This Is American Soccer, US Soccer, MNT, WNT, and MLS - Tackling the subject of Soccer in the US, and worldwide.

I agree with your comments whole heartedly. As a coach both at the Club and Div. I College level, the better play comes from the club level. Players are trained to be both technically and tactically prepared for the next level. Unfortunately the next level of college is not what they were trained to do. There are very few college coaches playing or teaching the game, the pure game of soccer. Their job is to win. There is NO penalty for ugly soccer. So why change, just win baby. Aren’t they supposed to tarin their players for the next level? How can we expect our National team to succeed at the highest level when the ball is being dropped on the college level. First year college players are suprised, upset, and quiting the game because of the style of college soccer and are not enjoying the game they were taught to play when they were youngsters. The U.S. governing body needs to step in and start dictating to the colleges what they expect to be taught, trained, and accomplished.

I enjoyed this article immensely and believe it is right on. With the number of American youths playing soccer competitively through High School you would think we’d be more competitive than we’ve been at this point, especially the last few years. I would agree it’s because the nuances of the “beautiful game” get pushed to the side. Hopefully we can cheange that around and begin to devlop real football players.

I’m not quite ready to annoit Benny the midfield savior of American soccer, but I agree there are huge problems with the way we scout and develop youth talent here. We’ve all read articles of countless players that are forced to walk on at colleges (seems like several other national team members were walk ons as well) or go somewhere else to play just to get attention. I think alot of it has to do with the American mentality that we always ahve the best athletes. I’ve heard alot of people growing up tell me that once America’s top athletes are playing soccer we’ll be a world power without a doubt. We’ve all probably seen, been around, or personally experienced more talented players passed up for more talented athletes in our youth system. But anyone who saw us stick with the World Cup champs while a man down should know we aren’t lacking for athletic ability, more in soccer intelligence. For whatever reason our players, while physically top of the game, are unable to think their way through a tough match. Watch any game against an organized European opponent and we just can’t break down the defense, the team entirely too dependent on speed to cause problems or height to win crosses. I don’t know if there is an answer other than to hope that the more kids continueing to play at a young age the harder it will be for the tiny geniuses of the sport to slip through the cracks. Probably has something to do with lack of pick up games as well but thats another gripe.

Isn’t Ray Hudson the greatest color commentator of all time!

Great piece. I think Crouch is actually quite skillful though, not the best in the world but surprisingly agile for his height.

I caught a division one college game the other day, and while both teams had great athletes, and I’m sure skillful players, the game was played at a fast pace, and neither team tried to settle the ball and play skillfully. Maybe winning at all costs is a part of the problem too. In truth though, the teams that play good soccer, control the ball, I think would win in the end. Teams with the most college championships are teams like UCLA and Virginia, I’m guessing.

I’m always interested in the idea of how players develop. Early on there’s less stress on winning and a bit more freedom, but then as competition becomes tougher, there’s less and less room for players to play freely and make mistakes or say the smaller skillful players are push out. It’s kind of like when the great players grow up playing in the streets, playing freely, and develop unique abilities to dribble like Messi or pass like Riquelme.

At the same time though, these great players grew up playing in intense surroundings, I believe even playing for money as Tevez did in the tough streets of Argentina. I guess, when developing creative players, you need a bit of both, intensity but also the freedom to try things. Passion. The best players spend all day with the ball.

Why no tell your fullbacks in college to take one more touch and try to pick out the forward with a ball rather than just blindly booting the ball down field, you can play direct and still be playing pretty “soccer”, great goals come from two or three passes many times–their just precise. That’s one thing that Feilheber does, plays beautiful passes, so rare in a US player. Yeah, wtf, why isn’t he playing for Derby?

Great article, and I agree with most of it. Just a few points - first of all, don’t think that European and Latin American nations don’t drool at the site of a player like Luca Toni or Michael Ballick. That’s why those guys start for their respective nations, as much for their size as their skill. Having said that, I believe scouts for the US program do look too much at height and speed alone, but nowadays you can’t compete with European teams without some size and strength.

The bottom line is, we have a cultural handicap in the US when it comes to the Beautiful Game, whatever you call it. Ryan has simply rolled up that handicap up in the name “footall” vs “soccer,” but remember that it is not the name that counts - its’ the culture behind the name. Calling it Football is not going to help us develop or play better. BTW, Italy also departs from the norm calling their sport “Calcio,” not futbol or other Latin variation. They won a world cup last year, so let’s not focus on what the sport is called.

I recently officiated a JC men’s game and it was some of the best soccer I have seen in the US, but many of the players were foreign players. We would greatly benefit from recruiting more of that foreign influence in our college system both at the player and coaching level. Universities could also take a page out of the book of schools like Brigham Young University who nearly every year travel to other countries to play professional teams. But Title IX has made it so that men’s college soccer will never be the proving ground that it could have been. Great that it has helped women play more sports in college, but the level of play in many women’s sports at many levels is so far below what anyone would expect that it is mostly wasted money and effort. Bring it back to an appropriate level of funding based on where the actual interest lies from individual players and we might be able to get something out of the college system.

Good article. Much is true. But I do believe part of the problem is that most of the best athletes go into other more popular American sports as baseball, football, basketball. This leaves lesser talented athletes to the sport of soccer. Regardless if some of them are bigger or stronger, many of these going to other sports could be the tecnically and tactically superior soccer players, unfortunately they go to other sports. So part of the solution is to get soccer more embedded into the culture, so little Johnny watches soccer matches on tv with dad rather than just baseball or basketball. Some of this is happening with the new smaller soccer stadiums such as LA Galaxy and Red Bulls. Strides are also being made with the interest Beckham and Blanco are generating. But it will still take time. That’s the cold truth.

BTW, we did poorly in my opinion due to poor coaching. Arena, sorry, terrible job. Donovan and the others never took anyone on. Only played the ball back or long ball. Since this was done by everyone on the US team, it had to be a coaching decision or lack of coaching. It really was horrible to watch. I still believe with the existing talent we can and will do better.

Wow. This is one of the best blogs that I have ever read. I completely agree with everything that was said.
As a U16 player currently playing select and high school soccer, I have seen this sort of thing happen many times. The coaches go for the biggest, the strongest, and the fastest while overlooking those who have a true knowledge of the game but might not be as physically intimidating. It isn’t even about looking for those with the mind of a footballer. I really hope that the U.S. can make the switch from “soccer” to “football”. It would make the game so much more enjoyable for those of us already playing the beautiful game, football, in a country filled with soccer.