US Soccer has come a long way since my youth days back in the 90’s. During that era, we had just qualified for our first World Cup in over 50 years in 1990, hosted our first ever World Cup in 1994, and saw the emergence of our first top level professional league (MLS) in 1996.
As a youth soccer player in the early part of that decade, playing Division 1 NCAA soccer was the ultimate capstone to a successful youth soccer career. Playing professionally in Europe was a pipedream for all but a small handful of players in the US. The top leagues in the US were closer to a semi-professional standard. Qualifying for the World Cup was far from guaranteed.
Where we are today
Fast forward 30 years, and the landscape is unrecognizable. We have 30 teams in a top-tier (as recognized by FIFA) professional league, featuring arguably the greatest player of our generation who won the FIFA player of the year while playing in the US. These teams have academies and a clear pathway to professional soccer for their youth players. We have dozens of players in the top leagues in Europe. We expect our men’s national team to qualify for the World Cup.
But we have yet to produce a truly world class player. We’ve produced some very good players, but none that you could qualify as undeniably world class.
Sure, it’s been a gradual process to get soccer in the US to where it is today, but you’d still expect at least one player to emerge as world class, solely based on the sheer number of people who play the sport here. Plenty of other countries with a less heralded history in the game have done so (Egypt – Salah, Liberia – Weah, Morocco – Hakimi, South Korea – Son, Georgia – Kvaratskhelia, Canada – Alfonso Davies, Costa Rica – Keylor Navas).
So why hasn’t the US produced a world class men’s soccer player yet? Let’s dive in.
Definition of World Class
We must first define the term world class. This means you are definitely one of the best 2-3 players in your position in the world at any given moment, and the argument could be made that you are the best in your position. Or you are on or close to the same level as the best player in the world at your position. You should maintain this level for a few years, as one great season is not enough to earn this distinction.
By this definition, it is not easy to reach this level. For instance, it was probably a stretch to add Hakimi as a world class right back, but I think he just gets it. Salah is more obvious. Someone like Neuer was definitely world class in his peak, but has probably slipped from that mantle last season. Lamine Yamal has had one (very) good season so is not quite there, but I imagine by the middle of this season it will be hard to leave him off any world class list.
By this definition, you can’t really argue anyone in the history the US men’s program as a world class player.
Who has come the closest
We’ve had some very good players, namely goalkeepers. There was a period where Brad Friedel and Kasey Keller were probably in the top 5-10 goalkeepers in the World. Tim Howard seemed to be on that trajectory early in his Manchester United career, settling for being a very solid Premier League goalkeeper for a very long time for Everton. But none of these were quite world class. You wouldn’t consider them on the same level as their contemporaries who were the best in their position at the time (Schmeichel, Kahn, Buffon, Casillas, and Neuer).
As for field players, Clint Dempsey was an amazing player for a long time in the Premier League, an impressive achievement itself, but not one of the best attacking midfielders in the world at any point in his career.
Landon Donovan is probably our best national team player of all time, and early in his career he was the most likely to become world class. But his decision to not test himself in Europe during his peak years disqualifies him from that discussion. You have to prove it week in and week out at the top level. Claudio Reyna was an early trailblazer in Europe but not quite a world class center midfielder (as much as I enjoyed watching him play).
Which current US players have the potential to become World Class
As for the current crop of players, Christian Pulisic is clearly the closest we have to a world class player. But he’s not at that level. Will he get there? Maybe. If he keeps improving over the next few years, there’s no reason he can’t get to that level. We just don’t know if he’s hit his ceiling yet or if there is more to come.
Antonee Robinson is an interesting case. No one is arguing he’s a world class left back. But he has been one of the better left backs in arguably the best (if not the most competitive) league in the world. Could he become one of the best 2-3 left backs in the world? He’d need a move to a bigger club to prove it in the Champions League. It’s possible but not likely at his age.
A couple years ago we all thought Gio Reyna had a chance at potentially reaching this level. His club career has stalled, and with it his prospects of likely becoming a world class attacking midfielder. Could it happen? Maybe, he has the talent. But he needs to win a consistent starting job at the club level before we can even start to entertain these types of discussions.
Otherwise there aren’t many players in our pool who have taken a big leap recently where you think “this guy could become world class.” Sure we have lots of guys with potential, but they all need a big leap in the next year or two.
Why haven’t we produced this level of player?
Getting to the point of this article, why haven’t we produced a world class men’s soccer player? I think our development system is still a work in progress, but even with a lesser development system, you’d think with the amount of players we have playing soccer in this country, the odds are we’d produce at least one world class player in the last 30 years. Unfortunately, it mostly comes down to our soccer culture.
Culture
We discuss the soccer culture at length here. The pay to play, overly “coached” players don’t develop a strong natural feel for the game at an early age. We overemphasize winning at a young age (for various reasons you can read here), which overvalues athleticism and measurable traits vs. technical ability and creativity.
Every world class player is very good technically. Our system does not prioritize these traits at a young age, which means we don’t promote the best technical players, instead prioritizing better athletes. This results in the technical players not always getting the best development opportunities (academy teams, youth national teams, etc…).
Our soccer culture still has a lot of the remnants of the “soccer mom” phenomenon from the 90s. Soccer was seen as another activity for the kids, and it was confined to organized practices (editor’s note: the actual mothers are great, I’m referring to the culture here).
The US has no culture of pick up play or playing on your own at home, where you really learn to hone your instincts with the ball by pure trial and error. This piece plays an integral role in the development of players all over the world except the US (i.e. youth futsal in Brazil), and I believe it is the biggest contributor to our lack of world class players. In fact, we have a strong pickup basketball culture, which I believe also contributes to our continued success in that sport.
Kids learn best in these unstructured environments. We produce players who can follow directions and play a role very well, but you need that extra spark that only comes from figuring things out for yourself with a ball and some friends (or even a wall) at a young age.
In fact, our best players like Dempsey and Donovan both mention a strong local pickup culture and individual experimentation with the ball as big contributors to their success. Imagine if our entire talent pool was exposed to this type of environment AND had the professional development present in other countries to hone these raw abilities.
MLS academies are still in the early stages
The MLS academies have started churning out great prospects. These setups are still in their early stages of development, and the investments are just starting to pay off. As money flows back into the league and these individual teams from their youth programs, we’ll see a greater emphasis on long-term development from MLS.
While 30 MLS teams is a lot for a top division in any country, it still misses a large geographical area of the US. I’m confident the economic incentives of player development will create a better identification and development system long-term, but it will take time before these academies are churning out world class talent on a regular basis.
With the sheer number of players in this country, and an improving development system that mimics the success of the European and South American systems in place, I believe we’ll eventually see some world class talent emerge from the MLS.
Do we need a World Class player to compete at the next World Cup?
It obviously depends on your definition of compete. If you mean squeaking into the quarterfinals on the back of a couple of upsets, then we probably don’t need a world class player. If you mean giving our fanbase hope that we have some realistic chance, however small, to win the World Cup, then yes, we’ll likely need at least one world class player.
The only team I can remember to win a major tournament without world class players is Greece taking the European Championship in 2004. Every other winning team had at least one world class player, and oftentimes 3-4 of them (plus a few guys on the fringes of this category).
Hope
The US soccer fan base just wants hope that we can make a run in the World Cup on home soil. To do so, it would help if Pulisic or Reyna or any of our other players could have a huge breakout season this year. It would have to be this year, because to establish yourself at that level, you need more than just one good season.
At best, I can see one or two of our players getting in that category just below world class, but breaking through will take something special. Realistically I don’t see that happening. Hopefully one of these guys can prove me wrong.
