeting/barbecue with Bielsa to pick his brain, etc.

As for the cursing, there is nothing wrong with inherently cursing per se. He’s a passionate guy, this is what he loves the most and lives for. You expect that passion not to manifest itself in the occcasional profanity. The fact refs here in the states will card you for swearing, but will look away on a leg-crunching tackle, is a farce.

Anonymous wrote:Something resembling the Marcelo Bielsa school of thought would be ideal for American players and our culture as a nation.

I want PEP! To the pp on this thread that told me great leaders don't swear to get their point across---ha, ha!

https://www.givemesport.com/1374542-pep-guardiola-delivered-a-fascinating-speech-to-man-city-players-before-10-chelsea-win

Man City had a 16-point lead mind you…
“We are tired? F*ck you!” Notice he even flips the finger at them while telling them they are not tired.
“You are not tired if you want to be champions.”

The man creates winners wherever he goes-...Barca, Bayern, Man City....

Something resembling the Marcelo Bielsa school of thought would be ideal for American players and our culture as a nation.

We need to define, apply, and stick to, a defined style of play or philosophy.

^ and how will the US fill in those tactical gaps? I see some of the European academies that have set up shop in the US running sessions that capitalize and are teaching those brain skills. They also have the foreign connections to get the players over there more frequently. It’s interesting to watch over time how the DA players that left for the US based euro academies around the US do over the US DA teams.

I think there is a little bit too much negativity about US soccer going on here. Most systems have their flaws. And I would love to see how American parents lamenting about the system here would react to the English system, where small kids are churned in and out of academies every year, cut so cruelly at times from teams that the newcomers and the one who depart are sometimes known to walk past each other along the same corridor. Yes, it's free when you get to that level, but it's also cutthroat, and there is a reason why many young English footballers are found playing college ball in the US. Every country also has a different system. A recent book I read, called Das Reboot, offers a really detailed and interesting take on the reinvention of the German soccer system. Bottom line, no system is perfect, systems have to adapt to the unique context of every country, and most systems have their strengths and weaknesses. Japan, which is producing a pretty regular flow of top footballers now, is another interesting case of a system that is quite different from most other soccer nations, because the Japanese are a very rich nation with a certain culture, where soccer also has to compete with other sports that the Japanese are crazy about.

From where I see it, as the parent of a child playing in the DA system, in spite of many, many flaws -the worst of which are probably the obsessive focus with results at an early age and the priority given to athleticism over instinct and tactical intelligence - it's not all doom and gloom with US soccer. A tournament this summer in Florida featuring some of the top U14 academy players of the world was an encouraging experience. The structure of the tournament meant that all combinations of teams, American and European, played each other before they were separated into 3 flights for the knockouts, based on where they finished in their groups. Bayern beat Chelsea in the finals of the top flight and I wouldn't be surprised to see many of these players wearing their senior club and national jerseys a few years from now. Bayern had 4 players from the German U15 national pool. Chelsea, Dortmund, Celtics, Liverpool and Atletico Madrid had some of the top prospects that scouts have already started tracking in Europe, according to some of their parents and coaches.

https://www.internationalchampionscup.com/en/youth/futures/2018-futures-tournament.

How did the American kids do? The scores tell the story - that barring one game (Atletico against a surprisingly poor NYCFC academy), the MLS academy teams and state "all-star" teams (which included many DA players from non-MLS academies) ran close to the European academies and in some cases, won. "Our" team lost by one late goal to one of the best European teams; Red Bulls and Sounders academies did really well and lost narrowly in the knockouts to the Bayern and Chelsea kids, respectively; and a few of the state teams also had good results, particularly against the English academies. With a little bit of luck, Red Bulls or Sounders could have made it to the finals. As an aside, the level of play was often astonishingly good, and the finals were so much fun to watch on ESPN (we were back here by then).

What I saw in the games that our team played, and a few others featuring some of the better American teams, was that the best of the US kids were right up there with anyone else in skills, technique, vision and pace of play. Where they seemed to fall short a bit as a team, which led to a disproportionate number of narrow losses, is on the tactical front - that intangible "football brain", which I suspect is as much a product of living, breathing, watching, talking and following soccer as it is of coaching. The best of the European teams just knew when to slow down a game, when to press and where and probe for weaknesses, when to storm forward and when to hold, and when to do the little things to disrupt the rhythm of an opponent who is playing well. They were also ever so slightly better - but that is enough to make the difference at the margin - at decision-making and movement off the ball. I don't know if anyone kept stats, but in every game I saw, the American kids attempted more dribbles and impatient forward passes than their European opponents. Most US teams were trying to play possession-based soccer with high pressing when out of possession, at times rather bravely against the likes of Bayern and Dortmund. But the tactical naivete sometimes meant that they would not be able to adjust when they needed to. As an aside, it's quite amazing how tactically savvy the 14 yo Europeans are, and it's also obvious that no academy is wedded to a rigid style or philosophy. The main difference was thus in the tactical intangibles, or as Paolo Maldini (one of the greatest Italian players ever), who was at the tournament called it, in "knowledge". He asked for coaches in the US to focus on "giving the kids knowledge". I felt that should not just be up to the coaches; should be as much the parents' job to create that environment for kids to imbibe soccer knowledge.

Something I have learned in years of coaching, is that it’s very rarely the kids, it’s the adult in the equation, as well as the system, who are usually at fault.

Anonymous wrote:Widening the talent pool is obviously a good thing all around but will not necessarily produce more superstars. The main effect will be to deepen the pool. I don't think the problem with our national teams is depth as much as it is the overall level of play. It is more of a training system issue than it is a recruitment issue.

Yes. Look at a country like Germany where so many of their top players were from traditional Middle-class families. It’s akin to reverse racism to think the ethnicity is going to make all the difference. Pulisic is a white kid. There are plenty of Caucasian families like his with mom and dad college players a soccer culture in the home.

Americans grasp at straws. This is their latest greatest thing— a future Neymar we just haven’t unearthed in a Miami barrio.

It’s the system, dudes. If anything we are going to take away that future Meymar’s creativity And passion when he hits “the system”. They just can’t buy it’s our system-it’s gotta be the kids. Give me a break.

Widening the talent pool is obviously a good thing all around but will not necessarily produce more superstars. The main effect will be to deepen the pool. I don't think the problem with our national teams is depth as much as it is the overall level of play. It is more of a training system issue than it is a recruitment issue.