So, USA Soccer....now what?
This team aspired to get out of their group. Getting deep into the World Cup, or even winning it, wouldn't be sufficient to create enough interest to attract more big time athletes (A tangible amount, that is). You create interest by having a legitimate national league, once every four years isn't going to cut it.
Actually the NHL's biggest problem is not having had a league for 100 years the way baseball has. Up until the late '60s, when there were already expansion teams in baseball and rival leagues in basketball and football that would eventually merge, hockey was stuck with four stateside teams and that's it.
I don't think that explains it. The NBA was also very small during that same period and it has managed to go much more mainstream. Hockey, for whatever reason, has a hard time attracting fans who don't play the sport, and in much of the U.S. it isn't very feasible to play it.
It's not just that there aren't places to play hockey in most of the U.S. (there are - not as many as there are up north, but we have some). It's that hockey is financially out of the reach of a lot of people. There's equipment, ice time, and travel, and probably other things I haven't thought of. In the Midwest, where I grew up, travel was pretty time-consuming and expensive. In FL, where I live now, I imagine it's several times more costly in terms of both time and money. Unless a kid down here is incredibly passionate about hockey, it's just easier to play a lot of the other sports, and cheaper too.
It's not the only reason, but it's still huge. The NBA still had more than twice as many American teams as the NHL had in 1965, and they beat the NHL to the West Coast by a long shot. And don't forget the effect of college ball, which exploded into popularity a long time before college hockey got any kind of foothold and helped boost the popularity of the NBA. Simply put, most people in this country haven't had hockey around for much more than a generation. I think it's a hugely underrated reason for the NHL's status as the clear #4.
Best way to grow soccer? Do like the NHL does with Canada. Let's get some of our teams in the Mexican League. The Mexican's excitement, mixed with some southwestern border states' interest will keep the league afloat, and slightly elevate it. Let's face it, if the Canadian teams withdrew from the NHL (however impossible that may be), US hockey would take a huge hit.
In other words, I'm suffering withdraw from Conference Expansion-paloosa.
Comparing the MLS to the NHL is kinda apples to oranges. The NHL has been floundering the past decade where as the MLS has been growing.
Add to that the fact that kids in Miami, Phoenix, LA, etc etc are far more likely to be playing soccer than hockey growing up and I think you have a legit possibility of the MLS challenging the NHL for that fourth league in the nation.
Now I don't think this happens soon. But if the US gets the 2022 World Cup I think that we get a pretty set time table of growth in US soccer leading up to the World Cup. Something like 4-6 more MLS teams, growth in TV markets, growth in attendance. Plus, I'd say I have much more faith in those running the MLS than those running the NHL (versus, really?).
Well, MLS has been growing because it literally started from zero. NHL still blows MLS out of the water in the ratings department, and good luck finding MLS on broadcast TV.
Fairly common thought is that the US will win the 2022 bid. We are currently applying for 2018/2022. If you think about it, by then it will have been 28 years since we hosted.
Yeah, the last one in the States made soooo much money and they like to rotate them between continents. Plus in the US you won't have to deal with headaches like building stadiums.
Yup: the 1994 World Cup still holds the record for attendance (and no way this one's going to break it) and with 12 fewer matches, too.
I think the US is a lock for 2022. Guaranteed, they'll want to go back to Europe for 2018 after a 12-year absence.
Yeah, England in 2018 and then back to the US.
What people don't realize is that most other countries don't have a shitload of 60,000+ seat stadiums sitting around. Brazil and South Africa, for example, are taking massive loans from FIFA to build stadia. In the US, there is no such issue. A World Cup here would be pure profit.
that we're a lock for 2022. FIFA is a disgusting, disgusting graft machine. England 2018 would seem to make the most sense, but the smart money is on Russia now.
And so, with Bahrain in 2022. You'll notice Grant Wahl has been negatively tweeting about Bahrain (the heat, the stadiums). They're our competition and they have a LOT of money to throw at this, it's by no means a sure thing for 2022. FIFA does not lose money on these things, only the host nations, so I don't think they particularly care about attendance.
Now, FIFA DOES care about safety, so if Bahrain can't promise a secure environment, then that would work in our favor. I would still bet on us getting 2022, but I think it's much closer to a toss up right now than US fans would like to believe.
I think you mean Qatar? They put in a pretty strong bid for the 2016 Olympics, and they were turned down, in part because they wanted to schedule the games for October because of the heat.
I don't know how FIFA is on human rights issues, but it sounds like the situation in Qatar with regard to migrant workers (usually South Asians doing either manual labor or domestic work) is less than ideal, although not as bad as the situation elsewhere in the Middle East.
1. The NHL was a valid #4 sport until the lockout. Losing ESPN and an entire season of competition killed off interest. Any lost interest in this country for hockey I place directly in the hands of Gary Bettman and the NHLPA. I still remember the days of Mighty Ducks, Snoop Dogg and rappers wearing hockey sweaters on TRL on MTV. Hockey was a strong sport. It is unfortunate that the union environment prelockout killed off all public interest momentum of the sport.
2. Three of the top talent pools for hockey these days exists in Miami, Dallas, and LA. You don't this was a direct result of the existence of professional teams in the metro area to drum up interest in the sport. Everyone knows it is a northern niche sport, but I truly find it amazing that warm weather areas are starting to develop NCAA and major junior level and eventually NHL quality talent.
3. Soccer's major issue is that the major professional leagues exist outside the states. Youth today hardly ever have the chance to personally meet and interact with top american professional soccer talent. Youth today in hockey interact with hockey talent from the NHL regularly to increase youth interest. We have literally thousands of youth playing soccer at a young age but when they enter middle school the majority of them quit playing and paying attention. MLS does not have a major television distribution deal to increase exposure and insure the youth have interest in the sport continuously as they grow up. Secondly, any American soccer player (Donovan, Dempsey, etc) that could drum up interest play maybe one or two seasons of MLS before jumping to Europe for increased competition. Donovan, the current hero of American soccer, was on loan to Europe. Watch for him to make the jump across the pond after the transition person.
yeah, the MLS has "grown"... when you have nobody watching it's kind of hard to go down.
It's worth noting that the NHL, even in it's biggest state of decline, was drawing 10 times the ratings MLS is. And while the NHL has seen it's ratings consistently rise in the past 5 years, MLS is currently down 25% and ESPN is considering dropping them.
The future is bright for soccer in America, I'll be the first to admit, but MLS is still a long way from even being able to compare itself favorably with the NHL.
I wouldn't worry about the future of U.S. soccer too much. We are not in the same situation that Italy or France is where they are completely reassessing their entire development program. We have an amazing new (relatively) development academy that is producing much more technical and complete players at far younger ages than before. These younger players (17-20 year olds) are going pro, both domestic and/or overseas, at a far greater rate than when guys like Donovan and Dempsey were coming through the ranks.
Just a few years ago we had the ODP system which was good but we have a much more comprehensive system of training our youth and scouting talent. We'll be fine. Honestly, the future is bright for U.S. soccer.
France's problems have nothing to do with a lack of developing talent. The soccer academy at Clairefontaine is the envy of the world. They have issues with a lack of general leadership and an inmates-running-the-asylum attitude that's set in.
that more and more young American players are being noticed at an earlier age, and get the training to become world class, particularly as MLS youth academies begin to flourish (they're still relatively nascent, or non-existent at some clubs).
But in honesty, our U-20s supposedly were lacking a little bit. There will be players (players like Mix Diskerud, McInerney, Opara, Omar Gonzalez, Geoff Cameron, etc) who could emerge as USMNT players. But the common thought is that the potential star talent lies with our U-17s. So it could be a while (at least two more WC cycles) before we're legitimately a back-end top 10 squad.
But bear in mind Jozy is only 20, Bradley is 22, Charlie Davies is 24. So the ride for the next WC will be fun nonetheless
I agree. Besides Donovan and Dempsey, our best players are young and that's a huge reason to be optimistic. But, regarding the U20s vs U17s, it's hard to say which will produce the most talent even if the 17s are getting better results (they just beat Argentina). Let's just hope that all of these players go pro, both the U20s and U17s within the next year or so to keep the large pool of talent progressing. I'm not a fan of the college game, these boys need to be playing pro.
The college game could improve, unfortunately there aren't all that many teams playing varsity thanks in part to Title IX. It seems to me with more opportunity to play at a level beyond high school, more kids might pursue the game seriously, and we might at least have a bigger talent pool from which to select American pros. Expanding the college game might be the only hope, since we can't support a robust minor league pro system like in baseball or hockey - we can barely support MLS at this point.
When your competing against countries where kids are playing professionally at the same age it's not much of an option. The kids who end up in the national team need to be playing at the top level as soon as possible if they want to be really successful.
US Soccer and MLS are moving away from college soccer. It's important to have our 18 year olds in MLS, playing professionally and then moving on to Europe.
I'm not saying that that's a bad strategy, I'm just saying that expanding the opportunities for youth to play and watch soccer beyond the high school level can only be a good thing. Maybe those kids never make it at the Euro league level, but more and better college soccer opportunities might just make more athletes in high school stick with soccer seriously.
Our best basketball players (e.g. LeBron) already play little or no college ball - yet it would be hard to argue that college basketball is not a net positive for the popularity and quality of the sport in America.
Starting Clark and Findley? Really?
FIRE DUMBROWSKI
BENCH SCHWARTZ
Why the hell do you start Clark?
To get that first goal out of the way quickly and give us a full 85+ minutes to respond?
And hire Jurgen Klinsman. We keep hiring US coaches, rather than coaches who've had success internationally. If countries like England and, yes, Ghana can hire non-natives, so can the USA.
This would be the single greatest thing that the US could do to improve the team. Klinsman knows what he's doing and has done it both as a player and coach. He has also been a US resident for the last decade.
I'm under the assumption that the soccer explosion with youth leagues happed so recently ago, we're still not putting out our full potential. Soccer really didn't start to explode in my region until the mid to late 90s. Those kids in the developmental stages of the explosion are just now reaching the age of competing for the USMNT. I'd venture that because the youth leagues were in their infancy, they aren't as highly developed as South Americans or Europeans that had coaches, training, leagues, and camps for decades now.
I'd give it another 10-15 years before the US can compete at near the level of some of the bigger fish. Even then, all of the previously established countries have a huge step up having futbol as their #1 sport. I think it's doable, but we're still looking at another decade or so of development and refinement.
This is the truth. Soccer became the number one youth sport in this country like 7 years ago... and we're talking about kids under 10. We're just starting to see the fruits of the soccer explosion.
For some reason people seemed to expect the results to happen instantly.
Yeah, pretty much everyone in my neighborhood (both boys and girls) played parks and rec soccer during the mid-'80s. In may not have been everywhere, but grassroots soccer has been around for a long time in at least some areas of the country. (If it hadn't, how would we have had the players to qualify for every World Cup since 1990?) But for the vast majority of us, soccer wasn't taken that seriously and we moved on to other sports. The challenge is to make soccer a more attractive alternative to the big three (football, baseball, basketball) than it currently is.
the U20 team did well in 2009 (Note Ghana won that I think.) I don't know the players coming up, but the US is still rising wrt talent year on year.
I for one will be paying more attention in this next cycle.
in the 2009 WC. Still I'd be interested in the talent there.
The talent pool is fine, probably unmatched by anyone save maybe Brazil in terms of athletic ability and population even with the competition from other sports. There are a lot of people in this country. The US soccer program just needs more time to develop, it really only started about 20 years ago. The sport is getting far more exposure than ever before on major networks and in the media. It's really only a matter of time - twenty years, tops, I would say - before the US is consistently on the Brazil/Germany/Argentina level.
is against Brazil on Aug. 10 at the new Giants Stadium. Next June is the CONCACAF (North and Central America and the Caribbean) Gold Cup - the winner of that tournament gets to play in the 2013 Confederations Cup (the tournament at which the US beat Spain and played in the final last year). WC 2014 (Brazil) qualifying begins in 2012.
As for the team itself, the defense may get an overhaul in the next 4 years. Cherundolo, Bocanegra, and DeMerit are all over 30. Some replacements could be Spector, Goodson, Marshall.
The midfield situation looks really good - Dempsey will be 31 and Donovan will be 32 in 2014, but a lot of the key guys are very young (Bradley, Edu, Torres, Holden). Jermaine Jones is another option, but he will be 32 in 2014 and they may or may not give him a shot.
Striker also looks good - Altidore is only 20, and Charlie Davies (23) has plenty of time to get back to where he was last summer when he was the team's best forward.
If we can break the pattern of alternating bad (90, 98, 06) and good (94, 02, 10) World Cup performances, we should be right back in this situation in 4 years. If we can build a better back line and pair Altidore and Davies together, a semi-final run is not unrealistic.
After coming off a good season with AC Milan, two-time FIFA player of the year Ronaldinho was not selected for the 23 man Brazilian World Cup squad.
We have a long way to go before we're going toe-to-toe with Brazil.
or even Ghana when you think that Essien wasn't in the team and Muntari struggles to get time.
The USA will never be world-class as long as MLS is the joke that it is. That is all.
You treat this loss like any other Soccer loss and we make the human tunnel, break out the Capri Sun's and orange wedges and come back in 4 years.
This is dumb. The MLS has already shown to be a great way to develop our young talent and that is exactly why it was created. The MLS is not the Premiership but I like it that way. I'd rather have the MLS follow the Brazilian or Argentine league format where our young players grow and become complete players then go to Europe rather than vice versa.
I think that's a valid point that a lot of people are ignoring here. Brazil and Argentina don't have major national leagues in the way that, say, Germany and Spain do, but it doesn't seem to hurt them. I think the U.S. would be better off following their model - and using the idea of a young, exciting, "stars of tomorrow" MLS to stimulate interest.
and having read nothing of the comments above, our defensive quality is sorely lacking and has been for many years. Our midfield seemed non-existent at times, and our strikers, while fast, don't have the quality necessary to finish.
As good as the MLS has been for US soccer, until we have more players playing abroad and learning to play in a world setting, we won't ever clash with the likes of Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, etc...
In addition, encouraging kids to continue playing and not abandoning the sport to the more popular sports will broaden the talent pool. But that requires a lot of parents deciding that soccer is worth the investment. It will require youth clubs associated with our professional clubs as well. Until parents see soccer as the kind of quality investment that football, basketball, and baseball are considered to be, nothing's going to change. We will continue to struggle with the likes of Ghana and Slovenia and occasionally have the stars align to beat someone like Spain once in a blue moon.
As good as the MLS has been for US soccer, until we have more players playing abroad and learning to play in a world setting, we won't ever clash with the likes of Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, etc...
come the eff on, I know most people don't follow the team that much but like... there are ony 3 MLS players on the freaking team. And Donovan and Bornstein probably won't be in MLS for very long.
At best MLS is a development league for international football. Look at most of the players playing internationally and they started in MLS. I realize most of the players currently play internationally, but they aren't all in top-flight leagues. MLS as a league needs time to continue to develop and continue to send players abroad to increase the talent pool of top-flight players. At some point, however, if US soccer is going to go anywhere, it will require our home league to be able to compete internationally with some of the best Europe has to offer. That will require the teams drawing top international talent, and until the money increases, there is no incentive to come here and play when they can make millions in their home or neighboring countries.