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Now I am not bagging on anyone here but just want to get this topic out in the open because many times are U20 national team is a gauge for player development in our country.
And yes I know Freddy Adu and Jozy Altidore I believe were eligible to play at the FIFA U20 World Cup in Egypt yet focusing on that would skirt the overall issue of player development.
I found it fascinating and candid of U20 coach Thomas Rongen to address player development in our country after the U.S. was eliminated after two horrible losses two Germany and Korea and elimination. I know some were secretly wishing for this team to advance with two losses but the truth is that would have only masked a huge problem that quite frankly everyone is aware of yet some still try to sugar-coat.
Our top 16-20 year old players are not getting enough competition and in most cases are playing against their peers as opposed to an environment that includes men in a reserve division. MLS killing off the reserve league this year has left an even larger void. Have any of these developmental players signed in MLS played in significant games or are this just kids being used as a vehicle of promotion. Where are they getting games?
I like the concept of the US Soccer Development Academy league but man was this a long time coming.
Sure it will concentrate the best players on select clubs and hopefully help player development by controlling training related to volume of games plus hopefully pit the best players and teams against each other.
One thing is real clear and lets not beat around the bush here. None of these players are going to move from this Academy to an impactful role in MLS and if someone is telling you this they are being less than truthful…the jump and differences in the level is too large.
Ok, like U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati reminded on my radio show. How about Jozy Altidore? Of course the law of averages says every once in awhile a Jozy will come along but lets get real and realize that many people do understand player development.
The U.S. Soccer Academy league is designed to produce players for the next level which is college. Maybe after two years at the collegiate level we may have a few players ready to jump to MLS and be more impactful. So yes the college game is still the target for Academy players.
How nice would it be here in Houston if UH had a program or Rice and the Dynamo could move players on and keep an eye on them at a local college or university till they were deemed more fit for MLS?
Or even better wouldn’t it be great if players could sign at 16 professionally and be guaranteed an education and begin training at that age with the professional club on a daily basis and be around men and the highest level of player in this country. Of course all of this would take money. Until we get a reserve league, sign players as teenagers an guarantee them a fall back position with education and money we can hype the Academy all we want but it can’t duplicate what goes on in other countries and accelerating player development.
We must truly “own” what is going on with player development and keep our expectations in check. And just a quick reminder, three expansion teams are looming in the future in MLS.
So here is what U 20 coach Thomas Rongen said that is something we all know and is quite compelling yet it come more to the surface with the poor performance of the u20’s .
“None of our MLS players are regular starters, and there’s no reserve league. We go from full time residency to a black hole..That’s the reason we are erratic from game to game. There’s no game sharpness, there’s no game fitness, and no game rhythm.
“Because of the MLS dropping the reserve league the black hole will become deeper and darker.”
Yet on my radio show Sunil Gulati was emphatic that dropping the reserve league was what had to be done. So what is the next step? That is the question.
Thoughts?
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This is a serious problem Glenn. I’ve always maintained that the elimination of the Reserve League was about one thing only, reducing the player pool available to potentially strike or (more likely) be locked out should the negotiations for the new CBA somehow fail. Once a new CBA is in place, I firmly expect the Reserve League to make a return in some form, with perhaps the core of it being filled out by the dissident USL clubs.
The performance in Egypt is telling about Rongen’s limitations as a coach, but more telling about the USSF’s inability to see past its own little turf battles and monopolies to establish a true player development system. In sports, perhaps unlike life, it is better to have the players celebrated and the leagues and governing bodies in the far background. Unfortunately, this is a lesson the USSF seems unwilling to learn.
I have always sympathized with your points about getting men’s soccer programs at Rice and UH, among others, in Texas. But the combination of Title IX equivalency requirements and bloated football budgets make for a witches’ brew that will prevent this from happening.
As you probably know, for every men’s scholarship slot, Title IX requires there to be a women’s scholarship slot, a situation that has been an absolute boon to women’s college soccer in the US, as well as softball and volleyball. However, for schools that have Division I football programs, some of which can tie up as many as 20-30 (or perhaps more) scholarship slots, there is no way to afford the creation of a non-revenue-generating men’s team sport such as soccer, with a large travel budget and upwards of 10-15 (or perhaps more) scholarship slots. This would mean not only the creation of that program, but also the creation of an equivalent number of women’s scholarship slots in some other (even less revenue-generating) sport (since in Rice and UH’s case, both already have women’s soccer programs). The costs start escalating rapidly, and very few of those outlays will be reimbursed.
Ultimately, colleges fund athletic programs to give the community something to do together. But the budget for this is not unlimited. Division I men’s football and basketball generate untold sums of money, obscene sums. Other collegiate sports do not come anywhere near that. And with Title IX restrictions, which have produced wonderful things, in place, Division I colleges and universities will not create new programs where none heretofore existed.
What does this mean as far as American player development? Simply put, Division I colleges and universities are not going to be the place for player development to occur in the US. And this, in my opinion, is an altogether good thing. Player development is too important to be left to colleges and universities, whose aims are not to develop talent but to win their leagues. With Title IX, that ship has sailed and good riddance to it.
Academies like Brad Freidel’s in Cleveland, the USSF’s in Bradenton, the Dynamo Academy both here and in McAllen, and the extremely important resumption of the MLS Reserve League (or perhaps creation of MLS-2) are the elements of the path forward. Clubs need to take control of development, and they need to be empowered to do that by the USSF. Big kudos to Dynamo for thinking ahead on this issue and pushing for in-home development that is really the envy of the league, with the European trip indicative of an emerging “Dynamo Way.”
Glenn, this was one of your best posts yet. You are right on target and it is really upsetting to see how far behind we are in this country.
Martek, you were right on until the last paragraph. Brad Freidel’s academy is basically bankrupt ($), a lot of these kids came from Bradenton and have not produced the talent that is needed. I agree with you that the MLS Reserve league is key in developing better players. Look at Mike Chabala. He would not even be playing for the Dynamo if it wasn’t for the reserve league the past 3 years.
We need new leadership at the USSF. We need fresh new ideas and ways we can work together instead of doing things the same way. I am not wishing this but maybe failure in South Africa will shake this whole thing up.
Glenn,
Here is the problem I see with player development. 16 year old Europeans are playing against men in reserve leagues and some are starring for clubs as early as 17/18 years old. American 16 year olds are playing 16 year old high school kids. It is cultural thing because we put a pretty high emphasis on education. There are a few kids that can play at the highest level and we need to encourage that.
I think a great guest for your show would be Don Shepherd, who is in charge of LAFC Chelsea. They took some of their teams over to England to play some teams and the results were quite telling. The U14\’s and U16\’s beat up on their opposition, but their U18\’s were crushed. They are taking the lessons they learned from that trip to help with player development because in the end, that is what it is all about.
We have to do a better job of developing players. It is a must. Something else we must also be reminded of is that we have to do what is best for the players. Too many times, I have seen coaches hang on to kids because they want to win, and that does not help the player grow. Coaches have to do what is best for the player. Sometimes it will cost the team, but destroying a player could be a lost worse!
Great Article and GREAT posts guys! I truly do believe that we are being held back buy the way things are being run on the League side and National Team side.
We have guys in charge that for the most part are tapped out (Nat’l Team Coaches), and or they are not trying to shake things up too much (Gulati). It seems that our recent National (U-20 & Sr) team performances are NOT being looked at for what they really are: Let Downs. We are not being very critical of them and this is very troubling.
We have the potential to be an emerging power, but it feels like we have back tracked since the WC in Germany. I’ve never been one to really say this, but maybe it WOULD be a good idea to replace Bradley & Rongen. They were okay, but they are tapped out…
I personally do not like Mexico’s erratic behaviors of hiring & firing coaches so frequently, but for the most part they have had some influential coaches that have left something behind to add to the culture of their playing stlye. I think perhaps some of the most influential coaches to take the reins have been La Volpe & Aguirre, one is Argentinian and the other Mexican. They were both successfull on the club levels and made drastic changes in the stlye and attitude on the program.
I have yet to see this happen on the US Nat’l team. I think we were more productive when we felt we had to prove ourselves to EVERYONE, countries big or small.. instead now we tend to go into some matches with half hearted performances and then give the “glass is half full” spin to the story. that can’t be the way things are run, if we want to be taken seriously by others (countries & sports) we need to be our most harshest critics, and demand progress.
The reserve league was yet again another step BACKWARDS.. we obviously cannot depend on Universities in this country, which why we need the reserve league to help develop players by playing against older, experienced players instead of their peers who sometimes know that the college game is it for them. besides the college rules are too different from FIFA Rules.. why is that? that should be another reason to not depend on them. NCAA doesn’t care about Soccer, they only care about thier MoneyMaker$ (Am. Football & Basketball). I wish our teams in MLS had more money alloted to be able to sign young players and develop them on thier own, without having them HAVE to pay some drastic amounts of money to be part of it.
Again, great Article, GREAT posts.. we are being held back by our own… we are our own worst enemy in this case.
I love the idea of going pro at 16 with a education guarantee. It should be that way for all sports.
Don’t forget another problem with American player development is the lack of ‘ball at feet’. We need kids, heck even 16 yr olds, playing with the ball at their feet much more. Im talking kids in the park kicking the ball around and being CREATIVE.
Our tradition in the US certainly values a college education.
I don’t see that ever changing. However, I would love to see Mls or it’s teams offer their version of a GI Bill. Essentially compete with colleges by offering top prospects the opportunity to go to school while training and playing with the team (reserve leave is a must). If the dynamo were to work with HBU or U of H I’m sure scheduling could be worked out. What’s the difference between a university giving you free tuittion or MLS paying for your tuittion? High school senior apply for and get all sorts of 3rd party scholorships. I think many players would sacrifice college eligibility if they could still go to school and have it paid for.
As everyone else has said, this is a great topic. Great work Glenn! I like Kirk’s idea of placing the youth players at a place like UH but by 18 years old, it may be a bit late in the development of some players. How about doing it for high school players? But, how do you get 16 year olds to play against professionals? You would need some sort of partnership between the team and the school that allows for players to play for an MLS reserve team (and not the high school team).
And of course, all of this costs money. Some team owners may not be interested in putting up all this cash. It would be nice if USSF showed some better leadership here. But Sunil and friends don’t seem very interested.
By the way, I know Dynamo fans hate to hear this but Dom Kinnear would be perfect for the USMNT coach job after Bradley.
Dom has his team play the right way (most of the time) and demands excellence and hard work out of his players. Players buy into his system. I don’t think there are some players that buy into Bradley’s system (European players ie Dempsey) because it is like a bunch of robots running around the field in a system. We need to open up more creativity and more of a possession style of soccer.
I think Gulati needs to be gone after this cycle if we don’t have success in South Africa. We need to clean house and stop the nepotism and have one goal and that is to put a team together (U17-Sr team) that can compete with the world.
If Vancouver can have a residency program why not MLS teams. Or MLS period. It might compete with the USSF residency program but so what… compettition would breed excellence (or at least it would force everyone to be better). Let them compete for the best players.
Well, measuring Gulati against next year’s World Cup results sounds short-sighted and ultimately unfair. As I understand it, Gulati has little to do with player selection and strategy for the senior national team (that goes to Bob Bradley and Co.). So measuring him against that standard doesn’t seem proper. That measurement should run along the “Is he doing a good job growing the sport and overseeing the development of the US Soccer Federation and its national teams?”
And player development through a system like this is part of that question. If you feel good about the progress he has made (and in his defense, he’s made some), then you keep him around for the foreseeable future. If, on the other hand, you think it can be done better (most people on this thread probably feel this way), then that is the time to let Gulati go and find someone else. Who is that person? I’m not sure. I think that while Gulati has done a decent job, others can do better, but I’m not sure who.
There’s so much work that has to be done on the grass roots effort and I’m not familiar with the people who have had success on that level. The difference between Mexico/England/Italy and the United States is that this sort of system is already in place in these nations. Here, we’re still building that system and its going to take a while to bring it up to par with the other countries listed here.
We’re making incredible progress in growing this sport in this country. We continue to develop new talent and introduce the sport to those who have never played it before. So we should be happy for all that has been accomplished (FWIW, I couldn’t imagine having this conversation even 2 years ago, and here we are). The bigger problem is harnessing that talent and molding it on international levels. For the time being, instead of building out academic/athletic academies, we should try to have a residency program and partner with local schools where the students would go to traditional schools (public? private? who knows), and work practices and game schedules around classes. From there, work on the reserve league (or USL teams) or some sort of program that produces a regular schedule of competition. Does that mean that whole teams of train together late in the afternoon? There are so many ends left to explore.
Also, I’m not big on Bob Bradley. Let’s see what he does next summer but I’m really coming to the viewpoint of coaches only going through 1 WC cycle. Sometimes, as we saw in Germany 2006, some coaches get stale on players. We’re seeing a little bit of that now. Imagine what the future holds 4 years from now with some of these guys if Bob is still coaching the team. Dom would be a great coach for the national team. He should get consideration for the job next summer.
One more thought. The time involved in changing our infrastructure on a federation level is not a quick fix. It can’t be done in a 4 year cycle. This will take several cycles to build and even then, things may not go smoothly.
Thinking about a name just now to run the federation, how about Oliver Luck? He’s been very savvy in running the Dynamo front office. He’s run entire leagues before (NFL Europe- helping to grow American football in a country that wasn’t familiar with it) and the Houston Sports Authority. His biggest issue right now is with the stadium but this would be an incredible new challenge. Anybody else have ideas?
I’m going to have to podcast this discussion tonight Glenn as I have something going on at my son’s school, or I would definitely call in to talk about these issues. This is a fabulous topic, especially in light of the U20 debacle.
I hope you get Thomas Rongen on, and if you big props to the guy’s character for going into an interview and facing the music.
And cj, what I was referring to regarding Bradenton and Friedel’s academy in Cleveland and the others is the infrastructure of serious youth development outside of the collegiate game. The NCAA has proven an inconstant partner at best in player development issues, and we are all better served to throw out the NBA and NFL “development” models and more closely resemble MLBs (to use American sport models), meaning taking the teenagers at their developmental primes and offering them an option for serious professional and on field growth, while guaranteeing them a paid education either during or after this is happening. It would be wonderful to have this included in the new CBA with the Player Union, but that is some forward thinking that I have not yet seen from MLS, USSF or any other party, to be honest.
No Reserve League=Lost Talent
They should do a farm system with MLS, USL1, USL2, and PDL forming a partnership…And bring back the reserve league.
Great topic.
1.Please help me trying to understand, I am not very informed on how these minor leagues function. Wasn’t the reason for canceling the reserve leagues money?? Isn’t MLS running on a very tight budget?
Some countries require their leagues to have a u20 player to be included in the lineup for 15 min at least. Will that help here?
2. US will win, they always rise up to hard challenges and Honduras IS a challenge even though some people do not believe that
3.Nice vacation Weaver got himself, bye next weekend
suspended against LA he wont be back in action for 3 weeks! I know about Monterrey, but is not the same.
Sorry for the change in topic……USMNT v Honduras WCQ not on TV? I can’t find even on U verse / PPV. I see I have access to PPV of the HON v El Salvador match for $ 25!! but not the USMNT match. You know of any pubs in Houston that have access to the match? Not to go deep into politics, but I’m now firmly against the new military government of Honduras. Not due to the coup, simply because they limited our ability to see this important WCQ by selling the TV rights to some moron company!
http://www.UStream.com or Justintv.com I’m sure it will be there by the time kickoff approaches! plug your laptop or Pc via your HDMI to your hdtv.. and enjoy… no need for PPV.. might not be HD.. but its better than NOT seeing it.
Sunil Gulati was emphatic that dropping the reserve league was what had to be done. So what is the next step
That is why we need somebody new and fresh heading up US Soccer. A totally ridiculous comment and shows you how clueless this guy is.
Gulati is a Ivy league elitist who thinks he knows more about everything than everyone. This includes soccer. Too bad he’s wrong.