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Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

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Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#41

Post by dh2022 »

SamBam wrote: post #19

I don't think the article really tried to answer the question, though maybe that wasn't its intent and the author was genuinely asking. I think an answer would need to look at the difference in how kids and teens play soccer in the US vs other countries. In the US soccer is mostly a younger kids' sport, and is generally highly structured, with kids playing on teams once or twice a week. Compare to Europe, where many…

+1. Want to add that in Europe promising players drafted by clubs by age of 10 already get soccer equipment and some token money ($50 / week), practice every day after school and transportation to out of town games is on the club’s bus. In the US at that age parents pay for the equipment, and drive their kids to every game-including out of town. And because US is so large these are long drives.

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#42

Post by drewmate »

SamBam wrote: post #19

I don't think the article really tried to answer the question, though maybe that wasn't its intent and the author was genuinely asking. I think an answer would need to look at the difference in how kids and teens play soccer in the US vs other countries. In the US soccer is mostly a younger kids' sport, and is generally highly structured, with kids playing on teams once or twice a week. Compare to Europe, where many…

The same is basically true for most other sports in the US too, and yet there are still high-level Americans. Certainly baseball (which other countries do still play in a limited fashion), hockey and football. With football we are undisputed world champs for the last 60 years! Joking aside, there is no doubt that high-level NFL players are seriously talented and their whole sport revolves around structured practices and weekly games.

Basketball might be closest to the USA’s soccer – lots of unstructured play and selection to schools and academies at a young age, but historically the pay to play travel circuit plays a big deal there too, and American basketball players are no doubt internationally competitive.

I don’t have an answer either, I just think that the way we play soccer isn’t limiting the best potential players. I just think the best potential players are choosing to play other sports.

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#44

Post by PaulHoule »

vinni2 wrote: post #14
haunter wrote: post #11

I know it's an American article but I think it's far more interesting that 4 out of the 5 most populous countries (China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia), representing 3.3 billion people and 40% of the Earth’s population, has a combined total of 2 appearances at the World Cup (1938 Indonesia as Dutch East Indies and 2002 China). It’s a huge untapped market and not that people don’t love or care about football in those co…

I can’t speak for other countries but in India cricket eclipses all other sports and drains talent. But soccer is gaining popularity recently but still long way to go.

Field Hockey is huge in India too. (Thing is India is so big that anything that is big in India is big globally!)

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#45

Post by hibikir »

hawaiianbrah wrote: post #29
SamBam wrote: post #19

I don't think the article really tried to answer the question, though maybe that wasn't its intent and the author was genuinely asking. I think an answer would need to look at the difference in how kids and teens play soccer in the US vs other countries. In the US soccer is mostly a younger kids' sport, and is generally highly structured, with kids playing on teams once or twice a week. Compare to Europe, where many…

I believe most of what you said, but no college varsity player is playing only a few times a week. Even the lowest division of NCAA teams would have practice or matches 5-6 times a week in season.

Sure, but as far as the people that are going to be professional, and good enough to play for a national team, you'd already be playing in the top levels of soccer by 19. Lamine Yamal was playing for the A team in Barcelona when he was barely 16, and was a starter in Spain's eurocup win at 17. More "normal" players, likePedri and Messi, played their first minutes for Barcelona at 17.

So if you even smell a college varsity team, you are already in the slow track. It's really rare to find a star that wasn't at least in a farm team at 15. I have a friend that was already there at 10, and his ceiling was just starter in a low tier team in La Liga.

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#46

Post by otherme123 »

SamBam wrote: post #19

I don't think the article really tried to answer the question, though maybe that wasn't its intent and the author was genuinely asking. I think an answer would need to look at the difference in how kids and teens play soccer in the US vs other countries. In the US soccer is mostly a younger kids' sport, and is generally highly structured, with kids playing on teams once or twice a week. Compare to Europe, where many…

> Finally, a good European player doesn't necessarily head to college. They may be playing for a serious club team at 18 or 19.

My guess is that less than 5% of european soccer players ever set a foot in College, at least in the biggest Leagues (UK, France, Italy, Spain and Germany). I only know two: Lampard and Iniesta. There might be a few more, but they are oddities.

If anything, a good player and good student usually has to make a choice at 18 years old: "am I good enough to bet my future on being a pro player and delay/abandon the College, or do I give up on being pro and focus on studying?"

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#47

Post by mattnewton »

cortesoft wrote: post #12
hackerbeat wrote: post #3

Didn't read the post, but the problem is that in most top soccer countries, soccer is the number one sport, light-years ahead of everything else. In the US, several other sports are more popular, which drains the talent pool. Kids grow up immersed in soccer culture in places like Brazil, Argentina, Germany or Spain in a way that simply isn't as common in the US.

I get this argument, and it is probably partially right, but is soccer really competing for the same athletes as basketball and American football? Basketball players are mostly too tall for soccer (other than goalie), and a majority of football players are way bigger than great soccer players. Baseball and hockey might compete for the same athletes, but a huge percentage of baseball and hockey players also come from…

I think it is less about competing for athletes and more about competing for national attention (in the form of sports viewership that turns into money and school programs).

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#48

Post by harrall »

cogogo wrote: post #33
hackerbeat wrote: post #3

Didn't read the post, but the problem is that in most top soccer countries, soccer is the number one sport, light-years ahead of everything else. In the US, several other sports are more popular, which drains the talent pool. Kids grow up immersed in soccer culture in places like Brazil, Argentina, Germany or Spain in a way that simply isn't as common in the US.

I think that is a contributor to the problem but the real problem is we do not yet know how to develop talent consistently in the US. FC Barcelona is easily the world reference recruiting kids around 7-8 years old and building them mentally, physically and tactically into incredible players. Something like half or more of their current roster came through la masía at some point. And something like half the Spain worl…

I mean you could say that baseball academies in Brazil aren’t good yet either, but I wouldn’t say that it’s because they “don’t know how to.”

It’s just that Brazil currently doesn’t care about baseball that much and baseball first has to become popular, except they already have soccer plus even basketball is growing quicker.

In America, soccer just isn’t that popular and there are so many other sports that people currently care about more.

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#49

Post by PearlRiver »

cweld510 wrote: post #22
cortesoft wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get this argument, and it is probably partially right, but is soccer really competing for the same athletes as basketball and American football? Basketball players are mostly too tall for soccer (other than goalie), and a majority of football players are way bigger than great soccer players. Baseball and hockey might compete for the same athletes, but a huge percentage of baseball and hockey players also come from…

It definitely is at the youth level. I don’t think any football or basketball pros could be soccer stars, but absolutely there are kids who are star point guards on their youth basketball team but top out at 5’8”, or football players who never make it past high school but could have been great at soccer.

The thing is you cannot just switch sports.

When we are talking about the really TOP elite of football those kids get into it at age 5. From that age on every day consists of hours of football. There are scouts looking at prepubescent kids all over the world ready to sign them.

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#50

Post by lordnacho »

It's not population. Yes, everyone will point at population, but it's not population that's the explanation. People imagine that you have to have a bunch of talents born, so the more people, the more talent.

Phenomena that are largely uniform are explained by population. Why does American have more women than France? Well, the generation rate is more or less the same, so the bigger country has more.

Iceland with 400K people managed to knock out England, population ~60M, from the 2016 European championships. China played in one world cup and has struggled to qualify for decades with 1.4B people.

Being good at soccer is not uniform, because the generation mechanism is not the same. Countries get good at soccer when they have good systems for developing talent, ie making the talent, not waiting for it.

In the US, you have some special factors:

- Pay to play. They turned kids soccer into a consumption good, which you have to pay for. In Europe, if you are any good, you play.

- Competing sports. If you're athletic, there are similar games you can play, with a much more developed youth system, particularly where you can get yourself a degree for free. The systems to develop you into an NFL or NBA player are there already, everything from recruitment to NIL deals. To do soccer, you need to find a way to get in front of a European recruiter.

- College soccer is not a pipeline into the big clubs in Europe. In Europe, the kids have already been selected at age 10, and the good ones generally don't go to university.

On the women's side, this is different. US Women get an advantage from the college system, since professional women's leagues are a relatively new phenomenon. They are guaranteed some funds to play in college under title IX, so effectively they've got a massive league subsidised by the universities. As the rest of the world has gotten serious about women's football, the US has been less dominant.

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