Youth and the American Soccer Player Pool
by sidereal on Oct 12, 2011 1:12 PM PDT
in US National Team, World Cup and Other International Soccer
Email
Print
If you're the sort of person who likes to discuss the history and future of the US National Team, you know you're never far from a discussion about the quality of the US player pool. Specifically, people want to understand — and argue about — why the leading economy in the world (at least for now) with the fourth largest population doesn't have a more successful international soccer pedigree.
Some common excuses you'll hear are that the coaching quality just isn't high enough, that the reliance on high school and college departments stunts the development of soccer players at a critical period of development, or that there's a lack of resources to scout and develop the best talent. By far the most common answer (and one that I subscribe to) is that soccer just isn't a first-tier sport here and that it loses out to other sports when it comes to drawing in the most promising athletic talent. Generally people refer to all of the young players that turn to basketball, baseball, and American football, but there's also hockey in the north of the country and even lacrosse in the northeast. But I think the mechanism by which that relative lack of popularity affects the US player pool is commonly misunderstood.
This quandary tends to bubble to the surface when a non-soccer star like Chad Ochocinco dabbles in the sport and soccer fans suddenly start wondering 'what if?', but it's never far from our minds. The conversation came up in the thread Dave posted yesterday regarding Jurgen Klinsmann's thoughts on the length of the MLS season — mostly between your friendly Sounder at Heart authors Carlos and Aaron — and I wanted to draw attention to it because I think it encapsulates the general argument well.
Carlos argues against the prevailing (as far as I can tell, anyway) opinion that the sport's relative popularity does have an impact on the quality of the player pool. He gives two good reasons for this. The first is that he doesn't see much evidence that the US is deficient athletically compared to other international teams:
If the US really were physically overmatched, they probably wouldn’t even qualify for the World Cup. But they have no problems with that. It’s getting into the final rounds of the tournament that’s the challenge and physicality isn’t what distinguishes those top teams.
The second is that there's actually relatively little overlap between potential star athletes in soccer and the other major US sports because each demands a completely different type of athlete:
The top players in soccer are often not that physically imposing. Do you think someone that looked like Messi would ever play in the NFL, let alone be one of its major stars? Maradona was short and stocky. Pele is an incredibly average 5’8".
I want to focus on the second argument: that potential elite US soccer players aren't being distracted by other sports, but I'll touch briefly on the first: that the US is already plenty athletic enough. I think this is largely a semantic argument about what we mean by 'athletic'. I think when most people say US Soccer needs better athletes, they just mean that we need more players with the innate qualities that make great soccer players great, whatever those are. Without getting too far into the nature-vs-nurture question, I think it's inarguable that such innate qualities exist even if they're not always well defined. The opposite extreme is an argument that all quality comes from coaching and development. But if that were the case then there would be thousands of Lionel Messis running around. It's not as if Barcelona decided to arbitrarily expend a bunch of resources on Messi and left their other academy players behind. I'm quite confident that every player in their system was given the opportunity to receive the same developmental resources as their greatest players. A very few excelled and a vast majority didn't. Whatever qualities allowed those best players to excel are what makes them the 'best athletes' even if it wasn't raw speed or size or strength.
So on to the second question of competition from other sports. If we encapsulate the search for a better US Soccer player as the 'Messi question' (i.e. why hasn't the United States produced a Lionel Messi yet?), Carlos suggests that we shouldn't point the blame at the other US sports because Messi would have been a laughably bad basketball or football player and at first glance probably wouldn't have been much of a baseball player either (though his tiny strike zone might be an advantage).
But I think the focus on the top level is a distraction here. The problem isn't that Tom Brady, Prince Fielder, and LeBron James played their respective sports instead of soccer (which they almost certainly would have sucked at anyway), it's that there's a whole legion of potentially great soccer players who were distracted into sports at which they'd never reach the top level. In most other countries every promising athlete — every promising athlete — plays some soccer as a kid and the ones with potential (not just athletically, but mentally and emotionally) reinforce those positive results by sticking with it, because there are few other options. In the United States, a small percentage of our young athletes even try soccer seriously. And most of those who do and are successful at it will also be successful at one of our other sports, and for most of those the lure of the sport with the bigger profile and the bigger stars will be enough to draw them away from the beautiful game, even if that player has no chance to make a professional career in that sport.
How many 5'6" kids have you seen playing basketball in playgrounds or in high school? Not just playing, but obsessed with a sport at which they have zero chance of becoming a professional. How many 16 year old, 120 pound linebackers? In love with a game they could never earn money at. How many millions of kids playing Little League dreaming of being the next Albert Pujols with absolutely no idea whether they'll have the freakish hand-eye coordination that would give them even a shot at hitting a major league curveball? And among those millions or even tens of millions, how many potential superstar soccer players are there that never even give the sport a chance?
As a parent myself I'm well aware of both how important it is for a young athlete to get started in a sport from a very early age and how totally arbitrary the decision for one sport over another is. Picking a sport (if any) is largely up to the whims of the parents and the family's schedule. We chose soccer because I love the game and it involves a lot of running. Many other parents will choose baseball or football for their own reasons. And every time another sport is chosen over soccer — for whatever reason and without any guess as to whether that young player will be an elite athlete in any sport — there's a tiny fraction of a chance that the US just lost a potentially great soccer player. And if you add up those tiny fractions a million times year after year after year, you're guaranteed to lose out on a tremendous amount of talent.
In short, I think the answer to the Messi question is that the US very likely already produced Lionel Messi. . probably many times over. But he didn't play soccer as a youth as he would have in Argentina (where soccer is king). Instead he played in Little League or Pop Warner or maybe some high school basketball. And he wasn't very good and he washed out and now he's an accountant.
129 comments
|
7 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
The solution is free enterprise
Newell’s Old Boys recognized Messi as a potential talent at eight years old and signed them to their youth system. When he was older, River Plate was interested in him, but Messi had been diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency and River couldn’t afford the treatments. Barça could, so Messi and his family moved to Spain and the rest is history.
What these three clubs all have in common is the primordial need to find and develop players. Newell’s Old Boys because finding and developing good players is a steady supply of cash, River because they’re looking for players to help them win Argentine and South American trophies as well as a steady supply of cash, and Barça because they’re looking to win Spanish and European trophies. So each of these teams is constantly searching for talent to develop and what they’re looking for isn’t primarily physical. Who can know what an eight year old is going to grow up to look like, anyway? What they’re judging by are the player’s skill level and their understanding of the game. When they play, how well do they control the ball, do they have a sense of when to pass and when to dribble, when they look upfield, do they see where their teammates are?
I went with a friend who was coaching his son’s soccer team to watch them play, and when we got to the field a girls’ match was in the final stages. These were probably 10 or 11 year olds. We were watching for a while, and I saw a girl anticipate and intercept a pass, dribble the intended recipient, and take off up the field, head up looking for the pass. I told my friend that I found that girl’s play impressive and all he could say was “But she’s so small!” I doubt a scout for a pro team whose job depends of finding quality talents would have had that reaction.
I’m not saying I’m qualified to scout youngsters for Barça or anything. I’m saying that if this stuff is obvious to a schlub like me, then those who are qualified would pick up on even more subtle signs. Right now, this stuff is being left up to amateurs who are focused on this athleticism issue while completely ignoring the truly important things. If a Lionel Messi exists in the US, we aren’t finding him because we don’t know how to look, and even if he were found, we don’t know how to develop him.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 1:50 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs
Not to beat the "Moneyball" horse to death but MLB has been guilty of the appearence bias forever.
Billy Beane himself was the perfect example of someone who LOOKS like a great player. Great build, 6’ plus, and athletic as all hell. He just couldn’t hit. You look at someone like John Kruk and you think, “Truck Driver” and yet he’s the accomplished pro.
This isn’t unique to soccer.
by DaveValleDrinkNight on Oct 12, 2011 2:52 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Exactly
Which is why we need to stop thinking in these terms. What I took away from reading Moneyball is that the most important factor in success is mental. How well does a player process the game in his head. Really good players aren’t just good with their feat, they’re also understanding the game at a higher level.
that's what you took from moneyball?
No where in there does it say that mental skills can make a bad athlete into a good one. You clearly need both.
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, MLS editor SB Nation. Follow me on Twitter. You'll Never Yacht Alone.
by Jeremiah Oshan on Oct 12, 2011 4:02 PM PDT up reply actions
It's clearest in the discussion of Scott Hatteburg and his approach to the game
Beane was willing to spend the effort into trying to make him a first baseman because of his important numbers looked good. And those numbers came from the effort he made to understand opposing pitchers and his patient approach in the batter’s box.
How many guys out there at all levels of baseball who are at least on a par with Hatteburg? Probably most of them. But Lewis made the point that his mental approach to the game is what made him valuable to Beane.
This is exactly my point. The guys who make it into the top levels of American soccer aren’t bad athletes. They’re just elite as soccer players and the missing components are mostly mental.
I think it's less a physical/mental dichotomy
The point of Moneyball is that decrepit scouts were just looking for the wrong things out of habit. What Hatteberg had was a good batting eye, which isn’t necessarily ‘mental’. They were also avoiding submarine pitchers, which is a physical/technique thing.
They were recommending guys based on the attractiveness of their girlfriends as a proxy for confidence, which is very much mental.
Nos Audietis
Good vision is a physical thing
But whether or not to swing at a marginal pitch involves decision making and discipline, both of which are mental aspects of the game. According to Moneyball, Hatteburg was very self aware and knew where he could hit or not, and very disciplined in not swinging at pitches he knew weren’t good for him. He also extensively studied pitchers so he would know what to expect in various situations.
Oh, and in my comment above this one in this chain, I meant to say “They’re just not elite as soccer players”.
which is different than "the most important aspect is mental"
Clearly, you need to be a pretty good athlete for the mental part to matter.
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, MLS editor SB Nation. Follow me on Twitter. You'll Never Yacht Alone.
by Jeremiah Oshan on Oct 12, 2011 4:46 PM PDT up reply actions
Which most people playing any professional sport will be
So the difference makers are the mental aspects. For example, if you had pulled a selection of hockey players who played the same position as Gretzky and put them through physical and basic skills trials, they’d be pretty similar. They’d certainly be high percentile scorers well above the abilities of the average guy on the street.
So if most of those guys are about the same physically, it must be the mental aspects of the game that remain. I read an article a long time ago about “physical geniuses” that had a discussion about Gretzky. He could watch a hockey game live and tell you where the puck was going to go from moment to moment with pretty much unerring accuracy. He had an extremely high level understanding of the game.
But we're talking about identifying young players
Not guys that have already proven capable of being big leaguers.
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, MLS editor SB Nation. Follow me on Twitter. You'll Never Yacht Alone.
by Jeremiah Oshan on Oct 12, 2011 5:02 PM PDT up reply actions
Which makes the mental aspects much more important, not less
Who can tell what an eight year old is going to look like when he’s 18, but if he is already showing skills and an understanding of the game, then he’s a good investment. Maybe he’ll fail to develop into the physical specimen you need, but soccer is more forgiving of that than just about any other sport, and besides you’ve got all that time to have him work out and eat right. He might not make it, but that’s why you recruit teams full of these kids.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 5:13 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Nice
Pretty rare that I read something about soccer that completely changes my mind, but you did. Well done. Also, that last paragraph, the most depressing thing ever.
Lets make the last paragraph better...
lets assume the american version of messi is creative and so he became an engineer instead of an accountant.
:)
I think that if the past three years have taught us anything it's that accountants can be extremely creative
by Aaron Campeau on Oct 12, 2011 2:47 PM PDT up reply actions 3 recs
To the detriment of society
I’d rather they play soccer. ;-|
The SAH Links Guy
by Dizzo on Oct 12, 2011 3:04 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
The next Messi?...
Interesting take. I think you’re correct as until recently the US lacked the ability to spot and develop talent at an early age. We’ll see in ten years if the academy system has led to an improvement in the US game, and an increase in the number US players abroad. But if we compare the mens game to the womens game and the success that the US has had there, is it more the distraction of football/basketball/baseball that takes away from potential Messi’s developing their skills from an early age. It may be healthier for kids to have broader interests, but in the long run it may detract from the development of the skill sets. You need natural ability + drive + taught game smarts + repetition. Miss any one of those and you get what I call the Griffey effect.
I never see kids playing soccer on their own,
and that’s the problem. If the kid actually plays soccer, it is always organized, and I think that’s the biggest difference with a lot of other countries.
The other part of the problem is that kids do not watch the game. How many times did you see kids watching the game and go out after the game trying to repeat something they just saw in the game.
I do not agree with the last paragrpah. It is the same as saying if soccer is not king in Argentina, Argentina would dominate basketball and baseball (even though, they won the olympic gold in Athens beating “the best athlets”) because kids would not waste their time (watching and playing soccer). Some countries and particular generations are just better in certain sports.
How much of that is true for other sports, though?
I feel to some degree that all youth sports in the US have been organized to death. It’s not like the baseball/softball parks around Seattle are swarming with kids playing pickup baseball (or pickup anything, really), but there are still plenty of elite American baseball players. For a whole host of reasons, I think it’d be great if kids played more unorganized sports on their own, but if we’re going to narrow it down to one thing, that’s not really “the problem.”
It's probably that it's not organized enough actually
Kids in other countries are recognized for their talents at really early ages, and the most promising are signed to the academies of professional teams at 8, 9, or 10.
I would say yes and no
Having more professional academies can do a lot to catch the young prodigies and help them develop. But a lot of what exists as organized youth sports is far from a professional academy, and a lot of it is pay-to-play. And I think if you have a bunch of non-academy kids playing pickup when they are young, falling in love with the game, and having an opportunity to play when they are older, you’ll also catch some late bloomers by scouting through the HS, college, and minor league ranks.
The romantic image of kids playing for fun in the streets and becoming soccer greats is mostly a myth
The reality in most countries is that if you haven’t been picked up by a professional academy by the time you’re 14, you’re not going to be a pro. And your chances if you start at 14 are extremely low. Time to focus on your studies because the life of a professional soccer player is not for you.
The kids who become soccer stars in other countries are identified early and meticulously brought along or mercilessly cut.
I am not talking about 14 years old
If you not in the youth system of some club (even lower divisions) when you are 11 or 12, you are usually done with you soccer aspirations. I am talking more about 7,8 year old. That’s the time when everyone starts playing, and better kids go on to trials to different youth systems. The kids that are not good, or just average, go and pickup something else. Sometimes it is not enough if you good, but you also have to know someone to get in there (as many other areas of live).
There are plenty of "elite American players"
But how many other countries play baseball? If other countries played baseball for 100 year, are you sure we would be talking about the great American players in baseball?
Personally, I think there would be plenty
But I don’t think there’s much evidence you can garner for one side or the other. There are a lot more great players overall today than there have been in the past, but there are also more people. But professionals today are also a lot better trained than the guys 80-100 years ago who had to work part-time jobs to keep playing baseball.
Nail on the head
It’s the guys who play Division one basketball as a guard but who never had a shot at the NBA.
Defensive backs and safeties for any of the hundreds of college football teams who have no shot at making the NFL.
Utility infielders who never make it out of single A.
These aren’t seven foot giants. They aren’t 280 pound behemoths. They are athletes. And few of them will ever even try soccer.
Imagine an Ed Reed type player as a center back. Imagine Alex Rodriguez as a goal keeper (think of his 6’ 3" frame, lateral speed, and ability to pick up a curve on a ball.)" Think of the typical slot receiver on your typical division one football team. Or that point guard that lacks “NBA size.”
No question your typical high school soccer team is made up of kids who didn’t make the squad in the big three sports.
And the reason the kids want to be in the big three is simple. Money. Oh, and fame. College Football and College Basketball are a huge deal. A good high school baseball player might get drafted right out of high school and immediately make more than any non-DP MLSer.
It’s all about money. And until America starts watching and paying for soccer, it will stay that way.
Lots of reasons why American develop better keepers than field players
Let’s brainstorm some:
- Skills overlap with basketball, football and baseball (mostly hand-to-eye coordination)
- Similar size to what Americans ‘expect’ an athlete to look like (above 6’ and built)
- Longer development times (less likely to be ruined by an early bad coaching experience)
The last one I think is one of the most important. What a kid is learning in high school or a select club is much less important when the peak age for a keeper is mid-30s.
The SAH Links Guy
Parents expectations
I don’t think the issue is the number of kids playing soccer. We have a healthy and broad talent pool playing soccer between 6 and 12.
The problem is that in Argentina and Brazil and England, parents dream of their sons going on to be football stars. In the US, they dream of their kids growing up to be a different kind of football star. So, when they reach the age where things get serious, and talent is sorted out from the chaff, parents in other countries swet the priorities as “play football” and in our country they are set as “go to high school and leave behind childhood games”.
Until we win that battle of perception, the next Messi will be taking algerbra in anticipation of an accountant job instead of working toward becoming the next Messi.
I'd say there are two main issues
One is broadening the base of potential soccer players by getting more kids to play soccer when they are young. That’s been happening, but it’s not yet to the point where, say, HS soccer participation is on the level of basketball, football, or baseball participation. The role of MLS here is to draw more attention to soccer. The more kids who see packed American soccer stadiums, the more kids will dream about being in those stadiums some day. This isn’t something you’re going to change overnight and progress here is in the right direction.
The other main issue is that there isn’t as robust of a network of scouts to find the best kids who are playing right now. In baseball, MLB has so much money that there are scouts out there at HS and NCAA fields all over the country and internationally, which is an awfully huge net to cast. And then after they do draft kids, there are tons of teams for them to show their abilities before they even step foot on a major league field. MLS could really use a healthy NASL, with as many teams as there are in MLS, and an even larger and more robust USL-PRO. If we’re ever going to reach our full potential, we need to catch the prodigies and the late bloomers, and we need more depth of talent in the league so that our best players are challenged to improve week in and week out.
US Soccer says it registers 3,000,000 youth players between ages 5-19
That’s about twice the entire population of the Netherlands between those ages. Netherlands has been to three World Cup finals. They’ve done that mostly on the basis of one club: Ajax. They’ve developed most of the players who have taken them there.
The US is huge, much bigger and richer than countries that have done well internationally. Even if there weren’t competition with other sports, a system for finding and correctly developing players is absolutely necessary. The US lacks that and until it develops it, it will be unable to take that final step.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 2:40 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs
Interest is a two-way street
You’re focused on whether teams/clubs/scouts/whatever are capable and willing to find potentially great young soccer players.
I think those who are disagreeing with you are primarily focused on whether potentially great young soccer players even want to play soccer.
Nos Audietis
Which is a bad thing to focus on
You might as well focus on naturalizing the entire nation of Brazil. Other countries do more with much, much smaller pools of players, so why not figure out why what they’re doing works?
Even if every five year old boy in the US decided tomorrow that he wants to be the next Messi, who’s going to identify the ones who can actually do it? Who’s going to develop that talent? Right now, we don’t have the infrastructure in place to do that effectively. That’s a sine qua non no matter how big the player pool is.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 2:51 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
If you have a .0001% chance of discovering an good player - just a Donovan
due to the infrastructure of the sport.
Only having 3,000,000 player rather than 10,000,000 is certainly a problem.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
How is the Netherlands able to do it with a much smaller number?
They have 3 million boys total. Who knows how many of those actually play soccer and what fraction of those play seriously? Yet they’re able to find the Cruyffs, the van Nistelrooys, the Sneijders. The number of inputs is much less important than the process of refining the output.
At what point has anyone denied this?
This is not a zero sum game.
by Aaron Campeau on Oct 12, 2011 3:22 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
In a way it is, actually
Time spent on futile efforts to expand the pool is time not improving the development infrastructure. The US is such a large and rich country that it could easily match the efforts of a country like the Netherlands.
There are finite resources, especially time and effort, and decisions need to be made of where to spend them. The US isn’t lacking in inputs. It’s lacking in the ability to produce quality outputs.
Imagine for example, the Sounders turn themselves into America’s Ajax. Players are brought in as young as eight, and the best eventually filter up to the senior team. They have some great seasons for us and then transfer to big European clubs for handsome transfer fees. How much would that change aspirations? How much more likely would it be that they dream of being soccer stars?
How does that at all contradict what I'm saying?
The end result would be that the number of young players increases, meaning the potential pool of elite soccer players increases, which means the odds of finding great players increase. This is the exact point I’m making.
by Aaron Campeau on Oct 12, 2011 3:39 PM PDT up reply actions
Because you have to make the choice of where you spend your time and effort
So in that sense it is zero sum. The process for identifying and developing world class players is much more important. Other countries are doing this much more successfully than US with much smaller pools of talent. Solve that problem and it doesn’t matter if the pool gets larger. If it does, great. If it doesn’t, so what?
Because the larger it gets the better soccer in this country becomes
by Aaron Campeau on Oct 12, 2011 3:49 PM PDT up reply actions
That doesn't necessarily follow
If I have a big pile of gold ore, just making that pile bigger doesn’t get me any more gold if I don’t have a way to smelt it. It’s just a bigger pile of rocks.
That’s where the US is right now. It has a bunch of ore and a really inefficient refining process which puts out a low quality product. Using that process on a bigger pile of ore is just going to get you more of the same. You can only have 23 guys on a team, so thousands more mediocre players doesn’t benefit you in any way. We need to improve the process of refining, so we get higher quality products out of what we have. If we have more ore later on, great. But the refining is much more important.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 3:55 PM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
And for the trillionth time, I agree with you.
My issue is with your assertion that a larger player pool would have no effect.
by Aaron Campeau on Oct 12, 2011 3:57 PM PDT up reply actions
Okay, that's our misunderstanding
My point is that a larger player pool would have no effect absent an effective mechanism for identifying and developing players. After we’ve solved that problem, then the more the merrier.
that's crazy talk
A bigger player pool will have some effect. To deny that is to just be difficult for the sake of difficulty.
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, MLS editor SB Nation. Follow me on Twitter. You'll Never Yacht Alone.
by Jeremiah Oshan on Oct 12, 2011 4:09 PM PDT up reply actions
Alright then, no appreciable effect
And efforts to expand the pool before we have an efficient and effective means of developing players will be largely wasted, since the products turned out from that pool will remain low quality.
Remember, what are we looking for here? Twenty-three guys who can win at the international level. A huge pool of players who are being turned into mediocre players isn’t going to get us there.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 4:14 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
I think you're overstating the awfulness of our scouting/training system
Yes, it’s not very good, but we’re also not just randomly picking soccer players for our national team. And as long as our filter for picking talent is better than completely random, then a larger pool will be a measurable improvement.
Nos Audietis
If we consistently select for the wrong things, then random might actually be an improvement
And in any case the payoff is still much lower than figuring out how to develop quality players. Just adding more adequate players to the mix doesn’t accomplish the goal if they just don’t know how to play soccer very well.
Not exactly.
The US has an extremely efficient process for finding athletic talent.
It just finds that talent and puts them into sports other than soccer..
Our world class athletes (and we produce them in legion) don’t play soccer.
So yes, billions of second-tier athletes do not compare to a few hundred elites.
It isn’t about growing the pool for the sake of growing it. It’s about keeping elite athletes in soccer.
In reflecting on my own high school, none of our best athletes (fastest, toughest, most coordinated, what have you) played on the soccer team. They played on the football team. Or the basketball team. Or they played center field or pitched. Even if they had no shot at a pro contract. That’s where they played.
That’s what needs to change. Nate Robinson is a better natural athlete than any Sounder. Is he a good soccer player? We have no idea. He played football and basketball and while he wasn’t really physically suited to either, was enough of a physical freak to go pro in both.
And it was the right call because he earns millions in the NBA.
IF (a big IF) he had that type of skill with a soccer ball, with his balance, speed, aggression, vision, and vertical leap, he’d be like nothing we have. Because guys like Nate Robinson don’t play soccer.
Nate Robinson don't play soccer, but Nate Jaqua does.
How do you know that Jaqua would not be better basketball player than Nate Robinson?
because I'm almost certain he tried
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
by Dave Clark on Oct 12, 2011 4:24 PM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
Nate Jaqua may be tall, but his vertical is awful
I highly doubt he could have made it far even in Division I ball.
The SAH Links Guy
As much as I love them, the Sounders aren't a collection of world class players
They a good group of players who collectively fit under the salary cap.
If your argument is that there’s no one in all of US soccer with the kinds of physical gifts that this guy has, then you’d have a point. The problem is that the yardstick for defining “elite athletes” tends to be “those who turn pro in American sports” which makes the “elite athletes don’t play soccer” thing circular.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 4:23 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
You can find a lot of other examples
The US dominated tennis twenty years ago. How many great tennis players we have now? Are they also pitching, playing basketball, or football? Or, it is maybe that more countries play tennis now, so they have better opportunities than in the past. The same could be said about the women’s soccer. The US used to beat everyone easily, but that’s not the case.
For example, European team handball players if given opportunity to practice baseball as kids could be as good as their American counterparts. Majority of soccer goalkeepers given the right training would be good as an average punter or kicker. Or, maybe a lot of rugby players would be a decent material for NFL or college football if exposed to the sport at early ages.
Actually fewer americans are playing tennis at the youth level
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
And I realized one problem with that US Youth Soccer number
It probably includes both boys and girls. Since this discussion is focused on the USMNT, cut that number in half. So, there are as many boys in that age range participating in youth soccer in the US as there are boys in that age range total in the Netherlands. The point still stands.
I tried to look up the same numbers
Another number I found quoted in other places was 17-18 million people playing soccer (roughly 40-something percent being women). That’s more than the entire nation of the Netherlands. The point is there are plenty of people playing soccer regularly in the U.S.
The SAH Links Guy
There is heft behind this numbers argument.
I know we’re discussing a time-worn point here, but let’s take a nation like Uruguay: two World Cups, five WC semis including 2010, and winners of the Copa America in 2011. They have a number of star players and coaches in Europe and South America. Uruguay’s population is around 3.5 million, almost the same as the Seattle Metropolitan Area. Should we expect a World Cup contending roster comprised entirely of players from Bellevue and Mercer Island? Of course not, but there are a number of kids that live and breathe the game in Seattle, and an even larger number that are familiar with the game. Seattle represents less than 2% of the population of the entire United States, so even if one truly transcendent player was found in Seattle he would—statistically speaking—have a hard time cracking a US Men’s National Team roster with 49 other transcendent players across the USA.
The other critical element is that it’s not 1994 anymore. The game is a national one at the youth level. As a designer of natural and synthetic sports fields, I can certify that the vast majority of fields I have designed in the past ten years from San Diego to Baltimore are soccer fields. You just can’t design and install enough soccer fields to meet the ever-growing demand.
I think the number one issue with facilitating great soccer play is something Klinsmann has indirectly referred to in his “latinize” statement. The US Mens National Team lacks a national identity that is unique to the US and unique to the other major sports played in the US.
Consider: if you are young and you demonstrate good hand-eye skills or can throw left-handed you are steered to baseball. These skills aren’t critical in soccer. If you are above 6’4" you are led to basketball—again, a physical trait not critical to soccer. If you’re fast and muscular you go to football, if you’re fast and “big-boned” you play the line in football.
What do you associate with greatness in soccer in the US? I think if you find that athletic niche that translates well on both the youth, national, and international stage you can develop a system and culture around it. There are a lot of options. I personally think the German-style aligns beautifully with our existing framework, but that’s just my opinion.
Bloggin' at JoePasDoghouse.com
by J.Schnauzer on Oct 12, 2011 2:57 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
The US has the potential to be whatever it wants to be
If they want to play like Germany, then they can play that way. If they want to be Argentina, they can do that. If they want to be Brazil, they can make it happen. If they want to be some melange of various styles, they could do that too.
What it will take it deciding what it’s going to be and then committing to that vision at every level. It’s a long term, probably multi-generational project, but it can be done. Soccer was introduced to Brazil in 1894, the World Cup started in 1930, and Brazil didn’t win their first title until 1958. But they had a defined style and kept getting better and better until they were able to make it happen.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 3:09 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
That's Klinsy's vision for US soccer
I have my doubts that he can force that kind of change through a pretty change resistant U.S. soccer establishment.
The SAH Links Guy
by Dizzo on Oct 12, 2011 3:17 PM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
Exactly.
Sometimes I feel like the USSF still thinks it’s 1990 and we’re just happy to be here.
Bloggin' at JoePasDoghouse.com
by J.Schnauzer on Oct 13, 2011 8:07 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Honestly, what I think the sport in this country has needed is Cascadia.
Large, passionate, groups of fans who live and die with games. Derby matches that always sell out and draw enough media attention to be on ESPN, Team run and sponsored youth programs that, at least in the Sounders case are state wide. The game here is not a fringe sport or a novelty/curiosity.
The more that young athletes see the game as a viable way to a College Scholorship or god forbid a career, the more we’re going to see our own Messis and Iniestas.
by DaveValleDrinkNight on Oct 12, 2011 3:13 PM PDT reply actions
It helps, but there has to be a Barça or Ajax there to bring them along
I actually think the Sounders have the best chance of being that club, but somebody’s got to do it. Whoever gets there first will become a dominant force in American soccer.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 3:23 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
May he be forever successful!
The SAH Links Guy
by Dizzo on Oct 12, 2011 3:28 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
This is my most fervent hope
I hope someday some eight-year-old kid from somewhere here in Cascadia is scouted by the Sounders and brought into their academy system. He develops and keeps rising through the ranks and eventually makes his debut at the MLS level. He plays for us for five or six years, and then signs with Real Madrid for a $40 million transfer fee.
Then I dream of that happening a dozen times over and those kids forming the core of a World Cup winning team for the US. It won’t be easy, but it’s possible.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 3:39 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
By the way, I'm not particularly a US soccer fan
Since I’m originally from Brazil and that holds my allegiance as far as soccer goes. But if the US built a team this way and won, I’d be satisfied that they were worthy winners. In my opinion, this is the only way it’ll ever happen anyway.
I hope that we never sign pre-teeens
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
Dunno about Dave, but
sports are in general not a good career bet for young people. The vast majority of them, even the really good athletes, never amount to anything professionally, and are then stuck with no other skills. The track record of the American school system in producing good citizens is poor. Everybody in high school thinks they’re going to be stars in the NFL, but only a tiny percentage even make college, and an even tinier percentage of them make the pros, and only a tiny percentage of them play more than a year or two. So you’ve earned a couple hundred grand, and think you’re rich, but your “college education” is a fraud, you can’t get a job, and you can’t walk up stairs.
In soccer, it’s worse, because even long-term pros in MLS often earn practically nothing. Once that career ends you have nothing.
Kids should be in school, not soccer academies. IMHO.
The Barça and Ajax academies strongly emphasize education on the assumption that most won't make it
So it’s not necessary an either-or. The point is that other countries are identifying talent at very young ages, and in most places, at 13 or 14, they’ve already had a lot of development. If that’s when we start, it’s probably too late to really develop elite players.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 4:26 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
There's a difference between identifying talent
and signing an exclusive global contract
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
I guess I'm used to the idea
And I’m okay with it as long as they’re getting their education. Kids in the Ajax academy have average test scores higher than the Dutch national average, so if they don’t make it they’re not disadvantaged. If they do make it, they’re probably fulfilling a life-long dream. Doesn’t sound like a bad deal to me.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 4:32 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
To me, looking at it an American way,
…we want to identify the best prospects, who show those special gifts at a young age, and get them into our academy. That does not mean that they are signing a lifelong contract with the academy, and frankly, that’s not what we want. In fact, with how large our country is, its not like other MLS academies would be poaching our 10 year olds anyway, so it wouldn’t even be necessary..
The kids that age would obviously be a much larger pool, solely on footballing potential, not stock athleticism. They would be brought up in the game and receive better coaching than they otherwise would, and would not have their parents paying for every aspect of their team, which narrows some kids with potential out of the select pool now. Really, it wouldn’t need to be too much more than having little kickers leagues (particularly in areas that are not historically soccer areas) connected to the Sounders, in local parks, where as kids play, Sounders scouts can go, “hey, that kid has a really good sense for this part of the game,” and be given more support in going after a displayed aptitude. There are already U-whatever select teams out there… why not have them with a bit of long-term foresight than “that kid’s a better athlete, so he plays because he can run past/knock over everybody!” which sadly seems to be a key component of the game in the US – even at the younger levels.
To me, that’s not all too dirty. Maybe there could be contracts with parents like, “if you send your kid off to Barca’s academy at 13, you or Barca will have to pay us back for a bunch of stuff we provided you with over the years since your kid joined us,” but it’s not like any kid would get bumped out of school at that age for football training. As the years go on, that pool naturally narrows down, and that’s ok.
You do all the work for us, Honey Badger, and we'll just eat whatever you find.
I agree...nothing inherently wrong with an academy education
An academy education can be a good education. Remember, the U.S. has some huge gaps in the quality of public schools. for many kids the education might be much better than the local public school.
Also, they would be well placed to go onto college on a soccer scholarship afterwards. Think of it as a type of magnet school for athletes.
The SAH Links Guy
by Dizzo on Oct 12, 2011 9:30 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Point taken
But American sports organizations are not famous for this. Quite the opposite; we are famous for screwing over young athletes, as part of the process for identifying the handful who will be rich. the American collegiate system is absolutely disgraceful, for instance. Would Sounders be better? I dunno.
I think that in the US system they wouldn’t have to start that young to have the best academy going.
Not currently, no
But if the goal is to produce truly elite level players, then at some point they’d have to get to around that age group.
I’d love to see the Sounders become the American Ajax, in all respects.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 5:15 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Restricting the future of children's employment options feels very dirty
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
I think it's an unhelpful American trait
To always see things in terms of “athleticism”. And particular kinds of athleticism. Bigger is better, stronger is better, faster is better. Lift weights, take supplements, etc. Maybe this works in football and basketball, I dunno; I’m not a big fan of those sports. But other kinds of athleticism, like grace and balance and endurance, especially for soccer, often matter more.
In that sense it’s more like baseball, perhaps, because it’s as much about skill — a mental attribute — than it is about sheer power. All the weights in the world won’t make you able to lay off a curve ball that’s outside for ball four — but that’s probably a more important baseball skill than being able to power the ball over the fence. Bo Jackson was a terrible baseball player, remember.
The skills that soccer requires don’t come from big bodies or big muscles. Look at Flaco — he’d be laughed out of any other American sport — he couldn’t play on a junior high football team — but on a soccer field he’s gifted and adept and hugely valuable.
I’m not sure what it is — it’s not just speed, and it’s not just “ball skills”, and it’s not just “vision”. It’s knowing how to play soccer. The best pass isn’t the longest pass or the quickest pass. Even the best players don’t hit that mark all the time. Some of it comes from the proverbial kid in the barrio who literally never stops kicking the ball even when he’s watching TV or eating dinner. But a lot of it is just knowing how. That’s a coaching thing, by the way.
I’m not saying that athleticism isn’t a factor at all. Leo Messi is extraordinarily fit. But it’s fitness in a different body — a big man CAN’T do everything on the field because of physics — if his legs are too long he can’t get them around as fast as a smaller guy. Ever watch Peter Crouch? Useful player, but a freak; watching him is like watching a praying mantis unfold, and he has to do extraordinary things with his arms to get his hips to swing that way. He used to be teammates with Aaron Lennon, who is 5’4".
I don’t think soccer loses out too many potential players to other sports. I think it loses them out to non-sports, because Americans don’t think of tiny men as athletes. Back when boxing was popular, they did; people used to watch the bantamweights. I guess they do still in MMA.
I'll just say this
There are a shit ton of really good american athletes who are between 5-9 and 6-2 who choose to play other sports than soccer. If most of them were choosing soccer, we’d have more elite-level talents and that can not be a bad thing.
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, MLS editor SB Nation. Follow me on Twitter. You'll Never Yacht Alone.
by Jeremiah Oshan on Oct 12, 2011 4:50 PM PDT up reply actions
Well, I think you're both right
More in the pool would result in some improvement. But those “really good american athletes” are not really good soccer players. There’s a difference. Carlos is right too.
But they aren't good soccer players because they don't play soccer
If MLS paid what the NBA paid Steve Nash would be a good or better soccer player. If MLS paid what the NFL paid Ochocinco wouldn’t have picked american football. If MLS paid what MLB paid Jack Wilson wouldn’t be a league average SS (at best) but would have pursued his passion.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
We don't know that
MLS isn’t the only league in the world and there are plenty of soccer players around the world making what Steve Nash makes. If he really were worth that kind of money as a soccer player, then there’s no reason someone couldn’t be paying him that.
You’re assuming that because these guys are major leaguers in their current sport, they’d be in soccer as well, and that doesn’t necessarily follow. A lot of times these things don’t translate. Jordan was a mediocre baseball player, and maybe the best basketball player ever. Could he maybe have been a better baseball player had he done that instead of basketball? Maybe, maybe not. It’s also possible that he ended up in the sport that was best for him.
No, I'm not assuming that
In Nash’s case specifically he grew up at a time when there were about 3 people from Europe scouting all of the USA and Canada. He had scholarship offers to play both sports, but only one would he be discovered and able to make millions. If he’d stuck with soccer he would have been good, but making Pat Noonan wages.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
But we don't know how good he really would have been
What was the level of a scholarship level college soccer player back then? Ronaldo level? Edgar Davids? Christian Vieri?
What we know is that with poor competition
in a sports backwater, he still managed to be a pretty good player. But economics made no sense for him to even try to be better than pretty good. He wasn’t going to get discovered in Victoria BC (yeah, so it’s Canada, their problems w/ soccer are the same as ours). No one from Ajax, Arsenal, Bayern, Man United, Barca, etc was checking out club soccer on Vancouver Island in the late 80s.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
Which is great for him
But we don’t really know if he was up to the highest standards of the world game. He might not have had the same earning potential even if European scouts were sniffing around.
USWNT Excels in International Competitions
If you compare the two groups (both derived from the same gene pool and growing up in the same culture), we see that one group thrives (women’s soccer) while the other group is average (men’s soccer). The main difference between the two is that boys can choose between several other sports (football, baseball, basketball, and hockey all have profitable North American sports leagues) where as girls can only realistically choose from one other sport (basketball, which is generally at risk of going bankrupt at any time).
The USWNT just lost the World Cup to a much smaller Japan team
And the rest of the world is much farther behind in the development of the Women’s game, but rapidly catching up.
The landscape faced by the two teams is hugely different.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 5:00 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
but athleticism isn't only size and strength
the only one defining it that way is you.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
I should also note that Carlos and I have also had this debate
A lot
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
Look at the lists that people come up with in these discussions
And you’ll see that a lot of people are thinking size and strength in these discussions. In the other discussion someone was asking if Donovan were 30% bigger, wouldn’t he be a better player? People who bring up this issue are never armed with a list of America’s elite male gymnasts, even though those guys are some of the most amazing athletes alive. And most of them are make very little money and are almost completely invisible to the American sports fan.
But then again, nobody’s made a case that the American soccer player is slower, less coordinated, less balanced than the rest of the world and that’s what has cost them their shot at greatness.
I made that argument about Donovan.
It wasn’t 30% bigger but 30% faster. I think I only added 4 inches to his hieght. Feel free to answer the question I asked on the other thread. If he was 4 inches taller, 30% faster and had a 40" vertical wouldn’t he make a better soccer player?
As for America’s gymnasts I don’t know anything about them but I have no doubt that they are incredible athletes.
It depends
Compare the US products Nate and Kenny Cooper with Dzeko and Ibrahimovic and level of skills. Cooper and Nate are used as “destroyers” while Dzeko and Ibrahimovic are skillful soccer players even though there are taller than Copper and Jaqua. I think it really comes down to the system and how Donovan would be used if he has all these characteristics from your post. Also, I think some players are just more technically gifted, and I do not think you can teach that. It is same as art or music. Some people are just more talented than others.
by seattle 13 on Oct 12, 2011 5:54 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Ibrahimovic is a good example
What makes him good isn’t his size, but his abilities. He wasn’t an Ajax youth product he caught their eye at 20 years old because he’s got the skills to really play. A Kenny Cooper type player doesn’t make it at Ajax, but an Ibrahimovic or a Sneijder does.
For me, Donovan’s fine physically. If I were going to fix him up, I’d work on improving his touch, his passing, and his tactical understanding. At which point, I’d have turned him into Andrés Iniesta. So the question I want to be able to answer is why isn’t Donovan Iniesta? And how can we find and develop an American Iniesta?
So you are saying that if Messi could run a 3.1 40
he wouldn’t be a better player. If he had all the same skills and had a 40" vertical he wouldn’t be better. And if he was even stronger on the ball he wouldn’t be better?
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
Actually i gave you an example of Brek Shea
He was clearly slower off the ball than the Ecuadorans. He still had a great night. But he would have been better if he was faster.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
It would be even better if he had the ball skills of Ibrahimovic
He’d be a superstar. And I’d take that over a faster Brek Shea with his current skill level.
Sure
But Ibrahimovic would also be a better player if he was a better athlete.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
But what gets you the most benefit?
At the levels we’re talking about, it almost never comes down to a purely athletic contest. Ronaldo at Corinthians, overweight and in his final year of his career, beat younger more athletic defenders enough to be one of the the top scorers in Brazil. Skills outweigh physical attributes, and not by a little, either.
Give a player 10% better touch and he’ll be a better player than if you make him 10% faster, stronger, more vertical jump, whatever. And when we’re talking about developing players, and you’ve got a choice between a player who’s got 10% better skills but is 10% less athletic than another, who should you pick? I’d pick the more skillful player every time.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 6:36 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
I agree. This is a fun theoretical exercise, but it falls apart on mechanics.
Let’s discuss a more realistic scenario: what if Messi gained 10 pounds of muscle? He could practically do that in a number of weeks, so why doesn’t he?
Body mechanics rarely work like FIFA12 Soccer ability ratings where you just up your score from 83 to 89. Even with improved strength, Messi’s muscle memory, agility, and endurance would probably be affected as well. He may have a stronger leg, but maybe his muscle slightly affects where he plants his foot, the swing arc of his leg, his eye coordination, to a degree that makes him miss shots on goal that he currently makes. Maybe he draws more yellow cards with a larger frame.
Good body mechanics reflects itself in skill. Go with the player with more skill.
Bloggin' at JoePasDoghouse.com
by J.Schnauzer on Oct 13, 2011 8:32 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Let me put it this way
If I had a magic wand that could do one of two things: either it would make everybody on the Sounders twice as skillful or it could make them twice as athletic (whatever that would mean). I can’t do both, I have to choose. I’d pick skills every time. Think of all the passes that aren’t quite placed accurately enough or weighted correctly. Think of all the shots that are not quite placed in the right spot. Think of the extra touches required to control a ball that came in too high or too fast. Think of all the runs that are into the wrong place or ill-timed. Think of the tackles that fail to win the ball.
Now I wave my want and suddenly the passes are twice as crisp and precise, the shots are twice as controlled and well placed, players need half as many touches to control balls that were twice as good, and they run into the right place and time it right twice as often. They’d win the ball twice as many times when tackling. That would be a gigantic improvement. The whole team would be playing at a much higher level, even if they’re just as fast, strong, balanced, coordinated, or whatever. If I had picked the other option, they’d be playing the same way they do now, just more athletically. Yay.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 6:48 PM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
No one said skill wasn't important.
Nor implied it. They are saying If you had two players of Identical soccer talent (vision, touch, finishing, etc…) but one was a better athlete that the better athlete would be the better soccer player.
The argument we're having is about "elite athletes"
People bring up this discussion as an explanation for why US soccer underperforms. The problem I have with this is that generally speaking the biggest gap between US players and the elite of the world isn’t an athletic one. Sure, Brek Shea could be faster, but there are plenty of guys out there who aren’t speedsters who are still world class. Physically speaking Landon Donovan and Andrés Iniesta aren’t that different. There’s a big difference in skills though, and that’s part of why Iniesta has won a World Cup and Donovan hasn’t and probably won’t.
The scenario you’re describing is pretty much the exact opposite of the situation that US soccer is in: we have a lot of players who are pretty much fine in terms of athletics when compared to the rest of the world, but have much less soccer talent. What people are proposing is that we need to get the “better athletes” that are being lost to other sports, which is something that is actually a minor issue at worst.
by CarlosT on Oct 12, 2011 7:06 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
But one of the issues is that most American soccer players at youth level
Don’t actually play against the best athletes. Their games aren’t competitive because of the distribution of our populace and because of the number of other popular sports.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
by Dave Clark on Oct 12, 2011 7:12 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
As I said in my first comment
The solution is free enterprise. Give the clubs financial incentives to find and develop players and give them free rein to find players anywhere, even in the backyards of other teams. They’ll solve problems such as these and many others. For example, let a team spend any money garnered from transfer fees outside of the salary cap, however they see fit. So if they produce a Messi, Iniesta, Sneijder, or other truly elite player and sell them to Barça, Real Madrid, Inter, Bayern, whoever for $40 million, then they can spend that outside of the cap however they see fit. You can bet that teams would be falling all over themselves to build academies to rival Ajax’s. There will be teams who will learn how to take full advantage of the situation. And those players will be given plenty of good competition, even if it has to be internal to the club.
And in any case, it’s more important that they be exposed to the most skilled players, not the most athletic. This is soccer we’re talking about, not track or any other pure athletic competition. Developing and enhancing skills is the most important thing. A skilled player can work around his physical deficiencies. An unskilled player won’t be able to take advantage of his physical advantages.
The problem is that the elite athlete pool has been depleted
Some of the kids that would have played soccer may have developed the elite skills. Additionally, kids face less elite competition that would facilitate skill development.
I don't see it.
Case in point: most NFL tight ends would, in theory, be incredible keepers just on the basis of their physical attributes. Many of our great keepers have instead chosen a path to the NFL. In spite of this, the USA has demonstrated a consistent ability to develop international-caliber goalies over the past 20 years.
Bloggin' at JoePasDoghouse.com
But tight end skills directly translate to beeing a goal keeper
Even more so for a baseball catcher or a hockey goalie.
There are no similar skills from any US sport that help with being a field player in soccer. The only other sport I can think of primarily played with the feet is Sepak Takraw. And no one in America plays that either.
You need to play soccer constantly from a young age to have the type of ball skills needed to be a world class soccer player. Regardless of your athleticism or mentality.
When do you suppose Lionel Messi began kicking a soccer ball around? How many hours has he put into those skills? If Malcom Gladwell is right, probably at least 10000 hours. Same for Drogba, or Xavi, or Rooney or any of ’em.
You can sort of back into being a GK.
We are not talking
elite athletes that went pro in another sport. It is the elite athletes that did not go pro because they do not have the right phsycial atributes to go pro in a different sport, would have been great/elite in soccer, but instead still spent their entire youth playing some other sport than soccer.
I see a couple things coming into play
1) “How many 5’6” kids have you seen playing basketball in playgrounds or in high school?" is an incredibly important statement to me. I used to coach middle school basketball and American football in the states for a bit. I had a player on a championship middle school team who topped out at 5’4". Incredibly quick, incredibly creative with the basketball, with a low center of gravity. He played basketball and football in high school, topping out around 170 lbs. He had no interest in playing soccer. I believe he is playing D-III football in college somewhere. Another former player of mine became a D-I player, and is pretty good there, but has no shot at the NBA, or really any well-paying overseas league. He is about 5’8, quick, great pace, great vision and creativity, incredibly smart, and a great leader with great feet. Both of these guys could have become outstanding players, and more like them in our player pool would help. But I don’t recall any soccer people ever reaching out to bring them in. There are guys out there, in that 5’4 to 5’9 range, who have no hope whatsoever in the big American sports (and you can know that they’ll top out at their size if their dad is 5’6 and their mom is 5’1, even if they are much younger than middle school)… it is a matter of the soccer community getting out there and bringing them in to the game. Better smarter creative players with good athleticism can be had by increasing the pool.
but…
2) Carlos is spot on in what hes saying about the overall development. To me, that development limits the pool significantly, so it works together. But the fact of the matter is that a big chunk of it is what you look like athletically in this country, and whether you can pay enough to join the right team, and how welcomed you are as parents on the teams that are out there. I hope that Klinsmann can make some severe changes in how we scout and develop players in this regard (i.e. quit caring so much about athleticism and fitting certain molds, and bring in those kids who show the aptitudes and go from there, develop their skills and tactical knowledge to where they could be that next level better… because really, if you get the kids playing, and eating right, and all that, the individual kids’ athleticism will be maximized).
But anyway, there’s a lot to be said for both. Above all else, I think that once development improves, the pool improves with it and the whole either/or argument will cease to exist. If we were to just increase the pool somehow (money, outreach, whatever), yeah I could see things improving from competition, but I don’t think it would do that much for the bigger picture without focused development (we would have a lot of Robbie Findleys who run really fast in straight lines all the time).
Personally, I could imagine simple steps like MLS academy coaches (if they don’t already do this) doing sessions with some of those dads sucked into coaching the younger kid teams because nobody else would do it, where they break down, “this is what the greats do, this is what we look for in our academy kids, and these are the skills your kids should be focusing on…. if you want some simple drills for them, here’s my card, and if there’s a kid you see out there, your team or not, who might need a little extra guidance because they seem to have that special ‘something’ – other than running fast or being bigger than the other age-group kids – let me know and we can talk about how that player can get the most enjoyment out of soccer in the long run.”
You do all the work for us, Honey Badger, and we'll just eat whatever you find.
by mistuhp on Oct 12, 2011 9:31 PM PDT reply actions 2 recs
Fucito vs. Montero
While I agree that some of the players end up in different sport, I still think the main problem is different understanding of the game. If someone is athletic, it does not mean, he or she would be good in soccer. Fucito is more athletic that Montero, he is faster, stronger, more muscles, but who is better soccer player? I honestely think the biggest problem is that guys like Montero can not succedd in the US soccer because they do not hussle like everyone else. The US NT runs more than anyone else, but skills are not there. You do not more athletes, but you need more skills, and that will come when the coaches in the youth system stop juding the players based on their athletic abilities, but more on their soccer skills and smarts.
by seattle 13 on Oct 13, 2011 10:32 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Fucito made a Faustian bargain for his skill set.
Bloggin' at JoePasDoghouse.com
by J.Schnauzer on Oct 13, 2011 11:15 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Really, really wish
I woud have been here to put in my two cents yesterday……
You’ve made plenty of good points, but I just think you’re utterly off-base here re: athletics and the fact that the current crop of national team players measures up to NFL/NBA standards or that soccer somehow precludes the upper end of athleticism (or something to that effect).
You can’t be serious. Two of my family members are in the current national team system and they would utterly disagree with this. Yes, the current crop of athletes in the US DO measure up to, say, Germany, England, probably Spain and most of the others. The thing that you’re just totally ignoring here is that we in no way measure up to Brazil, many of the upper-end African countries. So you’re saying that a guy with 4.3 speed in the 40 wouldn’t be effective in soccer. Exhibit A: Steve Zakuani (who has speed, but he ain’t no 4.3 guy). Steve ripped this league from the second he stepped on the field for the Sounders Steve has solid skills, but I wouldn’t put him in the Montero/Fernandez/Rosales category, that’s for sure. Let’s imagine that guy with the skill of a Montero. Scary, isn’t it? Okay, let’s take Exhibit B: Nate Robinson. 5’8". Probably a 36" vertical on him. Benches an absurd amount. Stronger than most big men in the NBA. More athletic than pretty much anyone but the most elite athletes in the world. You’re telling me that a guy like that wouldn’t be an upgrade on Jozy Altidore (given the same experience and skill?)?
Yes, we can compete with anyone in the world from an athletic standpoint. One could argue that’s pretty much the ONLY reason we get results at all (it’s not). But insert any number of the upper level athletes into the system and you’ve got the rest of the world VERY concerned about the US, because they simply do not turn out that kind of athlete.
Personally, I think this is naive talk. As Marv Harshman once said: “at the end of the game, the 6’6” guys can’t jump anymore, but the 7 footers are still 7 feet." There’s no one on the planet that can compete with the stud factory that is the US. Look at Olympic results for the past 40 years and tell me I’m wrong.
I’d like to finish by saying…. Germany, England, and Spain are all good examples of the fact that you don’t, in fact, need those kinds of athletes to be the best (at least currently)…. you just need highly skilled, high IQ players who play as a team. That is easily within the grasp of the US….. but not with the direction we were going pre-Klinsmann.
It's funny you mention England
Based on their World Cup performance they’re a great example of good players unable to play well as a team. Same with France.
The SAH Links Guy
I'm not arguing that a fast player, or a strong player, or a play who jumps high would be ineffective in soccer
I’m arguing it’s the wrong place for the US to focus their attention. Soccer is one of the most, if not the most forgiving sport in terms of body type. Big, small, beefy, lean, all sorts of people can succeed in soccer and the American player isn’t really giving up anything significant in terms of athleticism to other top teams. Sure we could get faster, stronger, more leap, whatever, but it would amount to only a tiny advantage at best.
However, there’s a very large gap in skills between the US and other top teams. Close that gap and the US will make huge strides forward. That’s where the most gain is and that should be where the effort is spent.
by CarlosT on Oct 13, 2011 11:26 AM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
Also a slow, skillful player is more valuable than a fast, unskilled player
And the same goes for strength and pretty much any physical attribute. A player who can quickly get to the ball to trap it badly and turn it over is not nearly as valuable as a player who maybe can’t get to those speculative passes, but who can secure the ball and reliably and cleanly pass it to a teammate.
A team filled with skillful players will pass the ball better, with better placement, and with better results. Would it be awesome if we could dial everything about our players to 11? Sure. But in the real world, you have to make decisions about what you work on, and skill is the primary thing that needs to improve for the US.
No real argument with your points here
Skill is always preferred over speed…. although I would say that there’s a definite Mendoza line regarding minimum speed. But, yes, average athletes can succeed in soccer. I’d argue that they also do it in other sports. No one would have seen a Steve Largent turn into the impact player he was in the NFL based upon his raw “numbers.” John Stockton. Jamie Moyer. Nearly every sport has at least some solid to star players who are there through hard work, a high IQ, and, sometimes, a particular skill/athletic set. But when you combine transcendent athleticism with skill, you end up with something pretty special. In the US, I would argue we have more potential in that regard than any country in the world. No, we shouldn’t bank on those players being the future of American soccer (because, cripes, we’ve hardly covered all the other bases so far!), but we also should not ignore that potential and put just as much time and energy into making sure that those athletes get a good long taste of the game before they pass it by and go for more lucrative careers.
When discussing potential of a nation's soccer team, the time scale matters
Over the next 20-30 years, I’d probably agree with you that the US has the most potential to improve. Over the next 50-60 years, though, I’d say China has even more potential. They have a epically huge population and if their per-capita GDP was even half that of the US (instead of a tenth), they’d have a lot more top-level athletes. The only thing holding back China in sports at the moment is that most of the country is too poor to take any sport seriously.
What confuses me is...
When you ask Chinese what their favorite team sport is, it is nearly always Soccer. And yet with a nation with over 1 billion people and relatively speaking way more $/person than N Korea, they somehow still do not qualify for the mens World Cup.
How does that happen?
by lysander on Oct 13, 2011 12:36 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Because Basketball is actually more popular than soccer
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
by Dave Clark on Oct 13, 2011 5:37 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
We forgetting one thing- the US soccer already dramatically improved
20, 30 years ago, the US NT was a joke. Before Italy 1990, the US did not play in the World Cup for 40 years. Compare that to now. 5 straight appearances in the World Cup. While we can say part of it has to do with the increase in the number of participants in the World Cup (for example, 32 now vs. 16 in 60’s and 70’s), a lot of has to do with the improved play of the NT. 20, 30 years ago, Luxemburg or Malta vs. US NT would be very close game (I am not exaggerating here) and look it now. Yes, they are not the world beaters, but they are well respected side.
I think the leap from where we are now to where we could be is just about that big
I’m not forgetting that, but at the same time, to get from where we are now to being, say, a top-4 team is going to be just as much work, if not more, than it was to get here. To be at the level of a top-4 team, we more or less need to have second-string players who start consistently on UEFA Champions League sides (or players of that quality even they aren’t specifically on those teams.) I don’t think a lot of nations have that potential to improve at the moment.
I might essentially be agreeing with you here, but....
I think just to clarify right now what (solely in my “I’m sitting in South America on five types of pills with pneumonia” opinion) is my dream path to our ideal footballing situation in the USA, it is this:
1) Focus youth soccer away from pure physical attributes (I’m talking primarily of the hypothetical U-10 monster team of kids who just grew faster than the other ones and won’t actually end up that much better than anybody else in the end) and toward aptitudes (hmm, this kid goes after the ball like a honey badger, that kid understands how to weigh a pass into space, etc.). Develop the hell out of the idea of playing with skill and effort, and be inclusive (especially with varying socioeconomic and linguistic groups).
2) As this develops, we get a lot more competitive and attractive. This brings eyeballs to the sets and makes everybody fans (how much would this country LOVE an actual strong performance in international competitions we don’t host, consistently, where even when we fail, we do it looking good).
3) Players from la seleccion estadounidense start to become known for more than just work rate, and big clubs (as opposed to clubs in big leagues) start buying American players to feature (as opposed to being the guy who is sort of on Milan or Manchester and never plays for them before being dumped). They do well. They make big money and are making even bigger shoe money (with all the kids playing, an American player from a world cup semifinalist who is now playing for a Liverpool/United/Barca/Madrid/Inter/Milan/Younameit in a champions league final would be a hot commodity, just like any basketball player).
4) Meanwhile, this new, attractive brand of skillful American soccer is taking hold within MLS, which is seeing their NBC deal replaced with a fairly lucrative CBS/FOX/ABC deal that increases revenue, allowing them to hold the players at higher pay. USL teams start getting to the point where they become farm teams for the MLS, now affording much higher payrolls.
5) At this point, those kids who are extremely athletic and don’t have an American sport, but didn’t see soccer as an option, start kicking it around the park, going, “Huh, I think I want to try the moves of ______, those are pretty sick,” and other people around start thinking it’s cool, and a nice change of pace from the throwing and basketball.
6) About 20 years later, after a couple/few far advances in the WC, with American clubs now eclipsing all but the big four in average attendance, and MLS clubs (or as we could call it, after expansion to 40 teams in total, MLS Division I) seven or eight of those freakish athletes come around…. two cbs, two wbs, a cam, two wingers, and a striker, with another guy in the middle helping out named something like Ossie Alonso III, all come together at the same time.
7) Brasil starts wishing they could be like us.
8) The Seattle Sounders announce the opening of a $1 billion (hey, inflation, people) hall of honor, since their existing facilities do not have enough space for their collection of USOC, CCL, MLS, and CWC trophies.
A guy can dream. Probably no way I’d live to see this, but I’d die happy if that happened.
You do all the work for us, Honey Badger, and we'll just eat whatever you find.
Very interesting topic- but all need to note that things are changing dramatically
the answer before now to this problem was simple—there were very few American youth and families willing to go “all in” on a potential career in soccer (Klinsi and many others have noted that). We have not had the impoverished here look at the soccer ball as the way they do the basketball or football to view that as their ticket out of poverty. For example, note that Clint Dempsey’s family viewed his late sisters tennis career as a way out of their trailer (“Hoop Dreams,” anyone?). Ignoring the morality of this for a moment, I don’t doubt for a second that if we have the impoverished youth of this country sleeping with soccer balls for pillows, like much of Africa and SA does, we would have several Drogbas by now. And the middle/upper class soccer players, as Klinsi, et al. note, are quickly dissuaded from going all in on soccer, and instead are going to college and becoming that accountant.
But, all of this is changing quickly and dramatically for the US.
(1) We now have infrastructure for soccer here. I chatted at length with Neagle on this. He told me if he had the Sounders Academy available as a route to him in his younger career, there is no telling where he might be now.
(2) the other major sports are morally cratering big time. It is now harder than ever to support role models in the NFL,NBA and MLB. For many, like myself, those leagues are beyond repair and utterly lack moral fiber. While soccer players are no angels, they are not the San Quentin of the NFL and NBA.
(3) As we discussed before on SAH, sports injury awareness in American Football with concussions is starting to have parents steer away from that sport in droves.
(4) The world’s soccer hype is now in the US to stay. With FSC, ESPN my kids watch soccer from around the globe every weekend. My kids also attend a professional soccer league match with a consistently huge and high energy crowd (60K on sat no less) and pay attention to the international transfer market, hoping the Sounders get a Drogba or Anelka. The Internet only feeds this insanity 24/7 (SAH anyone?:) )
(5) Lastly, note that next year, MLS will tie NASL for years in existence. Things are a little different now.
I am enjoying to no end watching things change before my eyes with Soccer in the US, and we all should.
by Brougham Hooligan on Oct 13, 2011 11:03 AM PDT reply actions 2 recs
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanShots on Sounder At Heart
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
