Interesting Detail About College Soccer in the United States
- Thread starter wvkeeper(HN)
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I had two students miss multiple days of class to travel to St. Louis for some college showcase last week.
If we had to play with American players, we wouldn’t have been in the College Cup.
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Truth.
The fact is, kids coming up through the youth programs in other countries are simply better than most of the players in the States. Most other countries have youth programs/proving grounds with well-structured, established clubs, even in rural areas. Whereas here, club soccer is primarily a money racket reserved for kids that can afford to pay to play, and not necessarily those that are skilled enough or deserve to.
When I was a kid, it was always baseball, baseball, baseball. In the summer, it was about all we ever played in the neighborhood. Never even heard of soccer.
And a large chunk of the American kids coming up that are good enough to play in a Grassie like system get recruited into the MLS academies, which the ACC and BIG10 have a chokehold on.
And then in the fall you played football, winter was basketball. Travel baseball is just as bad as travel soccer in getting into these kids heads telling them they are gods gift to the sport
Yep. Was a huge ECNL showcase. Your students are likely legit D1 college prospects.
Soccers problem in the USA is there are other sports that are more popular. The best athletes are divided among football, basketball, baseball, etc. Also look at the size of soccer players. A soccer roster doesn't look like a NBA or NFL roster. I just looked up the NFL average size of their players. Per the NFL report it about 6'2" 245 lbs. You are not going to see D1 tight ends or linemen playing soccer. Look at the size of big time quarterbacks. Same for basketball. Soccer has become a rich kid suburban sport in this country, just like baseball. Our talent pool is not coming up through the soccer ranks.
Those other countries don't have anything else to do. They get a ball and kick it around. I saw that in Honduras. Poor as dirt kids can play soccer in a dirt field
Those other countries don't have anything else to do. They get a ball and kick it around. I saw that in Honduras. Poor as dirt kids can play soccer in a dirt field
We should be like China. Steal kids from their parents at the age of 2 and put them through a series of tests for athletic aptitude. keep the ones that show promise and send them off to train all day every day.
Seriously, leave a sport for other countries to be better than Us. They need something.
Seriously, leave a sport for other countries to be better than Us. They need something.
they are decent but I don't think there's that many d1 players that are 5'6 130
Yeah, unless they are female (or the next coming of Messi) that’s not going to work 🤣
Over 70% of MLB is still made up of Americans players, don’t throw in baseball here
I think he was strictly referring to the pay-to-play scam of club ball in this country.
What's your point? The travel ball system is a joke. You have high school kids and younger playing year round and getting Tommy John surgery etc. it's a broken system no matter how many players come from one country or the other
Not really. It’s more related to the number of options kids have to play the different sports here in the U.S. Other parts of the world don’t have the resources to play the number of sports we have. If you grow up in the dirt cities of Africa or Central America… chances are you can find a ball to kick around and develop ball skills for the only sport you have access to play.
It’s not essentially a “popularity” thing in America as it has become more of a preference and an evaluation of skill and endurance for the sport your suited to play. Parents influence much of this in their young athletes. I’ve attempted to encourage different sports (baseball, basketball etc) for my kids. “Baseball is boring” is what I’ve heard most often.
I’ve been sucked into soccer world with my 8 yr old son as he has begun steps of being invited into academy level play here in the triangle next year. I’ve had some interesting conversations with parents who have come from “soccer countries” and we’ve discussed extensively the comparisons and contrasts of their experience (U.S. vs their home country). It’s a fascinating.
It all comes down to the philosophy of the clubs/academies and how they choose to train and mold young players. What I’ve come to learn is they are all different. It’s a fragmented market in the U.S. with different methods. Where in English premier, Laliga, Germany you may have a consistent method of preparing young players to their country’s culturally engrained style of play across all their clubs. In America you can find countless styles of training and practice which ultimately hold back development IMO.
“Pay to play”. Is an interesting take. I do believe that soccer as a whole begins to “tier out” capable skilled players very early. Moving players up and leaving others behind who don’t seem to progress. Those that don’t move up are relegated to the “recreation tier” by age 10-11 which is the money grab most are seeing.
This is true.
U13 is the big split, though. Everything else before then is just posturing to make sure your kid is on a club who offers MLSNext (for boys only) or ECNL-National (boys and girls) when kids move to 11v11 on full sized fields.
Not that you asked, but if your kid develops and shows potential to play at a high level, ensure he's with a club that offers a path to one of the two orgs I mentioned above. The earlier, the better.
Yes he already does. He is playing U11 level. He doesn't turn 9 until February.
The issue with club soccer in the US is that it's cost prohibitive for many parents. There has to be a way to get all talented kids an opportunity to play the sport and get the best instruction they can. Some clubs are pretty exclusive and that doesn't help on many fronts.
College coaches have said they prefer kids who play multiple sports and that plays a role as well - additional time and cost to parents/child.
College coaches have said they prefer kids who play multiple sports and that plays a role as well - additional time and cost to parents/child.
I hear this and want to say "yes, agree"...which I used to do. But the reality is all the great soccer you see around the world is because that's all the kids played growing up. They play it at home, they play it on the playground, then they play it in their local clubs. They literally live with a ball at their feet for decades. That's why the quality of play exceeds the US (currently). College coaches have a vested interest in broad consumption and playing of sport because football, basketball, baseball, soccer is their paycheck.
The reason US kids dominate major league baseball is that most of these kids grow up throwing, catching, hitting around the year. Our generation (aging myself here) played wiffle ball when we weren't playing our little league games before the money-making clinics popped up. Kids developed at their own pace, but were "developing" and didn't realize it. I played with multiple guys who received D1 scholarships and even a couple minor league draftees. Not one played in multiple sports after 8th grade.
In the US soccer world, outside of the clubs you have skills development sessions, off season indoor leagues, Futsol leagues. It's endless. We've been asked to be a part of every extra-curricular soccer session there is available. And I've declined most. The real threat to creating great players in a sport of year-round sports/competition is injury and burnout. Not the single focus on one sport itself, IMO.
Yea I agree I thought we were referring to the pro level. I coached LL, Legion, and Babe Ruth. I got involved in travel ball a decade ago, owned and started an Org, by the time I gave it up I hated baseball, quit coaching last fall after PG event where we were forced to play 4 games in a day, I was at the field 17 hours, in October, in Florida. I’ll never step back on a field again, and when my son is done playing in HS idk if I’ll ever watch it after that.
- In many countries, soccer is, as stated above, the only sport, and thus the best athletes are going to play it. In the USA, that will never be the case.
- College athletic scholarships are a uniquely USA thing. Selling a kid, even from a first world level country, on a free education and an entre into the USA is an easy sell.
- While in the rest of the world, soccer transcends income levels, in the USA that isn't the case. Soccer is mostly a game for the wealthy upper middle class and wealthy.
- I'm not sold on travel baseball. Most Americans in MLB didn't take that route, and, of course, most of the Latin players grew up in third world level poverty.
As long as the system is the system, the MU men's soccer team is going to be mostly "international", and I'm fine with that.
- College athletic scholarships are a uniquely USA thing. Selling a kid, even from a first world level country, on a free education and an entre into the USA is an easy sell.
- While in the rest of the world, soccer transcends income levels, in the USA that isn't the case. Soccer is mostly a game for the wealthy upper middle class and wealthy.
- I'm not sold on travel baseball. Most Americans in MLB didn't take that route, and, of course, most of the Latin players grew up in third world level poverty.
As long as the system is the system, the MU men's soccer team is going to be mostly "international", and I'm fine with that.
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