Sounds like my sons’ elem school. While it is slightly disheartening that they all aren’t in to the USMNT, I find it very promising that so many of them play soccer, that so many watch it and know something about it. I see way more soccer jerseys (both pro and club/local) than any other sports clothing. Soccer is so popular at the school (a public elem) that the PTO paid to have a smallish artificial turf field installed next to the playground, complete with goals, lines, everything. They all play every day at recess and after school during the after school program.
I don’t think it’s just your students. Americans pay attention when the really big stuff rolls around–the Olympics, the World Cup, things like that. The general public doesn’t pay much attention during qualifiers or non-Olympic competitions like IAAF Worlds or the like. I’m a very casual soccer viewer and I still can’t quite figure out how (using Europe as an example) the top pro leagues, the Champions League, the lower leagues and lower championships, and the national teams all interact. Movement and standings and seasons within a single league like all the major American sports is just so much easier to keep track of. And it’s okay that we can ignore the rest of the world, except for sometimes Canada.
I hate conspiracy theories but both Mexico and CR losing? :rolleyes:
Pay to play infects every part of the system. It costs far more to get a coaching license in this country than others. And great talent gets left by the wayside due to having to pay out of their own pocket (Clint Dempsey was almost left by the wayside because his family didn’t have money - his teammates parents chipped in to help him develop). USSF should be subsidizing this stuff. They have massive reserves of money right now. They need to use it to improve coaching and making sure that talent doesn’t also need money in hand to succeed.
Nah, this guy was adamant that youth soccer players aren’t allowed to play “boom ball.” I never even heard that term before. By his account, they only count goals that are scored within a certain distance.
It was an interesting take for me, having grown up playing basketball and with a high school coach who thought the 3 point shot was an abomination. Look at the game now, that’s all it is. Made me wonder if youth soccer coaches, or even high school soccer coaches, don’t coach the game the way it’s played at the top levels.
That guy didn’t know what he was talking about. Youth soccer is rampant with playing long balls over the top and bypassing any sort of buildup play.
Most youth soccer coaches in the US have never played soccer before, and have probably never watched a full match of one of the Top 4 leagues.
If you restrict it to just coaches that work for competitive teams, then still no, they don’t coach the way it’s played at the top. They tend to emphasize athletics over skill. It’s a cheap and easy way to win youth games, but doesn’t translate to anything more. The teams that are ostensibly training future players for pro squads will train that way, but there are only a handful in the entire country that are worth a damn, and they only have teams for kids once they’re teenagers. At that point we’re often quite behind the rest of the world in tactical mindset and technical skill.
Are you joking? If you’re suggesting that either team tanked in their final match to help Honduras or Panama over the US, I don’t think you understand how seriously Latin Americans take their futbol. And in any case it’s a ridiculous suggestion, because if they US had even tied its match they would have tanked for nothing.
Interestingly, both Mexico and Costa Rica were winning when the USA went down 2-0. I hate conspiracy theories but Latinos love to chingar the Yankees.
Come on Mexico, we beat Panama for you 4 years ago, you couldn’t do us a favor?
This. Plenty of sports talent comes in the impoverished-background, need-a-lucky-break-to-get-noticed type.
Team USA ignores all these diamonds in the rough at its own peril.
I think a lot of people forget that four years ago Mexico was in a similar position to the US going into the final game. The only way that Mexico could be eliminated is if they lost (at Costa Rica) and Panama won (home against the US). Like the US last night, Mexico four years ago played a horrible match and lost to Costa Rica (which is actually a good team, but had nothing to play for). If not for the US tying and then beating Panama very late, Mexico would have been done four years ago. Mexico recovered quite nicely, and had a reasonably good run in the World Cup.
I’m somewhat confident that the US will recover, but serious changes are needed all over the sport in the US.
This is starting to happen to my daughter’s age group. She’s 9 and the last team she was on folded. She tried out for a new team, but the other 5-6 girls that wanted to keep playing couldn’t because they didn’t make it on the new team. Sucks that a lot of kids will not have the chance to play, even just for fun.
I was just watching something on the news about the travel teams. Some of these parents pay $15,000 a year for their kids to play on them. A number of them said it’s worth the cost in the end as they’ll get in to a good school. How about they put that money in to a college account and pay for it that way. Not every kid will make it on to a college team.
Not enough to deliberately lose a futbol game. That would be one step away from treason. (Some years ago a Colombian player was murdered when the team lost after he scored n own goal.)
(And yes, you seem to like conspiracy theories very much if you even consider something so absurd.)
The Colombian player was playing in a game where the outcome mattered very much to Colombia.
Mexico and Costa Rica didn’t stand to lose anything from losing last night’s games. Mexican and Costa Rican fans would have been much more accommodating of such a loss.
National pride.
You know this how?
No one probably would have been killed, but again, if you think that either Mexico or Costa Rica would have tanked for any reason you don’t know anything about how seriously Latin Americans take the game.
The lower level licenses are very cheap. I have a national D with 0 dollars out of pocket.
Sure it does. But what is the (practical) alternative? If you want top notch training, coaching and competition, you need to pay for it here. Who should pay for it? I don’t see an alternative to pay to play for the majority of the nation.
I don’t know where you’re at, but top clubs I’m familiar with don’t charge more than $800 per year. Pleas point me to a youth club that charges $15000 per year.
Is there no more ODP? That was where all the best players bragged about training at (or whatever, I don’t know how it worked) when I was in school.
Also, I suspect that we’re going to start getting more youth coaches that at least played in high school or a small college, since those that were part of the original youth boom back twenty of so years ago are now old enough to start coaching.
Besides which, if we’re going to get all conspiracy-minded, we really should point out that the Panama game would have ended in a tie, if not for a phantom goal that was awarded when the ball never made it over the line. Thus, CONCACAF as a whole (or, at least, the referees who officiated the Panama v Costa Rica match) was in on the conspiracy. 
The $15,000 doesn’t just include the fees. It also includes travel costs, hotels, etc. There are a lot of costs to traveling teams that go beyond the simple fees charged to be on the team.
Pay-to-play is a staple of almost all American youth sports. Travel baseball, travel football, travel basketball. Some of the most ardent travel team parents are the volleyball parents; I knew one mom (divorced) in Colorado in the late-90s who spent upwards of $10K a year to follow her daughter around in volleyball. She kept hoping it would lead to a scholarship offer from a Div I school in college. I kept wondering why she didn’t just send her daughter to Boulder or Ft. Collins where she could play intra-murals, and save money in the long run.