How can a country with a population lower than my little corner of New Jersey produce a soccer team that made it to the quarterfinals of the 2016 Euro and qualified for the World Cup? What’s their secret, and why are we so pathetic? It is less than 1% the size of the USA. And while our best male athletes tend to flock to other sports, Google tells me that 3 million kids play soccer in the US. Iceland’s entire population is only 326,000.
I guess that if we were to analyze the overall data of both countries, we’d discover that the US is doing okay for it’s size and average interest in the sport, and Iceland is doing okay for it’s size and interest in the sport… with the occasional statistical blip, like this WC.
Yes, but most of those kids are playing soccer when they’re in grade school, while relatively few are continuing to play it once they reach high school.
This article from the National Federation of State High School Associations shows participation, by both boys and girls, in various high school sports, for the 2016-17 school year.
For boys, here’s the top five, by number of participation:
- Football 1,057,407
- Track and Field 600,136
- Basketball 550,305
- Baseball 491,790
- Soccer 450,234
It states that 4,563,238 boys played a high school sport last year, which means that just under 10% of male high school athletes are playing soccer. I suspect that a lot of high school athletes who could have been talented soccer players are, in fact, playing something else, instead. Thus, the supply of US players at the adult level isn’t as big as you might expect for a country of our size.
And, in the case of Iceland, don’t discount the “statistical blip” that Go_Arachnid_Laser mentions. If they keep punching above their weight class in international competition, then they clearly have something extraordinary going on.
I noticed with my 2 sons there were kids who played soccer at age 6 but then moved to other sports after a few years.
A number of years ago, Iceland set up a system to develop local soccer talent. I think that just about every coach at the youth level and above are FIFA certified coaches (I’m really not sure what that entails). Basically, they are teaching the kids at an early age to play soccer correctly and drill them on the fundamentals of soccer. Also I think that all kids are basically learning the same set of fundamentals. That effort has paid off with a number of excellent players, and a team capable of making the World Cup.
Compare that to US, where most youth coaches are somebody’s mom or dad who may or may not have much background in soccer. There are probably as many coaching philosophies as there are youth leagues. From what I can tell, the majority of youth leagues are not taught any fundamentals of ball control. It is just a hodge-podge approach to youth soccer. It also seems like the majority of the youth soccer efforts in the country are focused on suburban kids in predominately white areas, mostly ignoring minority youths, the inner city, or the Hispanic communities.
That is from a casual observer of soccer.
Iceland overperformed, the US underperformed, and stats about how many US kids play soccer are misleading because most kids play without instruction from people who have themselves played. If you only included competitive club teams the participation levels would probably be an order of magnitude lower.
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The lack of ball control fundamentals shadows American players throughout their playing lives. The USA Men’s National Team has poor trapping and passing technique compared even to small Central American, African, and European national teams.
Some of those players didn’t play youth soccer in the USA, though. Maybe those guys just weren’t that good to begin with (compared to other youth in whatever country they grew up in) and that’s why they decided to play* for the USA instead of a Germany or Czech Republic.
*How a player can “choose” which national team he plays for is a convoluted matter that I won’t get into here.
First let remember Soccer Giants Italy and Netherlands won’t make the World Cup, either. Most World Cups have a team or two that have been disgraced for their lack of qualification and sadly that includes the United States in 2018.
As for Iceland they did well to advance to the eliminations in Euro2016 and while a small country have invested in the training and infrastructure to create a World Cup team.
Imagine if Wyoming was an independent country who eschewed football and basketball and placed those resources into soccer. Surely in about 15-20 years they would have developed a squad that would qualify for a spot in the WC.
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Thanks for all the comments, and I think they all tell the story. What that tells me is that US Soccer is completely mismanaged. It has been their stated goal to elevate the country’s international soccer resume. There is so much potential, especially with the many immigrants from South and Central America. I often go running at the track at my local park and there are hordes of random kids playing soccer all day long. Brazilians, Portuguese and just about every Spanish speaking country. And this is just one little park.