The Problem With US Soccer

In Guadeloupe’s defense, they have tons of talent. They just all play for France.

As for Michael Bradley, he’s played some good soccer for us in the past, and coaches tend to keep a long leash on players that they’ve had success with. Add in that it’s the freaking coach’s son and we might as well get used to it. When M. Bradley’s right, I think he’s better than Reyna was.

As for the top to bottom makeover, I don’t think it matters as long as the natural ability is spread so thin from everything from baseball to out running the cops.

To steal talent from the mainstream sports they’d need to appear “cool” in the eyes of the kids transitioning from when their parents make them play and to when they can feign being burned out in order to smoke weed and or play football/basketball/whatever.

MMA has done good in that regard, but even it’s popularity seems to be waning. Though MMA guy and soccer guy’s look appear to be morphing some.

I blame the romance languages.

Control Alt Delete. But have a plan when you reboot.

Great article. Really enjoyed the read.

US soccer, and its governing bodies, are more about money than winning. Until that changes, we will be “also-rans” forever.

Last week’s game in Mexico…. oops… I mean Los Angeles… proves the point. Game was a huge financial success, all the way down to the all-Spanish spoken closing ceremonies. But victory? I think not. However, with those ticket sales and TV revenue, it doesn’t matter. US Soccer is like the Olymics. If you get there, it doesn’t matter where you place, the revenues are the same. We view the World Cup the same way, and we will always qualify.

Good points, magnus, but I think it’s interesting that you mention a need to “steal talent from the mainstream sports”. I don’t think that’s the case at all — we have the athletes, and it’s not physical attributes where our players are lacking. It’s the side of the game that they need to be taught, whether it’s tactics or technical skills, that are the problem. Plenty of players with the required level of athleticism bubble up through the ranks, but the problem is they never get the coaching they need.

How the hell does Bradley not just stuff the defensive side and clear out for 70 min? Probably some of the worst coaching I’ve ever seen. Guys giving up free runs everywhere, complete lack of bodying up the forwards. Awful.

I don’t think that’s the case at all — we have the athletes, and it’s not physical attributes where our players are lacking. It’s the side of the game that they need to be taught, whether it’s tactics or technical skills, that are the problem.

To obtain the skills and understanding of the game you need to play it year round pretty much since you could walk, and you need to learn from people who did the same. Most of our kids play Little League too, not to mention all the other sports.

I think America’s best athletes play other sports. For us to be the best in the world, we’re obviously going to need our best to play.

Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an American soccer player as fast as Michael Bourn. When playing soccer growing up I was always one of the best athletes. When I moved to Texas and played football I was just another pretty face.

You follow this closer, much closer, and I’m sure I can be swayed.

Hand Of Dog sez:
…the side of the game that they need to be taught…

Partly physical, as in conditioning and muscle memory – and I agree with some that those are crucail, and I think we’re not too far off in those areas.

More mental, for my nickel’s worth. The nearly-instinctual response to the changing situations during a game is what seems to elude us – on both offense and defense. Players who should just know what to do when a chance to attack or be attacked suddenly materializes… instead of doing it, they have to stop and think about it – and no matter how short that process is, it’s still too long and our attack fizzles from lack of support and our opponents’ attacks slice through. I’m not certain this can be “taught”, but it can be learned.

I also agree that we likely have numerous athletes who are gifted in ways that could really bloom on a soccer pitch, but are waylaid by football, basketball or baseball where they are good, but not great. That sort of allure to different sports simply does not exist on the same scale anywhere else, so we’re going to be behind the 8-ball on that one for a long time – at least until soccer becomes as popular to most teenagers as the other sports are now. Quick, who’s the Michael Jordan or insertfave_athlete_here__] of US Soccer?

I don’t think that soccer needs to necessarily attract the best of the best athletes in America for our national team to be successful. There are plenty of “good enough” athletes that are on the same level as those of other countries. Two reasons for this: one, we have a large population; two, soccer is a game where pure physical athleticism isn’t the most defining key to success. (See The Best Player in the World, Lionel Messi, who is 5’7"; the Greece team that won the Euro 2004 tournament with a bunch of no-names)

We could have the best athletes in the world making up our team, and with the current setup, we still would not be successful. It athleticism important? Yes. But I’m much more concerned with having a system that maximizes the potential of its players, and uncovers the best soccer players, rather than one that’s solely dependent on out-athletimicizing its opponents.

Actually, I think the US women’s team is a good illustration of this… do we have superior female athletes to anybody else in the world? Not really (particularly when you consider some of the “women” from the Soviet Bloc)… but (largely thanks to TItle IX), they had a strong college system to support them and get them coaching, which made them world powerhouses. As the rest of the world has put more resources into the women’s game, they’ve caught up.

Whoa how can it possibly be that the richest country in the world can’t afford good coaching. Are you telling me we can’t import a few thousand brazillian or German soccer coaches? I can’t believe that there are not plenty of qualified soccer coaches all over the place in America.

Or is it that we just don’t know what the hell good coaching is? In a world where American’s coach Chinese Olympic teams, and where suburban parents are willing to pay someone to coach their 6 year old, I have a hard time believing that we can’t marry our relative wealth to someone’s coaching abilities and increase our technical and tactical abilities. In fact, this seems like the quickest way to make the biggest jump in competitive ability.

That’s why people are willing to pay a college football or basketball coach 4 million dollars a year to turn around a program.

Secondly, and I realize you know way more about this than I do, but I have a hard time believing that even one of our players would start for a team like brazil or Germany. If you watch our guys, they just aren’t nearly as athletic, they look like they are playing a much (s)lower level of soccer.

Even if we have one or two guys that could start for a top team, we certainly don’t have the depth of talent they do.

I also have a hard time believing that if say Vince Young had grown up playing soccer, he wouldn’t be on the level of the top players in the world, he’s just a world class athlete. I don’t see that in our soccer players, most of them look like undersized, slow guys that couldn’t make the football team.

When I watch football or basketball, I see guys do some unfucking believable things, I see similar feats of athletic abilities from other countries soccer players, but I can’t remember one US player ever make a play where I thought “how in the hell did that guy do that?”

I’m curious what you mean by Bradley’s one-track thinking tactically. In this tournament alone he played a narrow 4-4-2, an unbalanced 4-4-2, a wide 4-2-3-1, a more conventional 4-2-3-1 and then what really amounted to a 4-2-4 with four interchangeable parts. In the past he’s even played a 3-5-2 so where exactly is this one-track thinking? His tactics are questionable at times and there are things to pick apart, but it’s not a matter of one-track thinking. He just gets things wrong at times.

I really don’t know how you can possibly say that Spector is coming off of a solid season for West Ham and that he’s never been in Bradley’s good books “despite his club form.” Spector was downright awful for West Ham this season. There is a reason they released him despite dropping down to the Championship and having a contract reasonable for the division. He had a string of three good matches playing in the midfield, but was consistently horrendous for them at right and left back. Spector hasn’t played well for West Ham for three seasons now, yet in 2009 and into 2010 continued to get starts ahead of Steve Cherundolo because Bradley really did want to give him the spot. It could even be argued that Spector is in Bradley’s very good books because he even got a chance, but Spector has wasted every lifeline that Bradley has handed him.

As for the development, to gloss over it as something that must be improved and point at the USSF is rather lazy. There is no doubt that the development system in the U.S. needs to be improved, but let’s be serious about the obstacles facing us. It’s a GIGANTIC country. Scouring all of it is difficult and the USSF cannot do it alone. No single entity can scour an entire country alone.

Look at the other top countries. They don’t lean upon their federation to scout and develop. That’s the job of the clubs. Germany is probably the best example of an efficient scouting and development program and it is completely dependent on the clubs doing it. Until 1996 the U.S. didn’t even have clubs to do that and until recently they didn’t have academies. Now they have them, but they’re just developing and it’s 16 teams trying to cover a country.

To compensate for the lack of club development in this country the USSF has implemented their Developmental Academy to supplement what has been a pretty productive Bradenton Academy and essentially replace the ODP system. it’s only been in effect for a couple years though and most of the products from it are still too young to make a difference.

The USSF is working on things and has moved to improve on some of the issues. To say that they have “long fallen asleep” is asinine. The jury is still out on the Developmental Academy because it’s still new and we don’t know how it will pan out, but they haven’t fallen asleep. They’re working on it and they and MLS have teamed with the Bundesliga to work on their development program. They’ve recognized a problem and that alone is a major first step.

Wow, you call my argument asinine but want to leave national team player development up to the MLS?

The USSF has done a poor job of player development, as evidenced by the performance of the national team. If the players are terrible, and Bradley has picked the best ones available, whose responsibility is that, if not the governing body for soccer in this country? It’s the MLS’ fault?

In 1998, the USSF laid out “Project 2010”, a plan to have the US win the World Cup by 2010. That worked out really well, didn’t it? We’ve made a lot of forward progress since 2002… The USSF runs the national teams; it should absolutely take responsibility and the lead role for developing the player pool for them. If, as you argue in your piece, the player pool is weak, their player development efforts have not succeeded. You are trying to give the USSF a free pass by saying it’s a big country, but player development extends far, far beyond scouting. In particular, the USSF could take a bigger role in educating and developing coaches, particularly at the grassroots level.

I’m loath to discuss tactics with somebody who will say with a straight face that Bradley played a 4-2-4. Even if it were true, the stupidity of such a formation from Bradley wouldn’t help your cause.

I also have a hard time believing that if say Vince Young had grown up playing soccer, he wouldn’t be on the level of the top players in the world, he’s just a world class athlete.

I disagree completely. Americans look at soccer through the prism of football and basketball, where a premium is placed on athleticism. Soccer is more like hockey or baseball; technical ability matters much more than raw athleticism. Vince might’ve made a good target man with his height, but without elite technical ability you’re just looking at a faster, blacker Peter Crouch. World class players of Vince’s height are exceedingly rare; height just isn’t as much of an advantage in soccer as it is in basketball or football, and the extremely tall almost never have the foot dexterity to develop world-class technical ability. (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that of the five best players in the world in 2010—Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Sneijder, and Ronaldo—only one is taller than 5’8".)

you’re just looking at a faster, blacker Peter Crouch

lol

To me, the biggest issue has been the pay-to-play setup of soccer over the last 20 years. We basically have a bunch of rich suburuban kids playing for our national teams. You ask where the Vince Young’s are when it comes to soccer? They play when they’re young and it doesn’t cost much, but when they hit 10 years old and have to pay thousands of dollars to play at the select level, they switch to football or basketball, where it costs almost nothing. This is changing slowly, as the MLS Development Academies gain traction, but we’re not there yet. In fact, I’ll be shelling out $1,500 tomorrow for my 12 year old son’s club season and that’s pretty cheap for DFW clubs.

It’s obvious that the USSF has long fallen asleep on the job when it comes to player development when, with almost no exceptions, the best US players have spent formative years overseas. The athletic ability of American players is without question; their technical and tactical skills are lacking, and that stems from a collective failure of coaching and player development in this country.

I agree with you that we have sufficient athletes but lack technical ability. But can the US compete with Europe in this regard? Guiseppe Rossi moved to Parma when he was 12, where he probably spent 6 hours a day playing and training with other Parma youth team players and coaches. It’s doubtful that Rossi would be anywhere near the player he is today had he stayed in New Jersey through high school. But with eight hours of school a day in the US, I don’t think that sort of training would even be possible, even if you could find enough kids with the talent and potential. How do you compete with the soccer academies?

I have gone back and forth on Bob Bradley. I think he is actually a very good coach that in all likelihood will get an opportunity to coach in Europe someday. However…I think he has taken this team as far as it will go under Bob Bradley. The US team will not be better than a second round world cup team under Bob Bradley and the Gold Cup Final against Mexico is proof that a change is needed.

There is no way that a team, comprised of professional soccer players, should lose a game 4 – 2 after being up 2-0. Its inexcusable. For lack of a better word, the team played and was coached naively. Completely inexcusable to not know how Mexico would react. They were the proverbial animal backed into the corner and they reacted as would be expected. They fought like hell. The US team has played Mexico many times, many of the players know each other and at the very least understand the Mexican psyche etc. The coaching staff should have had the US team get compact and button down the hatches to withstand the flurry of punches they knew or should have known was coming. Defensively, the U.S. should have allowed Mexico to wander around swinging at the air till it tired itself out, accumulated 1 red card or two and then throttled them in the second half.

There are a number of young interesting guys that are screaming for an opportunity and will in all likelihood begin to get more time and caps. Gooch is probably done, I don’t see Bocanegra and Cherundulo making another world cup age wise. Tim Howard transmits the serenity and calm to his defense and team of a nat in heat. Tim Ream is exciting and a very interesting player as are Lichaj, Holden and Chandler. M. Bradley is tough and a good player. He is the heart of the team and is a lynch pin of the team. Jermain Jones is growing and a very interesting piece that could help and hurt us; at this moment i think he is more helpful. Agudelo needs lots of maturity and Adu is coming along at a very interesting time.

Bielsa could do some very interesting things with this team. He is a “gym rat / videoholic coach” who could instill real offensive soccer in this team that takes advantage of the American go forward style and play to win mentality. Klinsmann would be my top choice because he is spot on about doing more to develop talent in this country and because he also understand the american mentality and desire to win.

Van Gaal is an absolute asshole that would probably set American soccer back at least 5 if not 10 years. He has not developed anything / anyone in the last 10 years. He has that special ability to bring fans and players together screaming for his sacking. Yes, he has won some championships but he started with really good materiel (Barcelona, Bayern). After a very short period of time everyone turns against him.

Your comments on Van Gaal noted, and countered:
Luca Toni: Van Gaal showed us his balls

agree with alot of the sentiment about bradley…and even lil bradley..it’s mostly on him because the players aren’t complete shit and are normally good enough to play at at least a middling level in the prem. also, not being able to convince subotic and rossi that they’d be complete superstars complete w/ whatever sort of marketing $ it took to try to keep them instead of just letting them go at their whim was a huge mistake as far as gulati & co are concerned.

probably pointless to do this but if we ran out a team of american eligible players we’d probably be able to do real damage with the right kind of coach at our dispoal:

agudelo
dempsey-rossi-donovan
edu-holden
lichaj-subotic-onyewu-dolo
howard

subs: spector, bradley, jones, jozy, adu, friedel

No federation takes the lead in player development in any country. It is impossible for a single entity to handle that for an entire country. Look around the world. It is the clubs that handle player scouting and development, not the USSF. You cannot pin it all on the USSF because they cannot do it alone. They need a lot of help and are only just starting to get it. The MLS academies are just a few years old. They need time to grow.

In fact, name any sport in which a single entity is responsible for player development? There isn’t one. It is impossible for a single entity to scout an entire country. It’s too big for it to be done. With the MLS academies and the Developmental Academy, we will be able to cover more ground than ever before.

As for coaching youth players, it’s getting better. The USSF has invested millions in coach training and coaching and practice regimen is at the heart of the Developmental Academy program. You want the USSF to invest in grassroots coaching, well they’re doing that, but the current system is still young.

What it really comes down to is the U.S. is still a young soccer country. The infrastructure and system just isn’t there yet. It’s building and growing, but we’ve only been doing this seriously for about 15 years now. You want to be on par with countries that have been doing this for 100 years? Be realistic. We need to be patient and need to give these things time to grow.

As for tactics, what would you call what we came out playing in the final? Donovan was up top for about 10 minutes, but then it turned into a 4-2-4 with the four interchangeable parts up front. It was ineffective, no doubt, but it’s what we did and I never defended Bob’s tactics. I said he didn’t have one-track tactics.

“Taking the lead” is not the same as “doing all the work”. National federations and associations in most countries — at least those with any modicum of success — take the lead in player development in a number of ways from establishing standards for youth academies to running coaching courses to establishing the philosophies by which young players are coached and trained.

And if the clubs aren’t doing a sufficient job of developing players for the national team, the USSF should stand idly by? That’s really what it sounds like you are saying. It is not the MLS’ role to develop players for the national team. Its clubs’ role is to develop players for their clubs, just like clubs in other countries. To suggest that no national FA or federation plays a significant role in the development of players for its national teams is simply untrue.

I can’t agree with the notion that we are a young soccer country and that we need to be patient. It is true that the modern game in this country really didn’t begin until 1990, and I do not expect the US to win the World Cup any time soon, nor do I expect us to be mentioned in the same breath as the top teams in the world. But it’s more than realistic to expect the US team to put on a far better show against the minnows like Guadeloupe and Panama than it did in this Gold Cup. And for me, the real issue is progress — we aren’t making any. The US peaked at the 2002 World Cup, played like crap in 2006, and despite the exciting heroics, didn’t make a real dent in 2010. And it looks like it’s on the decline.

There’s no reason to embrace mediocrity, and allowing Bradley, Gulati and co to abscond from taking responsibility under the guise of patience is foolish.

Saying the US played a 4-2-4 implies they played with width, which Bradley’s sides don’t do. There may have been 4 offensive players (though I’d argue Bornstein was the most offensive player ha ha ha), but they remained very narrow, and cut inside when they got the ball. That’s part of the reason this team isn’t very hard to deal with — clog the center and you’ve nullified much of their threat.

Of course the USSF has to have a leading role, something that they have. You want coaching standards? They have them. You want training? They have them. You’re speaking in generalities about what you’d like, but how much do you know about the current system? Most everything you would like is there. We need to give it time to grow though. It hasn’t been in place long enough to reap the rewards.

Take a look at our U-17 team that got knocked out today. Only one is professional and he hasn’t played a professional match. Compare that to the Germany team we lost to where everyone of them was professional. FIFA rules will not allow our players to move abroad before the age of 17 anymore so yes, we are VERY dependent on MLS. The USSF can’t do anything about that. If MLS doesn’t grow, neither will our developmental system.

If you take a look at our U-20 team, you can see the progress that is being made though. Almost all are professional and playing abroad. Most came from MLS academies or Bradenton and a couple are the first products of the Developmental Academy. Joseph Gyau is playing with Hoffenheim’s first team right now. Sebastian Lletget is on the verge of doing the same with West Ham and many others are coming along well.

You say the modern era began in 1990, but the modern era of player development didn’t come until the last 1990’s. Until then the USSF had very little money and couldn’t fund any developmental initiatives. Even then, the Bradenton Academy was really all they could afford to fund and most of the money from that came from Nike/Adidas. We may want our youth system to be more advanced, but it takes money and we haven’t been able to fund a proper youth system until very recently. They don’t just pop up right away either. The developmental system needs to develop.

We may not be making progress at the top level, but the top level is fed by the development of the youth and that youth is in a period of transition. We created our original Project 2010 system naively and with little money. We tried partnering with the USOC and things got a little better and now we have the Developmental Academy, which is the most comprehensive system yet that has been created in tandem with the Bundesliga and is properly funded. It has everything you are clamoring for, but give it time. it doesn’t happen overnight. They’re over 100 clubs taking part in it now, but 100 clubs won’t cover the entire country. We need to get closer to 500, which is still about four years away. Then we need to let those clubs develop the players, which also takes time. Patience is the key here, unless you have another suggestion, in which case the USSF, MLS and Bundesliga would love to hear it.

Going back to your original piece, I still would like to know what you mean by one-track tactics. I’d also love to know how you think Spector had a solid club season, how Bradley doesn’t like him and how the USSF has “fallen asleep” with regards to development. They’re doing a heck of a lot, which implies that they’re very much awake.

Bradley’s one-dimensional tactics: he never plays with width. He may use wide players, but they cut inside when they get the ball. See earlier comment about why his teams are easy to stop, particularly when it doesn’t have a speedy forward up top.

West Ham were shit this year, Spector played fine, relative to his teammates. Which is more than can be said for Bornstein.

What do you think of the current USMNT talent pool? And doesn’t the fact that most of the U20 team is playing abroad highlight the fact that they can’t get an adequate level of coaching and development in the US?

The problem with US soccer? In a nutshell, it comes down to youth soccer leagues saying things like, “Maybe he would be better suited for football” about an overly aggressive young kid.

It all starts early and once they start playing football, basketball, lacrosse, rugby, etc… they aren’t coming back. It will forever be a problem in this country. The superior athletes and hyper aggressive kids will almost always go to other sports. In other countries they just don’t have the options and soccer is their way out. We have to try and compete against the best of the best from other countries with guys that were too passive or disinterested to play a different sport here.

Should we do it better than we do with our 3rd tier athletes? Probably. Why don’t we? There just doesn’t seem to be much interest or much of a plan. I’m sure it’s more complicated than that, but let’s face it, people here just don’t give a damn about soccer by and large.

His tactics are hardly one-dimensional. He’s played with two attacking fullbacks before. He’s played with three at the back before. He’s played two holding midfielders in a double pivot. He’s played with three in a Christmas tree formation. He’s played with one and three more attacking players in front of him. He’s tried played with a single bruising forward and with a single forward who drags wide for deeper runs. He’s tried playing with width when he had wide players, then found the narrow 4-2-2-2 when he struggled to find a wide player. He played in that same 4-2-2-2 earlier in the Gold Cup, only to switch to a five-man midfield later on and then play without a striker after that. They’ve tried building from the back, playing from wide and playing directly.

You’re right, the U.S. can be easy to stop at times, but it’s not for a lack of different tactics. Bradley has tried a lot, but he has maybe one player who can break down opposing defenses. He doesn’t have anyone to play out wide and his forwards are shockingly poor at making runs off the ball. He can try whatever tactics he wants, but at some point he needs players.

Oh, and while you focus on the team’s tactics in the attack, they scored more goals in the 2010 World Cup Qualifying hex than any other U.S. team has ever scored in that stage. The much, much, much bigger problem is at the back.

How you can say Spector played fine is beyond me. He was truly dreadful. If he played so well relative to his teammates then why was he benched? Why did they try him in the midfield instead of his regular position? Why didn’t they pick up his very reasonable contract despite dropping down a level? Spector was downright awful.

The current talent pool is pretty poor. They’re caught in transition, with too many players who are too old and too many players who are too young. Carlos Bocanegra is past it, but the players who could push past him have just a year or two of professional experience. All of the best striker options are 22 or younger. The same is true for the wide options.

Take a look back to Mexico in 2008 and 2009 when they were struggling. They were in transition too. An out of for Gio, no Guardado, no Barrera, no Chicharito, no Moreno. Now, I’m not saying we have the incredible young talent that Mexico has is in our pipeline. After all, this might be the best generation of players that Mexico has ever had, but to be caught in transition isn’t unique to the U.S.

The fact that most of the U-20 team is playing abroad speaks to the fact that MLS is still developing. At that age, players need to be playing professionally and MLS isn’t good enough for the top young players right now. They just reimplemented their reserve league. They don’t all have complete youth teams. They can’t handle all of the development yet. That’s why they go abroad. The USSF can’t do that much about that.

NoMames is spot on, although I disagree that Bob will ever have a job in Europe. He could go to Sweden or Norway for $350K, and prove himself, but that will never happen. I think that whenever he does end up leaving the Nats he will move into a front office somewhere, probably at MLS corporate. None of the top MLS clubs would hire him, and the smaller clubs would not be able to afford him.

I think he should go right now because this is the best, and last, opportunity to change managers before we get into WCQ, which will be trickier than ever this cycle. The squad needs a freshening. Too many guys are too entrenched in their positions, as evidenced by the Donovan and Dempsey dual wedding fiasco the night before a quarterfinal. European media would still be going nuts over that. It is unbelievable that our poster boy and talisman, Donovan, did something so egregious (arriving late on gameday) that he was ostensibly benched because of it. I think he was playing hurt anyway, but the idea that a nation’s talisman would miss training immediately prior to the knockout stage of your regional cup is just mystifying. I give Dempsey a little leeway because his club and national schedule is intense (no Christmas break in EPL) and hard to plan around, but Donovan’s absence is inexcusable.

A couple things about our player development that are often overlooked. First, our agents suck. Yorks is OK, but Motzkin is a clown. In soccer, agents basically set up both ends of a transfer. Their job is a lot more involved than just negotiating a contract and looking cool on their cell during draft day. It is extremely important that they have good relationships with the clubs. A good agent can secure a nice transfer for his client, and most importantly, find a good fit for that player’s development. A bad agent gets his client shipped off to Benfica (notorious meat market) and then loaned all over Europe, never to settle. Or he puts a client with no first touch in La Liga. This will be fixed as this generation starts to retire and moves into the business of soccer. Guys who knocked around Europe, but were solid pros, would be great agents. Cherundolo or Bocanegra, even Beasley, could work wonders for US talent if they stay abroad and represent US players after they retire.

Second, our “US only” approach to the Nats job means that we do not have a European or South American coach/staff recommending our players to their clubs back home. Look at what kind of impact Hiddink has had where he has been. I think an important piece of getting US players in better positions abroad is having your national coach play in a recognizable formation and getting the players thinking tactically. Clubs then know that you can do a job for them. It may not get you to Barcelona, but it could land you a starting role at Roma. MLS may be third tier for the next 25 years, but if our national team plays tactically sound soccer in a preferred formation, our domestic players will secure nice transfers.

Meanwhile, our positioning is rubbish. Junior is all over the damn place, but thinks too slowly. The Italian media love Junior’s hustle and intangibles, but there is no damn way an Italian manager is going to buy him to play in the center of the park. No chance. Now, if we get a manager who can convince Junior to stay in position, maybe he can do a little better than being a reserve at Villa. He is a very talented player, but he either does not listen to his Dad, or Bob has no idea how to deploy his own son. Either way, Junior’s continued performances are exhibit A for why Bob should resign.

Let’s recap:

- “He can try whatever tactics he wants, but at some point he needs players.”

- “The current talent pool is pretty poor.”

- “MLS isn’t good enough for the top young players right now… They can’t handle all of the development yet.”

Yet everything’s fine, we should all just chill out and relax and let Bob and Sunil do their thing, player development is totally awesome in the hands of MLS, and the problem is unrealistic expectations. Got it.

Meanwhile, enjoy some vids of Spector being downright awful.

So we’ve got a poor player pool and a coach that can’t figure out how to get them to perform. That’s a recipe for success that deserves another contract extension.

Ryan R is dominating the thread

Spector rarely played FB at W. Ham this season and when he did, he was a disaster. His “solid” games, which can be counted on one hand, all came as a box to box midfielder when playing next to Scott Parker. He certainly isn’t going to displace Bradley, Jones or Edu in that role. Stubbornly adhering to that canard destroys the credibility of the OP.

The USSF is getting out of the development business. Bradenton is in the process of being closed and, like it or not, going forward MLS clubs will be responsible for the development of young Americans who aren’t good enough to go to Europe. Contrary to the OP, the development of the elite players in the world is driven by club academies in Europe and SA, not national federations. La Masia is primarily responsible for Spain’s recent dominance, just like Manchester United’s academy was responsible for producing Giggs, Scholes, Beckham and the Nevilles in the 90s. The policies of the Spanish and English FAs had little to nothing to do with the development of those dudes. The US is still in its relative infancy as a soccer nation and strong professional academies is THE key to getting where we want to go.

The thought that La Masia is taking its player development cues from the Spanish FA is almost too ludicrous to even consider.

I am struggling to understand how Spector scoring two goals from CM against United’s B/C Carling Cup squad justifies playing him at FB against the likes of Guardado, dos Santos and Hernandez when his biggest issue as a FB is turning and running with fast forwards.

To your larger point, is there anyone out there other than USSF leadership who doesn’t want to see dramatic change at Soccer House?

Ryan R, apparently.

Spector having a pulse justifies his selection over Bornstein and moving Lichaj out of position.

No. The correct move would have been to bring Ream in at CB and move Boca to LB and Lichaj to LB

RB that is for Lichaj

I think it’s worth pointing out that the body of US Americans with a sharp and detailed understanding of all facets of the game has grown impressively over the last 15-20yrs. You don’t have to agree or disagree with what is being talked about in this thread, only realize that this kind of discourse wasn’t happening on any comparable scale in this neck of the woods little more than a decade ago.

I remember watching the USMNT play in person for the first time against Costa Rica in the Cotton Bowl during the ‘93 Gold Cup. There couldn’t have been much more than 10k in attendance, and the vast majority was Hispanic rooting for the Ticos. I distinctly recall being a little surprised and pissed about the state of affairs in the stands. To combat all the cheers in Spanish surrounding us, my brother and I started shouting “U-S-A, Gan-ar-rá ! U-S-A, Gan-ar-rá !” The people around us reacted like they didn’t know what planet they were on.

Until the kids are playing in the streets, the way we used to play football, we will never have the kind of instinctive feel for the game required for high level sex. Until then we will be stuck with over trained simulation of instinctive feel: it’s the difference between a convincing porn star orgasm and a genuine “cock-out.”

So many comments to make…where to start…

“Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an American soccer player as fast as Michael Bourn.”

Not really important to the argument, but Marvell Wynne would run a 40 that would put him near the top of any major sports combine. His technical ability is lacking, however. There’s others as well, Danny Cruz for the Dynamo could’ve played football at the college level but chose soccer instead and you definitely notice his speed on the pitch. There’s probably more elite speed guys than you think in any case.

“No. The correct move would have been to bring Ream in at CB and move Boca to LB and Lichaj to RB.”

If you think Bornstein got smoked can you imagine what would’ve happened to Boca at left back? It wouldn’t have been pretty. Lichaj is naturally a right back, to counter an earlier comment, but he hasn’t played it much with the current USMNT nor had he played it at all in the tournament.

If it were my call, and what I said during the match, I’d have brought Spector in at right back and kept Lichaj on the left. No, it wouldn’t have been an ideal solution, but Spector at least played more matches than Bornstein this past season at a much higher level of competition and that would’ve kept Lichaj on the left where he was doing fairly well against Mexico’s attack. The real answer is that we sorely missed Timmy Chandler on the Gold Cup roster.

Now Bradley’s tactics. He’s shown some flexibility, more in this tournament than most other times, but that’s often been dictated by personnel. We went to one striker largely because Altidore went down and Wondolowski had shown himself to be out of his depth at the international level. We don’t play a good wide game because we have very few true wingers in the USMNT player pool. He’s been very resistant to change in general, however, and does stick with certain players regardless of performance (Altidore and Bornstein among them).

I do think the US is headed towards a 5-man midfield in some formation in the future, however, simply because of the type of talent we have and the need to get the best XI on the field. Midfielders Jones, Holden, Donovan, Dempsey, and Bradley are all certainly among our best overall players right now with Bedoya, Shea, and holy crap even Adu looking promising as well as others.

Youth development is a massively complex issue in and of itself. Yes, the clubs in Europe are the ones who primarily develop their youth but the creative Central and South American players we see don’t come from those background, they come from playing pickup games day in and day out and living and breathing football. We don’t have a culture in the US that encourages having fun and getting a feel for the ball, we have a culture that thinks making it to the state finals for U8 teams is important for some asinine reason. If our kids just played more and we didn’t shove them into tournaments and travel seasons and school seasons and everything else they’d probably end up as better players in the long run.

This NYT article on the Ajax academy should be a must read for anyone with even a passing interest in youth soccer and youth development, it’s a really fascinating look inside one of the world’s top academies:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06Soccer-t.html

I think it’s worth pointing out that the body of US Americans with a sharp and detailed understanding of all facets of the game has grown impressively over the last 15-20yrs. You don’t have to agree or disagree with what is being talked about in this thread, only realize that this kind of discourse wasn’t happening on any comparable scale in this neck of the woods little more than a decade ago.

Worth repeating. It’s nice to see people caring. Do you have any idea how difficult it was to find somebody to debate the merits of Roy Wegerle’s linkup play in 1993?

Or Tad Ramos’ way too short shorts? I guess it earned him a Snickers contract.

Lots of good discussion on this thread. Most smart people I know follow soccer. Makes sense.

Bradley now has two glaring sub decisions that have cost him victory, Clark over Edu against Ghana and Bornstein instead of Ream/Spector when Dolo went out. There are probably more but those two certainly stand out. He’s made plenty of good ones too but those have a magic 8 ball feel to them. As Ryan pointed out, he’s tried so many damn formations with different personnel, some of them have to work once in a while.

The age and experience gap is frustrating but a good coach can work around those things. It’s actually a key dynamic in other pro sports to delivering a title but our talent across the board just isn’t good enough. And repeatedly pchizophrenic lineup shuffling for every tournament / friendly / qualifier prevents any cohesion from developing.

“he age and experience gap is frustrating but a good coach can work around those things. It’s actually a key dynamic in other pro sports to delivering a title but our talent across the board just isn’t good enough. And repeatedly pchizophrenic lineup shuffling for every tournament / friendly / qualifier prevents any cohesion from developing.”

(aside: how do you format italics?)

I think we somewhat unfortunately find ourselves in a bit of an inbetween stage right now. We have a few players moving into their prime on quality European rosters (Holden, Bradley, and Chandler) while our veterans in the big leagues are winding down or starting to wind down their careers (Cherundolo, Bocanegra, Dempsey,Jones, Donovan). At the same time a lot of our promising young talent hasn’t quite made the leap to true quality competition yet (Ream, Agudelo, Lichaj, Gonzales, Shea, Bunbury).

2014 is going to see us with only a handful of players really in their prime with Davies, Holden, Bradley, Edu, and Bedoya the only current consistent roster players in that 25-29 age range with Holden and Bradley the only definite starters of that group (Timmy Chandler also looks to be an imminent starter). Dempsey, Donovan, Onyewu, Goodson, Cherundolo, Jones, and Bocanegra will all be well north of 30 (as will Howard but keepers tend to have some nice longevity) and if I had to guess now we probably won’t see Dolo and Boca on the roster.

That leaves us with a core largely made up of younger players who will be just coming into their prime playing years but haven’t yet proven themselves at a high level. This bodes well for 2018 when those guys will hopefully be in the prime of the European careers but means that we could be largely untested as we head into the 2014 tournament.

The next qualifying cycle is going to be really interesting to see how the younger players are integrated and more importantly how ready they are for international competition.

Americans look at soccer through the prism of football and basketball, where a premium is placed on athleticism. Soccer is more like hockey or baseball; technical ability matters much more than raw athleticism.

I agree on basketball, especially when you ball like Trips Right. Above the rim, nuts in a seven footer’s grill.

But, you’re too smart to discount the technical ability of a Steve Smith (either one will do) or Jordan Shipley. Both of those guys prove that being technical and athletic aren’t mutually exclusive.

There’s a deep talent pool in America that has no idea what soccer is.

Also, discounting Messi’s athletic ability is folly. Dude is plenty fast, and strong as hell – compared to the guys trying to knock him off the ball – and though he may not kill the 40, my money is on him when it comes to the shuttle. He’s athletic is the point.

As ALWAYS, I agree with Vasherized. Great conversation, fags.

(aside: how do you format italics?)

Like this.

what he means is:

<i>Like this.</i>

I was going to comment that that didn’t help very much. Thanks guys.

Touching briefly on the subject of athletes from other sports…

US soccer doesn’t really need Vince Young, Randy Moss, and Chris Johnson. It needs/misses out on players like Hodges Mitchell, Ahmad Brooks, and any fast collegiate point guard (Jai Lucas?) that is simply too small, too fragile, and too unable to defend to make it in the NBA. There’s dozens of these kids out there every year. Not all of them are necessarily potential world class footballers either, but, many of them might have a chance at a pro career in soccer that they’d never have in the NBA or NFL.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the stereotypical white suburban player. There’s probably just as many potential national team players there, by percentage, as there are anywhere else, but, without competition from from a broader pool of players all across the board, the whole system suffers.

Chad Ochocinco’s tryout with MLS side Sporting KC might be an interesting data point for this conversation:

Here’s our final scouting report on Ochocinco’s performance:

- Looks awkward on the field and appears slow reading the game.
- Extremely dependent on his right foot; little ability or desire to use his left.
- Failed to show any of his speed.
- Very few runs off the ball and doesn’t make himself available as an outlet for teammates. Looked disinterested for the most part.
- Tentative on defense and when challenging for the ball.
A couple of positives are his ability to shield the ball and that he has a winger’s mentality - despite his skill level. He’s not afraid to dribble and take on a defender. His football background allows him to do an adequate job of protecting the ball and keeping possession with a defender on his back.

I always thought of Tommie Frazier as the prototype.

allen iverson would have been an excellent soccer player. except for the hating practice part.

Interesting stuff on Ochocinco. I think we can trace back several of those to having not played the game at any sort of high level before:

- Looks awkward on the field and appears slow reading the game.
- Extremely dependent on his right foot; little ability or desire to use his left.
- Very few runs off the ball and doesn’t make himself available as an outlet for teammates. Looked disinterested for the most part.

Not so much the disinterested part, but the understanding of runs, reading the game, and using his left are all things you develop over years of playing and watching the game.

What I don’t get is the “failing to show speed” part, I’d think that would be the one thing he’d really take advantage of…unless maybe soccer players are faster than we (he) thought?

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: +1, successful use of italics

The failing to show speed is related to reading of the game in some ways — poor timing, not knowing when to run or having poor judgment on where the ball is going to be will nullify raw pace somewhat.

Steve Nash has some skills, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCDKUbRud48

The NYT article linked above about the Ajax developmental model is a good read. On page one, you will find a quote that bears a striking similarity to an oft used criticism by a principal writer at BC of Mack Brown’s staff’s old approach:

“One man, Ronald de Jong, said: "I am never looking for a result — for example, which boy is scoring the most goals or even who is running the fastest.”

The emphasis is on process, not results. How many times have we heard Mack point to a winning result while ignoring the obvious problems that were destined to lead to eventual calamity?

Another aspect about the Ajax model in the article that is more subtle relates to how much real advantage is there to pegging future stars at age 5-8? I think a case can be made that the real advantage is for the private shareholders who corner the local talent at a very young age and make serious bank when even one future Wesley Sneijder gets auctioned off. In reality, it’s my personal belief that youth can morph their natural abilities between sports over a larger window of time and gaps can be closed more readily if the environment promotes it.

In this same vein, if the deveopmental window is bigger than the Dutch might claim at first glance, the deveopmental ‘fault line’ might be getting pegged here:

"No other nation has as comprehensive a college-sports system as exists here, and none assume that an elite athlete will seek (or benefit from) higher education. "You have a major problem in the ages of 17 to 21," Huw Jennings, now the director of the youth academy at Fulham, in the English Premier League, told me when I visited him in London. "The N.C.A.A. system is the fault line. I understand that it is good for a person’s development to go to university, but it’s not the way the world develops players."

But apart from the college abyss, it’s beyond absurd that for parents and their kids who want to seriously pursue soccer as a viable career option, in the US, they end up paying MORE. Reversing and expanding this may have the single biggest long term impact on the success of US soccer.

ag, the italics tag is em in between open and close carrots. Not ‘i’ as that misguided creature Hand of Dog would have you believe.

This is wordpress after all where nothing is as it seems.

Nice work there, Vasherized. Your semantics are no match for my mad HTML symbol skills.

Thank you, Hand of Dog.

My former handle was Semanticized.

@Triplehorn – I also think some of what’s come out here has sounded like it was lifted from discussions about GDGD last season.

Far more intelligent, actually. Those had more cro magnon flav. This is Al Gore’s favorite soccer thread ever.

And less talk about HTML skills, imo.

The Ochocinco example may indeed be interesting, but it’s no “data point.” It only tells us what we all already know: a 33 year old man with no professional soccer background cannot suddenly begin a high level career.

The player pool needs to be expanded and diversified. There’s room in this game for a variety of athlete-types and skill sets, as well as development backgrounds. I’m not sure what the Federation can do to facilitate this unless it’s possible to find ways to get more kids (and different kinds of kids) playing the sport.

Would our current players in their prime have better technique or whatever if they had been coached differently? Not substantially. There could be stylistic differences, but I see those players generally performing to their potential. Rather than a specific lack of athleticism or technique (even if one or both may be true), it is more helpful to think of current US soccer mediocrity as limited talent. The line between talent and athleticism got blurred in Hand of Dog’s first response to magnus. There’s overlap, but they are not the same thing.

triplehorn, I like your observations.

As someone who codes WordPress sites from time to time you’d think I’d have picked up on that. Ah well, it is the weekend.

I’d love to see more articles and discussion on this flavor of football, btw. While I love the other as well I can wax poetic far more about this sport than the pointyball one.

the problem with us soccer is that we suck

I also agree with texlong:

“More mental, for my nickel’s worth. The nearly-instinctual response to the changing situations during a game is what seems to elude us – on both offense and defense. Players who should just know what to do when a chance to attack or be attacked suddenly materializes… "

It seems like we play panicky especially in transitions from defense to offense. While good players are already looking for that outlet pass before they intercept the ball, our players are so afraid of what the other guy is going to do they just boot it downfield

Seriously! This really is such a good in-depth write-up and it also would seem that you seriously did your homework. I really recognize the value of your time you have given to the article. We are looking forward for the following posting. Thank you