What's Next For the USMNT?

I recently read that Mexico's youth academy system was rated one of the best in the world. I would love to send my kid to train there during the summer if it wasn't so dangerous. After all, he is taking middle school Spanish.

I understand Shea doesn't have the most technical ability and his 1st touch can be awful at times, but I think he is still of value. Shea has always shown a willingness to take people on 1v1 and has a bit of that Dempsey "Maverick" attitude about him before the USMNT and horribly disappointing spell in England clipped his wings. Shea is another kind of player like (Yedlin and F. Johnson) that can slot into that wing-back position I keep banging on about LOL!!!

Arsenal1984 wrote:I understand Shea doesn't have the most technical ability and his 1st touch can be awful at times, but I think he is still of value.  Shea has always shown a willingness to take people on 1v1 and has a bit of that Dempsey "Maverick" attitude about him before the USMNT and horribly disappointing spell in England clipped his wings.  Shea is another kind of player like (Yedlin and F. Johnson) that can slot into that wing-back position I keep banging on about LOL!!!

You forgot that he often forgets to get back on defense. He's great attacking the wings but his defense gets exploited when he gets lazy about getting back on defense. His side of the midfield is always a liability for a counterattack. (Maybe things have changed with him?)

From the matches I've seen for Orlando City (although they have been few and far between), he has held his own back there .... but then again .... that's against MLS competition. "If" put in a 5-3-2 as a wingback, he will be obligated to defend, but will always be looking to bomb forward and provide much needed width in the attach --> we just need an astute DM to slot back and cover in case the ball is lost while he is tracking back on defense (Claude Makelele style)

But that's neither here-nor-there ..... although I am patiently awaiting Sunil to hit me up on my cell phone LOL!

Yes, all our midfield needs is Claude Makelele in his prime. I'm sure Kyle Beckerman can handle the job.

Beckerman and Makelele "style" is a term I think we would both use verrrryyy loosely haha!!!

If they give Jurgen the boot and put me in .... I'm going to hire you on as my Media guy so you can give your own personal brand of sharp-wit humor to the masses

Sounds good. Looking forward to the first press conference. Will go something like Scarface quitting his job on Half Baked.

Time to say goodbye to Klinsman. We can't play soccer.

Well at least now we know what it looks like without the old guys...against a better team. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.

The problem is that the USMNT hasn't gotten any better since Klinsmann took over. He likes big and fast, but he hasn't done an adequate job of implementing a tactical strategy into the system.

Mexico beat us by playing a very nice style of play that built up from the back, went through the middle, and attacked diagonally from the outside.

Costa Rica was missing quite a few of their starters, but was still able to beat us by getting the ball into the attacking third, then building up play in numbers.

The USMNT plays the same crap soccer widely used locally in NTX. They attack by sending a ball long to a speedy forward who gets behind the opponents defense for a goal scoring opportunity.

Works great until you meet a team that actually knows how to play soccer.

We don't spend enough time teaching our youth the value of passing the ball and making runs with shape around the ball.

The problem is so endemic that no one thing is going to fix it.   Its not going to be the sons of American servicemen who grew up in Germany.   Its not going to be a new coach.   Its not going to be age pure youth soccer.   Its gonna be a long process.  Right now we couldn't beat Albania, much less a Central American country with less people than DFW.  

But yes, agree, the problem is that we have not gotten better and have likely gotten worse.   Mostly because the guys like Donovan, warts and all, were far better players than these guys.  Ah well.  Tough beats for us.

We have an endemic problem that starts at youth soccer and permeates it way all the way through to the national team player pool. Our players are technically inept.

Coaches at almost every level, most especially the young ages where skills become 2nd nature and are ingrained focus their efforts on the biggest and fastest kids they can find. That's a losing cause and those coaches are a major part of the problem with US soccer even though many would tell you they believe in playing a possession style. Until they start focusing their primary training efforts on the kids that show technical prowess early on, we will never improve because we're wasting our time training the wrong kids.

Putting your most technically skilled player on the "B" or "C" team because he's small is doing that player a disservice because he isn't seeing the level of competition he needs to continue to improve.

If your coach has more than one team and the most technically skilled, regardless of size, aren't on the "A" team, your coach is part of the problem. And technically skilled does not mean "can shoot from distance" , nor does it mean "has the ability to win 1v1 situations using speed and agility" and it certainly doesn't mean "is a great defender because he's able to knock opposing players off the ball using his size".

Watch some u7/8/9 games, if you come away thinking about how athletic the team's are, they are part of the problem, if you come away wondering how the smaller team just beat a much larger team, they are probably doing something right.

DragonStryker wrote:We have an endemic problem that starts at youth soccer and permeates it way all the way through to the national team player pool.  Our players are technically inept.

Coaches at almost every level, most especially the young ages where skills become 2nd nature and are ingrained focus their efforts on the biggest and fastest kids they can find.  That's a losing cause and those coaches are a major part of the problem with US soccer even though many would tell you they believe in playing a possession style.  Until they start focusing their primary training efforts on the kids that show technical prowess early on, we will never improve because we're wasting our time training the wrong kids.

Amen brotha! Keep getting excited about your Break Shea's, Jozy Altidore's, & Michael Bradley's and you will continue to get the same results.

The problem Klinsman has is that he can't evaluate all of the talent pool he has to work with. He has to rely on the same American coaches in the lower age groups who are telling him that these BFS players is the best they have.

US soccer is such a joke right now.

kickingitlong wrote:

DragonStryker wrote:We have an endemic problem that starts at youth soccer and permeates it way all the way through to the national team player pool.  Our players are technically inept.

Coaches at almost every level, most especially the young ages where skills become 2nd nature and are ingrained focus their efforts on the biggest and fastest kids they can find.  That's a losing cause and those coaches are a major part of the problem with US soccer even though many would tell you they believe in playing a possession style.  Until they start focusing their primary training efforts on the kids that show technical prowess early on, we will never improve because we're wasting our time training the wrong kids.

Amen brotha!  Keep getting excited about your Break Shea's, Jozy Altidore's, & Michael Bradley's and you will continue to get the same results.  

The problem Klinsman has is that he can't evaluate all of the talent pool he has to work with.  He has to rely on the same American coaches in the lower age groups who are telling him that these BFS players is the best they have.

US soccer is such a joke right now.  

Germany is 357,168 square kilometers or 137,847 square miles
That’s about 85% the size of California (423,970 square kilometers). From north to south, Germany would stretch from Los Angeles to Redding.
Comparing the sizes of Germany and California.
Texas (696,241 square kilometers) is almost 2 times larger than Germany

soccerdadrandy wrote:Germany is 357,168 square kilometers or 137,847 square miles
That’s about 85% the size of California (423,970 square kilometers). From north to south, Germany would stretch from Los Angeles to Redding.
Comparing the sizes of Germany and California.
Texas (696,241 square kilometers) is almost 2 times larger than Germany

German has a population of approximately 80mm and has 144 professional teams across their top 4 divisions.

The population of the US is approximately 350mm, we have 17 MLS teams in the US (3 in Canada).

In order to match Germany, we'd need 630 professional soccer clubs. 630, let that sink in for a second. In order to scour the country equal to what Germany is presently doing, we'd need 630 professional soccer clubs in the US.

That means professional teams in areas as small as Corsicana, TX (#609 MSA in the US) assuming we don't have multiple teams in any one MSA (unlikely as areas like DFW, NYC, LA should have multiple teams just like London does).

We are woefully behind, that's the only way to describe it.

DragonStryker wrote:

soccerdadrandy wrote:Germany is 357,168 square kilometers or 137,847 square miles
That’s about 85% the size of California (423,970 square kilometers). From north to south, Germany would stretch from Los Angeles to Redding.
Comparing the sizes of Germany and California.
Texas (696,241 square kilometers) is almost 2 times larger than Germany

German has a population of approximately 80mm and has 144 professional teams across their top 4 divisions.

The population of the US is approximately 350mm, we have 17 MLS teams in the US (3 in Canada).  

In order to match Germany, we'd need 630 professional soccer clubs.  630, let that sink in for a second.  In order to scour the country equal to what Germany is presently doing, we'd need 630 professional soccer clubs in the US.

That means professional teams in areas as small as Corsicana, TX (#609 MSA in the US) assuming we don't have multiple teams in any one MSA (unlikely as areas like DFW, NYC, LA should have multiple teams just like London does).

We are woefully behind, that's the only way to describe it.

Agree with your logic, but is that ever possible in the US? 630 teams and pro teams in Corsicana? Lumberton? Muleshoe? and Woodville? I'm not sure the US Culture and paying customers would support that many pro clubs. Add in, there is no incentive to create those pro clubs as they can't reach D1 status and entry to the MLS ( top domestic league) by way of pro/rel.

But you are right the US is so big, lots of kids are probably getting overlooked if they are from the hinterlands of Colorado City or Hico. Not sure there is a solution to that other than the parents have to bring their kids to the population and soccer centers of the world to play and get seen. ( Dempsey never gets seen if his parents don't take him out of Nacogdoches).

My possible solution is find ways to get kids overseas to clubs that are already doing the right things, training the right way and creating world class players. That may take some political work by US Soccer to engage with clubs and FIFA to change regulations on transfers of youth. Once we get a high number of kids going through foreign clubs and playing in top leagues, our National team will get better. BUt with US Soccer and MLS tied so tight together that will never happen.

But with US Soccer and MLS tied so tight together that will never happen.

Not saying it will happen; but isn't US Soccer's goal to raise the competition of the MLS?

If the talent stays home, MLS continues to grow to the point they can afford to get EPL talent younger than 38, fan support builds partly due to local boys via DA make their prospective city teams; then MLS will be better than bad thus raising USMNT's abilities to choke on the big stage.

DragonStryker, in general, I agree with your analysis, but on this forum, we often imply that BFS does not equal technical.  That is not always the case.  There are BFS players in North Texas that are also very technical.  That being said, I agree that it can be tough for those BFS players (especially at a young age) to become technically proficient based on coaches using them for their size and not focusing on the development of their technical ability, which goes to your main point.  Instead of using those players strictly for their size, clubs should be thinking long term and how beneficial it would be to have BFS players that are also technically proficient.  We all know, however, that is not going to happen until parents focus on technical development rather than winning.  Plus, under that scenario, the USMNT could have it both ways (BFS and technical).

allen04 wrote:

But with US Soccer and MLS tied so tight together that will never happen.

Not saying it will happen; but isn't US Soccer's goal to raise the competition of the MLS?  .

Is it? Not sure of their mission statement but figured it was just to make the National Team as good as it can be and the domestic league's goal was to make money for its owners.

I agree Allen04 ... I do think FCD should be commended for bringing through as many home-grown players as they do --> building fan support through local players within the community .... but then again ... is that going to yield immediate results/improvements for the National Team ... I don't think so.

I fully understand the point DragonStryker is making about the size of Germany and the correlation of population, professional teams, and continued success in Soccer .... but I just can't see the paying US public making this financially sustainable in any way. Soccer has grown immensely in popularity since the early 90's, but I feel it still ranks behind Football, Baseball, and Basketball in terms of "importance" in the US Sporting Culture --> just watch any episode of Sportscenter when the anchors stumble through a soccer "highlight" .... you can tell they don't give-a-s* and their Producers are forcing them to show this highlight to the niche crowd that might care.

I think a massive worthy note of mention is how Giovinco started the other day for the Italians. A guy who left Juve to rediscover form, plays well for TFC, and is invited back into the National Team Pool. It's the whole Chicken vs. Egg thought process ..... do we keep our best players here in MLS and "hopefully" make the league better over time + these US players more marketable ..... or ..... do we neglect MLS and send our players overseas to hopefully "make it" and deprive the MLS + American public of seeing their superstars on a more regular occurrence in person? I do not think it's remotely possibly to have maximize the current potential of our National Team by having the USMNT players all in MLS .... just my opinion though

It could always be worse .... checkout Argentina's struggles without Messi (even with their All-Star line-up) and an aging Dutch team who just bowed out in the EURO Qualifiers --> these guys just took 3rd place in WC2014 last Summer!!!

DragonStryker wrote:We have an endemic problem that starts at youth soccer and permeates it way all the way through to the national team player pool.  Our players are technically inept.

Coaches at almost every level, most especially the young ages where skills become 2nd nature and are ingrained focus their efforts on the biggest and fastest kids they can find.  That's a losing cause and those coaches are a major part of the problem with US soccer even though many would tell you they believe in playing a possession style.  Until they start focusing their primary training efforts on the kids that show technical prowess early on, we will never improve because we're wasting our time training the wrong kids.

Putting your most technically skilled player on the "B" or "C" team because he's small is doing that player a disservice because he isn't seeing the level of competition he needs to continue to improve.

If your coach has more than one team and the most technically skilled, regardless of size, aren't on the "A" team, your coach is part of the problem.  And technically skilled does not mean "can shoot from distance" , nor does it mean "has the ability to win 1v1 situations using speed and agility" and it certainly doesn't mean "is a great defender because he's able to knock opposing players off the ball using his size".  

The more technically skilled kids don't end of on the "B" or "C" team.   They are on the "A" team.....its just the success/failure hinges on the bigger faster kids.   No matter how you coach.   Which I guess gets back to what everyone bitches about, if its about success/failure...that is what you are going to get.  

In terms of coaching "possession".   At U13 BB's team has played most of the CL teams.   We do nothing but practice possession.   If you roll the ball to the GK on all 30 of those teams, you know how many of them are going to try to play out of the back?    One.   Out of 30.    Everybody else, including BBs team, is gonna have the GK hoof the ball up the field where it is fought over and won by the tallest kid.    Cause playing out of the back is a good way to lose soccer games.  Maybe that 1 of 30 is wrong, but I can only think of one.  

I don't think we would develop technically proficient kids even if it is was a focus.   We would be trying to create them in vacuum.   Non-technically proficient coaches, trying to create technically proficient kids who have zero role models.   You're only going to get bootstrapped up to the level of the expertise around you, both coaches and players.    We are caught, chicken/egg.   We aren't technically proficient, so we go with the Harry Redknapp "go f-cking run around" theory of coaching as it gives us a better shot, which means we never get technically proficient.   Its a long long gradual process.  

The MLS thing seems the same.  Its not a good enough league, so we send the better players away, thus making it more difficult to become a good enough league.    You need a strong, well-supported, domestic league.   I think.   Y'know, like Albania has...

Apologies, rambling at this point..

Uncleof05AP wrote:DragonStryker, in general, I agree with your analysis, but on this forum, we often imply that BFS does not equal technical.  That is not always the case.  There are BFS players in North Texas that are also very technical.  That being said, I agree that it can be tough for those BFS players (especially at a young age) to become technically proficient based on coaches using them for their size and not focusing on the development of their technical ability, which goes to your main point.  Instead of using those players strictly for their size, clubs should be thinking long term and how beneficial it would be to have BFS players that are also technically proficient.  We all know, however, that is not going to happen until parents focus on technical development rather than winning.  Plus, under that scenario, the USMNT could have it both ways (BFS and technical).

Completely agree but focusing your training on kids because they are simply big is a colossal waste of time. The thought process is, I'll take the big kids and teach them skill. That simply doesn't work. Take the kids that show an aptitude for the game and train them, big difference. And yes, the parents of big kids will be upset by this because most of them confuse size with skill. I see it every week at practice and every weekend at games.

Training priority should be focused on those with skill, be they big, small, thick or thin, black, white, green, or red. Size isn't a determining factor in who gets priority training, skill is. Until we make that key adjustment, we'll keep getting more of the same, which isn't competitive at the international level as we keep seeing.

We've tried to teach the pure BFS kids how to play the game, and we keep getting beat by countries that focus on skill not exclusively on finding the biggest, fastest, strongest kids to try to teach technical skills to.

"Cause playing out of the back is a good way to lose soccer games" ..... very true at the CL and PPL level .... the (BFS) Pitbull's up top will eventually capitalize on the slightest mis-touch/mistake .... a 1-0 domination of 80% possession can quickly spiral into a 2-1 loss smash-and-grab by playing out of the back at the Youth Level (U16 and under)

Is it "Winning or True Development" - it's often extremely difficult to have both. A team could have #1 ranked possession and aesthetically pleasing style of play .... but you ranking in the table could be 5th, 6th, or 7th due to shipping too many goals by trying to properly play out of the back where mistakes are magnified so close to the goal ...... then players/parents decide to exodus to the "Winning" teams in 1st or 2nd (abandoning the development model in terms of "winning = development"???)

It's a vicious cycle all the way around .... Top paid $$$ Club coaches need to produce results almost instantaneously to appease the client/parent ... a Strong Winning Record is easier to measure compared to Skill Development for long-term success

Completely agree but focusing your training on kids because they are simply big is a colossal waste of time.  The thought process is, I'll take the big kids and teach them skill.  That simply doesn't work.  Take the kids that show an aptitude for the game and train them, big difference.  And yes, the parents of big kids will be upset by this because most of them confuse size with skill.  I see it every week at practice and every weekend at games.

...... totally agree here! Checkout the (NFL Rosters) .... you would think they would all be littered with Top D1 Programs (Alabama, LSU, Texas, USC, Michigan, Oregon, etc....) .... but it's a good healthy 50/50 mix of Top Programs with no-namers

Why??? Far too often to get from High School to College .... Colleges only look at the physical specimen (BFS Theory) --> I can take this potential beast and "turn him into" a quality Football Player ... ignoring similar sized, skilled guys who show great aptitude for the game of football ....

The same thing has happened at the Youth Level here .... take the specimen and try and teach them the game

Agree and Disagree. You can teach possession soccer, be concerned about the style of soccer you play and win games. On the local level, you have ODY who although they may hoof it on punts when the goalie has it, they try to play short passes, keep the ball and keep the ball moving. They are also a top team in D1. Castro's 03 team was a top team in D1 that also liked to keep the ball and pass. On the 04 front, the SR 04 team plays out of the back and rarely if ever hoofs the ball, even when under immense pressure from the other team. They are also a top team in the 04 league. Back in the day, DTS 02 was a top team in the 02 world and they moved the ball around, passed and didn't hoof and chase.

Not all winning teams are long ball city and you can be a good team and play smart, possession soccer at the youth level and win. It just takes a committed coach, players and parents willing to see some silly goals go in from time to time.

I used to play for Coach O and I did get to catch a SR04 game last season against Fever United .... a 2-0 win

My wife is from Brazil (no Number 13, I'm not sharing any photos LOL!) and she said that she has never seen anything like the way those 10/11 years old played .... although she grew up in Natal (not Rio or Sao Paulo).

I was absolutely astonished on how SR04 moved the ball and worked to break down a team - instead of hoofing up to their horses up front. Fever United did not park the bus .... they were just pinned in from the opening whistle (well done to the Fever kids for hanging in there against 90% possession). If the SR04 was match up against a U14 or U15 PPL team (and they were not intimated by their physical play), I think they would wipe the floor against most of them with their style of play.