04-05-2005 06:16									#151
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quote: Originally posted by DanS There are lots of ways for the US to make a splash in international soccer. In the end, what works for the US might look different than what works in other countries. The US might have a slightly older team playing than others.

It doesn't work that way. It's well known that kids are most receptible to learning new things when they're young. If you have to teach elementary things like handling the ball, tackling, marking, or team tactics to nineteen-year-olds, they will only pick up a fraction of what nine-year-olds would pick up. Someone can be the most talented player in the world, but without the right education at the right time, they'll never make the most of that talent.

So you wouldn't get a older teams, you would get less capable teams (even if the talent is there).

quote: That said, as Imran pointed out, we now have a national academy to cherry pick and train the biggest talents. The system will probably evolve to be multi-pronged like our other sports.

Like Imran said, that doesn't begin to compare. For one thing the numbers: how many kids attend that academy? A few hundred on a population of 300 million? I'd guestimate that the Dutch youth academies accomodate about 20,000 youth, on a population of 16 million. And of course the US lacks the extensive tiered network of amateur teams to sifts out talent, which is at least as important. These academies don't usually draft their kids from playgrounds or school competitions, they rely on that same network to pre-select the most talented players, and recruit from the highest level youth competitions.

quote: For example, some people go to junior highs and high schools known for their basketball. Some don't. Some go to college and play ball. Some are drafted into the NBA right out of high school. Some are drafted in the middle of college. Some are drafted after graduation. Talent and skill level are evaluated at all places.

As I more or less said already, if you recruit players for a high-quality education after their 10-12th birthday you're already too late, you missed a key phase in their development. You can still pick them up and they may still do fine, but they'll never live up to their full potential. Drafting players from junior high or later is just too damn late. For basketball, but especially for football where the rest of the world already recruits earlier. As long as the US doesn't follow suit, they'll never have a chance of catching up...

	04-05-2005 06:24									#152
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There's a lot of ways to teach kids at that stage outside of an academy. You're being way too narrowminded about this. Your system works for the Netherlands. It has a lot of tradition. That's cool.

	04-05-2005 06:27									#153
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no i agree with locutus. as someone who went through the system, or lack of, there is no support whatesoever. there is no one scouting, looking for good young players, no way to progress, no harvesting of talent, until college, which is way too late.

	04-05-2005 06:28									#154
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I never said what we have now is a proper way of going about it.

	04-05-2005 06:29									#155
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and the only system that would work is what they have in europe. lots of academies, which team both soccer and academics.

	04-05-2005 06:31									#156
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Again, that's incredibly narrow-minded. It works for them.

	04-05-2005 06:34									#157
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again, thats the only way to do it.

	04-05-2005 06:35									#158
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It's not a matter of academies or no academies, other systems could be perfectly viable as well. But if talented players don't start getting high-quality education before ~junior high (but the sooner the better), they'll never be able to catch up with equally talented players that do get that kind of education.

	04-05-2005 06:39									#159
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quote: It's not a matter of academies or no academies, other systems could be perfectly viable as well.

OK, then we agree.

I have no problem with agreeing that an early proper education is of great importance. On the other hand, it seems more likely that in the US, you would have to raise the education level for all soccer players in that age group in order to teach the talented people well. That would be a much more ambitious project than a couple dozen academies, I admit.

	04-05-2005 06:44									#160
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Well, if you also agree that currently the US is utterly lacking any kind of remotely functional system and that only recruiting players in college or high school is inherently flawed...

Edit: you DanS'ed me, I guess we do agree then

	04-05-2005 06:46									#161
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In actuality, players are recruited multiple times in the US (junior high, high school, college, pro draft) whereas they might only be recruited once in Europe. I see no problem with adding another level of recruitment at pee-wee level.

But in the end, we will likely have older soccer players than what is normal, even if you get to them young, because they end up passing through most of those steps and will be set on the path to graduate college, not on the path to graduate high school at 14 like Freddy Adu.

Last edited by DanS on 04-05-2005 at 07:06

	04-05-2005 07:05									#162
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quote: Originally posted by DanS In actuality, players are recruited multiple times in the US (junior high, high school, college, pro draft) whereas they might only be recruited once in Europe. I see no problem with adding another level of recruitment at pee-wee level.

They are only being recruited into a 3-4 year window in junior high, high school, college, by recruiters/coaches who, in a lot of cases, are just the guy in the area that likes soccer. They don't have official training in it as those from clubs do.

There is a reason that the academy model has swept the world on how to get soccer players. You allow trained, professional recruiters to pick up players and train them in dedicated facilities where they learn and play soccer.

The high school, college system doesn't work well in training because the people aren't trained in proper coaching and development. What you need is mass recruitment into club led or UNMNT led programs.

Look at what has happened with Adu. His talent was recognized and he quickly was pulled out of school (and is now home schooled), while he focused on soccer training. Having Adu go through the high school and then college path before getting to the MLS would have wasted his immense talent. But even so... a key stage of development was missed, as Locutus put it.

	04-05-2005 07:12									#163
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In the US, you would have to do it differently. Very few people are going to go to an academy, no matter how successful that model is for the Europeans and others. Well, you may be able to fill up a half dozen academies or whatever.

Perhaps it would make more sense in the US to send well trained and reasonably-paid coaches out to coach in the communities.

	04-05-2005 07:14									#164
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quote: Originally posted by DanS In the US, you would have to do it differently. Very few people are going to go to an academy, no matter how successful that model is for the Europeans and others.

Which is a reason why the US will not be dominating. In Brazil they get kids when they are insanely young! Even younger than they do in Europe. That's why Brazil's players are so skilled. They were able to learn what it takes when they were at an age where the teaching would sink in the best.

In order to dominate, you have to go the extra mile. It's ok that we won't, but that means we won't dominate in soccer. That simple.

	04-05-2005 07:18									#165
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quote: Originally posted by DanS In actuality, players are recruited multiple times in the US (junior high, high school, college, pro draft) whereas they might only be recruited once in Europe. I see no problem with adding another level of recruitment at pee-wee level.

No, players can be recruited at any point in their career in Europe.

Like I said, players are usually not recruited from playgrounds or school teams (where talents are only held back by a lack of real competition), but mostly join the elaborate tiered system of amateur clubs at the age of 4-6, where they're put in teams (and competitions) of players with the same age and level of skill. The youth academies will recruits from the best of these youth teams, usually when players are between 8-14 years old. The remaining players stay with their amateur teams and eventually get promoted to the 'adult' teams.

They can then still be picked up by pro clubs at any point, but if they're older than 15, they'll usually skip the academy and join the youth teams of the pro teams directly. If they're older than 17 and have enough talent, they'll soon advance to the highest regions of the 'adult' amateur league, which is also scouted extensively. Players recruited from there directly join the first or second team of a pro club, they skip the youth department altogether. It's entirely possible for players to only be picked up when they're 28 or so (especially at the bottom of the pro league this is not uncommon), but normally if they have talent, they should already have been noticed by scouts long before that.

Also, if anyone ever 'drops out' of an academy, they flow right back into the amateur leagues, where they if prove themselves they have a chance to be picked up a second time, either by an academy or directly by a club.

	04-05-2005 07:22									#166
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui Which is a reason why the US will not be dominating. In Brazil they get kids when they are insanely young! Even younger than they do in Europe. That's why Brazil's players are so skilled. They were able to learn what it takes when they were at an age where the teaching would sink in the best. In order to dominate, you have to go the extra mile. It's ok that we won't, but that means we won't dominate in soccer. That simple.

What he said...

	04-05-2005 07:27									#167
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Don't agree with him! He was arguing why he thought academies are the only possible way to do it -- a concept you expressly disavowed only a couple of posts ago!

	04-05-2005 07:30									#168
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quote: Originally posted by DanS Don't agree with him! He was arguing why he thought academies are the only way to do it, which you expressly disavowed only a couple of posts ago!

Locutus said you could do it without acadamies if you could find somewhere else to get players that young into dedicated training programs.... I think the only way is the acadamy system and I'm sure Locutus thinks that's the best way, especially with no other feasible alternatives advanced.

	04-05-2005 07:49									#169
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quote: Originally posted by lightblue The top players at international tournaments will ahve European Champion's League experience, which is of a higher quality typically than international football. If you throw people from the MLS (or English 2nd divsion like say Northern Ireland) into that, you'll get beaten.

I've wondered how much of a problem for the rest of the world it may be that only Euro teams have access to the best competitions.

Champions League, European Cup, etc...

	04-05-2005 07:52									#170
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quote: Originally posted by DanS Don't agree with him! He was arguing why he thought academies are the only possible way to do it -- a concept you expressly disavowed only a couple of posts ago!

I said academies are not by definition the only workable system, but so far a better system has not been invented yet AFAIK...

But more importantly than the academies are the recruiting tools available to these academies (or whoever would do the educating): an elaborate tiered amateur system as I described above is such an important tool to filter out the talents. The same applies here: such a system is not by definition the only workable model, but a better one has yet to materialise (though of course the system needs to work differently in different countries: a nation-wide football league for six-year-olds wouldn't really work for a country as big as the US, you can hardly have toddlers travel from LA to NY to Miami on a weekly basis )

	04-05-2005 07:56									#171
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Of course... regional leagues would have to be created. And perhaps have a sort of playoff between the regional leagues, like is set up for little league baseball (the kids would be younger, of course).

	05-05-2005 00:06									#172
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All this speculation, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And I wouldn't eat the US pudding.

	05-05-2005 02:13									#173
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Well things have improved since the last world cup for the american players. More of them are playing in europe etc, which is great for their skills and growing knowledge of the sport. I think if the US can keep getting its players into this position, then they will in turn(i hope) be able to help at home with the next crop of young players and so on.
If the money available and interest grows at home then why not an American World Cup winning squad in years to come?
Its possible.

And end game 'multi-ball' to resolve 0-0 scorelines seems a good idea, progresive

	05-05-2005 16:01									#174
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious A lot of Americans play soccer as kids, but most high school teams are full of latin players, and the white and black kids just play the other sports.

This isn't universally true around the country. My soccer team in high school was one of the best in Michigan, and we only had one hispanic kid and one black kid. A lot of the best teams back then were all white private school teams.

	05-05-2005 16:07									#175
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui In our lifetimes? I can't.

You need a sense of scale young one. When I was born the Berlin Wall had not yet been erected, and no American had yet orbited the earth. The Wall went up, stayed up for a long time and then the Wall, Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union all came tumbling down. Most days there is an American orbiting the earth in the space station, and not only don't we stop classes in school to show launches, we don't even televise them at all. I'm only 44. A lot can happen in a lifetime.

	05-05-2005 16:08									#176
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quote: Originally posted by Dauphin All this speculation, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And I wouldn't eat the US pudding.

You'll eat it and like it!

	05-05-2005 16:39									#177
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Can I have mine plain please, or do we all get compulsory full-fat cream?

	05-05-2005 17:03									#178
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quote: Originally posted by duke o' york Can I have mine plain please, or do we all get compulsory full-fat cream?

We save the full-fat for the lard-assed baseball fans.

	05-05-2005 19:23									#179
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quote: Originally posted by Sikander This isn't universally true around the country. My soccer team in high school was one of the best in Michigan, and we only had one hispanic kid and one black kid. A lot of the best teams back then were all white private school teams.

To be fair, those were probably the only schools with soccer teams, because they spent the money for the additional fields. In the late 80s, in my home county near Columbus and where about 100,000 live, there were only two high school teams: the city team (very large school) and the parochial catholic school (very small school). That left 10 or so public school systems without a soccer team.

Nowadays, the vast majority of school systems in my home county do have a team. Most towns of let's say 10,000 people or more also have a youth league. There are only a couple dozen hispanics in the whole county and even fewer blacks.

For a sense of context, in the 50s in my home county, most schools did not field 11 man football teams, but rather did 7 man football teams, if they had a team. This is in corn-fed Buckeye country, remember! By the 70s, everybody had an 11 man team and fairly deep rosters. So overall I agree with you that these things progress, and sometimes rapidly, as in my home county. I also agree that Imran lacks a sense of scale. Participation in soccer has skyrocketed in the last two decades where I'm from (at least 5x or 10x), and the full huge impact of that change is not yet being felt at the pro and national level.

How could you not be rather sanguine for the upper levels in this country under these circumstances? It might be crap soccer now, but that can be sorted, as long as people are playing.

	06-05-2005 07:38									#180
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I'm getting the impression that (competitive) sports in the US are (almost) exclusively practiced at school. This is completely different from how it works in Europe. There are no school sports teams. Instead you have amateur sports clubs.

Because of this difference, I don't think sports academies can work in the US. Having sports academies would basically kill off the college sports (as you know them).

Regarding the original topic. I hardly know anything about American soccer. The only things I can say are that women's soccer seems to be more popular and is doing much better than men's soccer. And secondly, you've got all these weird team names and practices, like in American football.