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

The Third International Amateur Soccer Tournament- aka The Challenge for the Tiffany Trophy Cup - is going down in Washington, DC until April 11th for a select group of 17-year-olds. This year’s roster includes the D.C. United Academy Team, Blackburn Rovers FC of England, El Deportivo Saprissa of Costa Rica, Chivas de Corazón of Mexico, Real Madrid CF of Spain, Pachuca FC USA Internationals (Potomac, Maryland), Freestate Soccer Alliance Elite (Bowie, Maryland), and Great Falls A ‘91 Elite (Great Falls, Virginia).

As the games approached, the visiting foreign coaches agreed to answer a short survey. Only two came in, and as the tournament is going on this week, I thought I would throw them up. I tried to craft the questions to be generic enough for all to answer while at the same time hopefully pulling from them something more than generic. While my fears were realized with largely politically correct answers, I do think there is something here–that thing that is always around. One question above all else…

Coach Jorge Sigala Bracamontes from Chivas de Mexico:

TIAS:1. Why come all the way to America for this tournament? What do your teams and players get from it? Are you looking to scout potential players for your own clubs?

Es un torneo que al parecer esta muy bien organizado, con muy buenos equipos, no es muy grande y asi la atencion es mucho mejor, y siempre ir a torneos internacionales es muy importante para nuestro club. Nuestro equipo Chivas, consigue al asistir a este tipo de competiciones un fogeo internacional, en el cual se pueda ver reflejado en la formación de los jóvenes y Desafortunadamente o afortunadamente en nuestro club Chivas no pueden jugar extranjeros, así que es muy difícil encontrar o ver jugadores para traer a nuestro club.

This tournament seems to be very well organized, with very good teams; it is not a big tournament so the attention is better, and it is always good for our club to participate in international tournaments. Participating in this kind of tournaments, our team Chivas gets international exposure that influence the preparation and education of the young players. Besides for better or for worse foreigners cannot play in our Club, Chivas, therefore, it is difficult to find or to see players to bring to our club.

2. How do you view the competition from the United States?

Es muy atractivo por el gran crecimiento futbolistico que se a venido dando en los ultimos años en Estados Unidos, cada vez hay mejores jugadores y de mas nivel.

It is very attractive because of the rapid growth that soccer has experimented in the United States during the last few years, more and more there are more and better players.

3. Compared to how your club trains players, what is different about American youth soccer?

No sabemos exactamente ya que no hemos estado en los entrenamientos que plantea American Youth soccer, pero suponemos que deben de ser muy especificos y muy profesionales por el gran nivel alcanzado en los ultimos tiempos.

We do not know exactly since we have not been in the American Youth soccer training, but we presume that it is very specific and very professional by the great level recently reached.

4. From your perspective, what is the United States getting right or wrong with its development of soccer players?

Yo considero que el sistema cualquiera que sea el que este implementando Estados unidos es bueno y van creciendo a pasos agigantados con el gran profesionalismo con el que se manejan en todos los deportes.

I consider that the system, whichever it is, that the United States is implementing is good, and they are growing tremendously with the great professionalism that drives all the sports.

5. What is the first change you would make to how the United States develops its young players?

Desconozco a ciencia cierta que pudiera cambiar, pero en lo que me enfocaría mas es en la parte técnica de cada jugador, ya que Estados Unidos tiene jugadores muy fuertes, de buen físico y con una gran mentalidad, así que yo me enfocaría mas en la parte técnica individual.

I do not know exactly what I could change, but I would focus in the technical development of each player since the United States has very strong players with great physical ability and with a great mentality, so I would really focus on the individual technical development.

Blackburn Rovers Head Coach Bobby Downes:

I cannot answer the questions in full, certainly questions 3,4 and 5 because I do not know what the US clubs do with their players. How can I if I don’t get to see their training and their games program? I can however answer question number one. We are coming to Washington because [International Amateur Sports president] Elliot Wolff convinced me the Tiffany Cup would be worth competing in. A coach and his staff get to know an awful lot about the players when they are away from home for 10 days, living in each others pockets and competing against good competition, who probably play in different styles to what we come up against on a week to week basis. Also it’s a good experience for them culturally to come to the States, particularly Washington with it’s history and status.

We are not coming to scout players. In my experience the USA is improving all the time with the standard of the players and the teams. We played in Brad Friedel’s tournament in Cleveland earlier in the season and played against 2 U.S. teams who were fit, athletic and well organized.

—-

Must American players always be labeled “fit, athletic and well organized?”

More than a year ago, Ryan O’Hanlon wrote a column for TIAS looking towards Benny Feilhaber’s fluid flair as the future of American soccer. How is that looking at the moment? Read any of the pieces in the category labeled MNT, and besides some glimmers of hope, the same arguments, the same problems that held true when TIAS launched in 2005, still clamor in my head to start each day like the routine of a rooster call. We are nearing the same point in World Cup qualifying again.

As always, there continue to be things to be hopeful about. Many coaches, players, and critics have come on TIAS to express this hope albeit in the context of the long road ahead. Almost all of them have focused that hope on youth development–how kids are trained and maybe more importantly how they are not trained–not the MNT which seems often to be seen as acceptably mediocre. I mean what do you expect?

Players like Jozy Altidore have fans getting anxious, but the purest hope is tainted by the track record of the past’s last and some say lost hope (Altidore, see Eddie Johnson). For every solid US MNT performance, there is a set back, with neither the wins or loses telling much in the placid CONCACAF waters other than the fact that very little has changed. Different faces, different jerseys, but is today’s team any better than the last World Cup? Should it be?

Is it time to look outside? In the face of what is happening with the Mexican national team, a steady state could alone be viewed as progress, maintaining at least the same level of success; but does that decry a complacency, an overriding patience that might in fact be holding back growth? We’re always looking for players with that killer do-or-die competitiveness, should we be asking the same of our system?

We’ll never know until we try something different–never know until we try, even if we fail. One thing we do know is that players and coaches don’t last forever, and new chances for change will come. And those chances should begin with the youth ranks. They have to. The fact that foreign teams want to come play here for the same reasons some American coaches take their players abroad stands out from the otherwise benign responses from the coaches above. So if the men are still years away from beating the best competition, maybe the boys can begin to build from the bottom, reaching across borders and putting down the roots which could keep any progress the men do make from blowing away. And maybe that progress will arrive from the outside coming in.

—-

banner photo found at Russiablog.org