MLS’ Lack of US Youth Development
August 21, 2006
Bruce Arena faced a lot of criticism for the recent World Cup performance and rightfully so. Although, compared to other coaches and players of national teams it was easy going. Look, Bruce did a lot for US Soccer and helped raise the bar don’t get me wrong, however; I personally feel he did not have the team mentally prepared going into the World Cup. Ok, fine, what happened is done with but, if he’d just step up and say hey I failed at this task and so did the players instead of just blamming the organization — US Soccer — my respect level would be greater for him. We all make mistakes and I’m glad Bruce Arena was with the US program for so long - he accomplished many things and this should not go by the wayside. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does with NYRB but we must move on.
In Grant Wahl’s recent article of Si.com "Entering a new Arena", Bruce touches on the need for stronger youth development systems within MLS and the need for MLS to put a better product on the field. In support of Bruce, it would seem to me that if more money would be poured into youth development with in MLS this would certainly make a tremendous impact on the National Team. With that, we need more labs so to speak, more players recieving professional coaching instead of really just one lab or organization in US Soccer. And, our promosing youth players need this technical and tactical training early (4-7 yrs) in order to remain competitive with the world, in a fun environment of course.
America is commonly called the most Athletic country in the World (by other countries). Then, couple that with the fact that approximately 300 million people live in the United States and we have the top sports leagues in the World (MLB, NBA, NFL). So why not experiment more in the lab? More chemicals generally result in something hazardous but in this case being hazardous is a good thing. We need to get on board with the rest of the world with professional club/youth systems.
Bruce also touched on the capability or limitation with in MLS to create competitive advantage via player compensation/salary caps. I strongly agree with his question, is’nt creating and developing competitive advantages what the game is generally about? Therefore, how important is it for the league to change its salary cap and transition more of the decision making power and recruitment strategies to owner/operators?
Any thoughts on this?
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There is no doubt that our youth development system here is way behind other countries — especially when you consider that soccer is by far the most popular sport among children in this country. There’s a disconnect between the kiddies and the league. And college ball arguably stunts a lot of players because of its little quirks.
But I would take issue with the word “non-impact” in your headline. U.S. Soccer, if we judge by the national team, has only improved because of MLS. Arena wanted to blame the league for his failure this time around, but last time he lauded the league when the Nats exceeded expectations in ‘02.