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Soccer is not a priority in the US. Did you think we should just win because we are the US?
Our best athletes don't play soccer.
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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostSoccer is not a priority in the US. Did you think we should just win because we are the US?
Our best athletes don't play soccer.
That's the most used excuse i always hear...Do you really think Argentina or Germany or Brazil have their best athletes play this beautiful game?
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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostSoccer is not a priority in the US. Did you think we should just win because we are the US?
Our best athletes don't play soccer.
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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostHUH?
That's the most used excuse i always hear...Do you really think Argentina or Germany or Brazil have their best athletes play this beautiful game?
The US has over 300 million people and the greatest economy in the world. While kids in Brazil play with homemade balls in dirt streets, we have thousands of people manicured soccer fields. Most of them are packed on weekends with youth games, pick up games and even adult leagues.
The problem has been addressed on other threads. While every other country uses the Academy system to identify and develop their players, we use P2P which basically is a college feeder system.
So any kid with talent for the game can be developed and receive the same quality training that a rich kid receives and it usually is the poor kid that excels. That is not to say that poor kids are better athletes. Actually the opposite. The rich kids have better nutrition, less stress and more sleep. The difference is focus.
The poor kid plays soccer all day every day. The rich kid plays soccer, is in the band, taking AP school courses with hours of homework every night and might even belong to a few clubs. Basically soccer is one of several activities throughout the day. We all know that becoming an elite athlete requires over 10,000 hours of practice. Guess who gets there first?
The other consideration is that when a sport is a national obsession, the general populace is much better educated on how the sport is played. They are saturated with games and analysis which helps them learn the game faster and become innovators at a young age.
So to be the best in men's soccer, the US needs to scrap their P2P youth structure and figure out how to make the game available to all children and put in an identification structure that gets the gifted kids quality development at an early age.
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what they need to do is less structure. why add a U12 academy this will not help the kids be better by the time there 17-18. they will just play like the robots we have now. and as far as coaching. your right that if we dont have coaches that understand the sport and really in debt understand what it takes to get to the next level we can not move forward. you can see that at U12-15 we win some overseas tournaments and we brag. but now look at out U1- up and they all start to play the same. so training and evaluation is bad. having a kid with great skill but is still on the small side because he's not grown like others is always over looked. its about winning in the younger age and our mistake to think we will have that next crop of boys lead the MNT to a big win. will not happen....
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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostHUH?
That's the most used excuse i always hear...Do you really think Argentina or Germany or Brazil have their best athletes play this beautiful game?
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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostIn a word - yes. Soccer is football in those countries. It has the most money, the most viewers on TV and the largest fan base. It is the game little boys grow up playing and dreaming of one day being a star. That said, it is not an excuse.
1. Pay to play system
2. Youth soccer rankings
3. Foreign coaches
4. Tournaments ( we play way too many)
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Originally posted by Unregistered View Postwhat they need to do is less structure. why add a U12 academy this will not help the kids be better by the time there 17-18. they will just play like the robots we have now. and as far as coaching. your right that if we dont have coaches that understand the sport and really in debt understand what it takes to get to the next level we can not move forward. you can see that at U12-15 we win some overseas tournaments and we brag. but now look at out U1- up and they all start to play the same. so training and evaluation is bad. having a kid with great skill but is still on the small side because he's not grown like others is always over looked. its about winning in the younger age and our mistake to think we will have that next crop of boys lead the MNT to a big win. will not happen....
We do not have people with the ability to recognize intelligent, technically skilled players.
That's not to say you need a team of players like this. You also need the athletes, scorers, large defenders, wingers, etc. But when our repeated shortcoming is in possession, you think this is telling you something, no?
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Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
1. Pay to play system
2. Youth soccer rankings
3. Foreign coaches
4. Tournaments ( we play way too many)
This topic gets beat to death and there are a lot of reasons why we are not a world power but I love how simple and boiled down this response is. I don't know that number 3. has anything to do with anything but 1,2, and 4 are absolutely what is wrong with soccer and every other youth sport in this country. That and we allow parents to be involved.
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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostI agree as the US is usually amongst the most athletic teams at international tournaments....US players just aren't soccer savvy....Has the US ever produced a goal as intelligent as Mexico's first goal ? I can't recall any...
We do not recognize savvy b/c it requires skilled talent evaluators at the youth level. Instead we get daddy coaches and parents running the show.
Mexico's first goal was savvy. Their second was game intelligence by HH. and their third just a brilliant strike from a player that was left unmarked. Soccer intelligence was responsible for 2/3rds of Mexico's goals.
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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostI agree as the US is usually amongst the most athletic teams at international tournaments....US players just aren't soccer savvy....Has the US ever produced a goal as intelligent as Mexico's first goal ? I can't recall any...
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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostDid you know that Spain and Argentina ( two top 5 nations in soccer) are also #2 and #4 ,respectively, in World Basketball just behind the US....So not every little boy in those countries wants to become a soccer player... get rid of the following in this country:
So I don't know if its fixable.
1. Pay to play system
2. Youth soccer rankings
http://www.youthsoccerrankings.us does a better job.
3. Foreign coaches
More immigrants should get involved in coaching. Why not? I also think that as our youth gets better at playing the game, they will become more educated and become better coaches.
4. Tournaments ( we play way too many)
Maybe a solution is to just have invitational tournaments (for college recruitment purposes).
And then besides league play, have more "cup" play; ie: Florida Cup, state cup, etc.
Cup play together with league play will 'weed' out the bad teams. Its how they do it in most soccer countries.
Tournaments are for the parent's ego.
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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostI can't tell you how many times I have been at games when my kids were younger and one of the kids made a pass back only to hear a parent scream "No, never back!!" like it is some huge mistake. Watch soccer much? Or "never to the middle.." Well, it depends. If you don't play through the middle you will never switch the field. Or parents excited when a kid playing center mid goes on a long run and leaves a hole behind him only to lose the ball. The list goes on .... it would not be a problem, except that coaches listen to and react to ignorant parents.. when they all show up at club office, the club fires the coach, not the parents. This is our system...
Or when a defender boots the ball 50 yards for no reason; and the parents yell "good kick", great job"........really?.......just give the ball back to the other team?
sometimes a panic clearance is needed, but its never a "good job".
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Originally posted by Unregistered View PostThat and we allow parents to be involved.
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