Caesar's Arguably Blasphemous Sports Debate Emporium

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Caesar
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Post by Caesar » 12 Dec 2022, 06:56

Bringing this back a year plus later to say that we, as a country (the United States), need to fucking retire the notion that the US cannot have an elite men's international soccer team after this World Cup. Let's break down the numbers of why this notion is just ignorant.

First, let's look at the populations of the team's in the semi-finals this week.
France: ~68 million
Argentina: ~47 million
Morocco: ~37 million (NOTE: A large majority, if not all, of Morocco's players weren't born in Morocco)
Croatia: ~3.9 million

But this is the men's World Cup so let's subset that out -- specifically males who are 18 and under because we're talking about developing a generation of athletes.
France: ~9 million males under 18
Argentina: ~7 million males under 18
Morocco: ~7 million males under 18 (keeping in mind that their squad is heavily foreign-born)
Croatia: >~550,000 males under 18

Now, we have to break this down further for the myriad of reasons that these people don't end up playing soccer. Let's say that 20% of them do (being generous because I imagine this number is actually lower).
France: ~1.8 million
Argentina: ~1.4 million
Morocco: ~1.4 million
Croatia: ~110,000

Now, you can see we've whittled this down a lot and we're not even yet to "number of players who will actually become good enough to play for their national team." Yet, from a population of 3.9 million, with a little more than half a million males, Croatia has found 26 players to get them to the World Cup semis twice.

So, this brings us to the United States.
Population: ~333 million
Population of males under 18: ~44 million

I know what you're going to say sOcCeR iSn'T tHe MoSt PoPuLaR sPoRt iN tHe Us. Sure it isn't. We're working with a subset of kids that is larger than almost 3 of 4 of these semifinalists total populations. Soccer is the most played youth sport in the US, though. Still, I've concocted some totally unscientific weights to give to the most prevalent US sports to apply to our next subset.

Let's say half of these kids play sports. So, 22 million.

We're going to say 30% (as the US's most popular sport but this isn't accurate to actual youth sports numbers) of them play football: That's 6 million.
25% of them are playing basketball (again not accurate to actual youth sports numbers): 5.5 million
20% for soccer (because it is the most played youth sport): 4.4 million
12.5% for baseball: 2.75 million
Final 12.5% for every other sport (ain't no kids playing hockey like talking about. Y'all can kiss my ass if you think otherwise. This ain't Mighty Ducks. No one playing pickup hockey games except in Minnesota.): 2.75 million

Now, that 4.4 million (which should be higher but we're giving the popularity folks the benefit of the doubt) puts the number of kids playing soccer in line with France, Argentina, Morocco and Croatia... for their total male populations under 18 and is almost TEN TIMES higher than Croatia's.

You need three things to be develop a sporting culture: Population (US: ✔️), Infrastructure (US: ✔️), Wealth (US: ✔️).

Let's say that 1% of those 4.4 million kids play professional soccer in some shape or form somewhere in the world. That's 44,000 professionals. Remember, Croatia in this scenario has 110,000 total children playing soccer.

A World Cup squad is 26 players. Please explain to me how you cannot cultivate, from 4.4 million male children 1% of whom will become professional soccer players, a squad of 26 elite soccer players. Fuck, you don't even need 26 elite ones. You need like 6 elite guys, 7 really good guys, a few alright dudes and just some roster filler.

And we haven't even gotten into the fact that the false belief that the best athletes are playing football and basketball in the United States. Those motherfuckers are out on someone's track or in someone's pool. Fred Kerley is more athletic than everyone in the NBA and NFL. Fight me.

In conclusion, the reasons the United States does not have an elite men's international soccer team has nothing to do with the popularity of the sport or the fact that all of the best athletes don't play soccer because there are more than enough kids who can be developed into elite athletes and therefore soccer players.
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mvp
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Post by mvp » 12 Dec 2022, 09:20

agreed. so what's the reason we aren't elite?
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Post by Caesar » 12 Dec 2022, 09:44

mvp wrote:
12 Dec 2022, 09:20
agreed. so what's the reason we aren't elite?


1. Pay for play: Soccer is the ultimate suburban sport in the US and because of that quality coaching is only achieved through pay for play schemes at the youth level. Here in Baton Rouge, it’s something like $3,000 for a kid to play one season of soccer that is only like 8 games, and that’s not the travel team. You’re talking tens of thousands of dollars for top tier kids who might have a shot. One, this is the antithesis of soccer which is known as a poor man’s game, and two, you freeze out large swaths of kids whose parents can’t afford or are not willing to pay that.
2. Haphazard academy infrastructure: The US is a huge country in terms of land. Until recently, MLS clubs didn’t have academy systems like clubs in other countries and the ones that did required you to literally bring your kid to the club for a try out — at the expense of the player. Imagine, before Atlanta United, Orlando City and Inter Miami, if you were from Florida. The closest club would’ve be DC United. The US effectively needs what France has which are regionalized academies run by the USSF and not the clubs.
3. The MLS’ salary cap: Kids stop playing soccer in high school because the MLS, the main avenue to professionalism, isn’t paying most players a salary that is going to provide generational wealth. With European clubs increasingly establishing links with US clubs or full US academies (Barcelona has them in Arizona and elsewhere) this is becoming less of a problem, but when coupled with pay for play, you’ve already frozen out the kids who view soccer as a vehicle to wealth in the same way football, basketball or baseball is viewed by high school. (You get more Landon Donovans than you do Clint Dempseys).
4. Lack of promotion/relegation in the US soccer pyramid: There are a finite number of places at a club, especially in the MLS with its ultra strict roster rules, but because there isn’t a secondary path to the MLS through promotion, USL clubs are largely not seen as viable destinations which chokes down the number of spots for professionals. A kid in England can join Wigan Athletic with Premier League dreams and just stay there until they get promoted or get gets a move. It’s unlikely that a kid joining Las Vegas Lights will ever play in the MLS and thus ever play overseas.
5. The USSF’s insistence that MLS players are chosen and played for the national team: This is why Juergen Klinsmann was fired. The federation all but demands MLS players are chosen to boost the league’s rep even though those players might be a step below players from elsewhere.
6. Not aggressive enough flipping dual nationals: Every so often the US flips a guy from Mexico but they need to be way more aggressive getting players with American eligibility into the system.
Aaand 7. The USMNT almost never plays away matches: every match the US plays is in the US. They control all the factors about the environment. Even when they are the “away” team such as in the Gold Cup, it’s in the US. They need to play more away matches. That’s why their asses lost on that cow pasture to Trinidad and Tobago. The players are too used to perfect environments for them.

Edit: actually forgot one more. Lack of quality coaches at younger ages: because soccer is viewed as a suburban sport in the US, most of the time it is treated like a thing you put your kids in to say they’re doing something and not a sport like football or basketball. This leads to most coaches just being some random kid’s dad who volunteers and doesn’t do much coaching if any. You can hear it in the way people talk about their kids playing with them all chasing behind the one fast kid with the ball in circles. You’d never see that happen on a peewee football field because they are actually teaching them the game. People will say the kids won’t listen to it but in other countries, they’re getting the basic of team shape and shit at like 7. Ajax famously releases kids from their academy who fail their TIPS regimen at a young age.

Soapy
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Post by Soapy » 12 Dec 2022, 11:07

I used to agree with the our best athletes don't play soccer take but after watching this world cup, I didn't notice an athleticism deficit between the US team and the other teams. The biggest deficit I saw, as a casual fan, was a lack of creativity, positioning and vision (outside of #7 who really impressed me in that aspect) which leads me to believe it is a coaching and development issue.
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djp73
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Post by djp73 » 12 Dec 2022, 14:12

Caesar wrote:
12 Dec 2022, 09:44

1. Pay for play: Soccer is the ultimate suburban sport in the US and because of that quality coaching is only achieved through pay for play schemes at the youth level. Here in Baton Rouge, it’s something like $3,000 for a kid to play one season of soccer that is only like 8 games, and that’s not the travel team. You’re talking tens of thousands of dollars for top tier kids who might have a shot. One, this is the antithesis of soccer which is known as a poor man’s game, and two, you freeze out large swaths of kids whose parents can’t afford or are not willing to pay that.
WHAT?!
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Post by Caesar » 12 Dec 2022, 14:58

djp73 wrote:
12 Dec 2022, 14:12
Caesar wrote:
12 Dec 2022, 09:44

1. Pay for play: Soccer is the ultimate suburban sport in the US and because of that quality coaching is only achieved through pay for play schemes at the youth level. Here in Baton Rouge, it’s something like $3,000 for a kid to play one season of soccer that is only like 8 games, and that’s not the travel team. You’re talking tens of thousands of dollars for top tier kids who might have a shot. One, this is the antithesis of soccer which is known as a poor man’s game, and two, you freeze out large swaths of kids whose parents can’t afford or are not willing to pay that.
WHAT?!
Same thing I said and I was told that’s normal. Go figure
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