Does this sound familiar to you?

Some good thoughts and comments on this thread. Fact is, club soccer is huge business in this country...huge...although I am not convinced the coaching is up to snuff, certainly not in North Texas from what I've seen, and I have watched plenty of supposedly 'top level' practice sessions conducted by the local ECNL coaches. We seem to be producing tons of 'coached' players....but hardly any with a bit of magic like a Marta for example.

Same thing on the men's side. I came up with a list of 18 Dutch players off the top of my head ( starting with Cruyff, Van Basten, Bergkamp, Davids, etc) all of them way better than any American player ever. Holland has a population of about 17million....Texas alone has at least 50% more than that. The club system is the problem....not the solution.

Fretting over the # of FSU international players is a 1st world problem..

yawn, aren't you enlightened...

futbollove wrote:

silentparent wrote:This is why a player like Lindsey Horan (who chose to be an international pro instead of college)

pro? pro what?  The NWSL? Women's soccer has one real outlet, the USWNT and that's it. You want your daughter to forgo college for that?



a salary that typically ranges from $6,000 to $30,000 (with most players seeing the lower end of that range).

Herein lies the biggest problem for the NWSL: To keep the league afloat, it is paying preposterously low salaries. And who can afford to play professional soccer for $6,000 per year? Mostly women in college or only a few years out, as well as those with minimal national-team-level experience. And though this modest budget has helped the league’s bottom line, it has made it more difficult to attract high-level players — well, high-level players who are not members of the U.S. national team.

International Pro. Horan reportedly signed a six-figure deal. Do some research before confirming what we all already know. SP is clueless.
Happy New Year

A 6 figure deal? Just be an accountant. You will still have your knees left when you reach 30. As parents of girls, the best that we can hope for is to raise daughters who love the game enough to want to teach other kids when they get to that point in life.

tornado11 wrote:Some good thoughts and comments on this thread. Fact is, club soccer is huge business in this country...huge...although I am not convinced the coaching is up to snuff, certainly not in North Texas from what I've seen, and I have watched plenty of supposedly 'top level' practice sessions conducted by the local ECNL coaches. We seem to be producing tons of 'coached' players....but hardly any with a bit of magic like a Marta for example.

Same thing on the men's side. I came up with a list of 18 Dutch players off the top of my head ( starting with Cruyff, Van Basten, Bergkamp, Davids, etc) all of them way better than any American player ever. Holland has a population of about 17million....Texas alone has at least 50% more than that. The club system is the problem....not the solution.

In your earlier post you admit we do not live in a soccer culture and then compare America to Holland in this post. Let's try to pick an argument and stay with it. Once again apples and oranges big guy. If our government truly became socialist and decided the State of Texas would only allow citizens to play soccer and nothing else, the US would win the world cup in 8 to 12 years. Point is: we are not a soccer country.


And I cant let you post as a "Recruiting Expert". You tried to sell camps as the best way to get recruited?? Sorry, but since you mention money grab, camps are a HUGE source of income for college coaches in any sport. Google the contracts of public school coaches and you will see that camps are included in the deal. So of course any coach, including UNC, will never say "our camps are just a part of the recruiting puzzle". And the local player mentioned, spit the name out. She is not a u12 dd anymore. Her full name, home town, high school and club will be on the UNC webpage. I bet you lunch she played ECNL. Having said that, by no means is ECNL the only way to get it done. My Niece at Texas Southern is a great example of that. Camps, ODP, ID2 and old fashion emailing highlight films can work. But ECNL is clearly the simplest way here in North Texas. The "ECNL" tag on a player's resume is a shiny star for any soccer coach describing his or her recruiting class to the AD

Putting numbers in perspective, indeed there is ONE 94 local dd from ESD who is rostered at UNC.  This dd only played ECNL her last year of soccer, not because she didn't want to, but because ECNL was not that common when she was playing her pre-college soccer.  She also however happened to be the last high profile recruit from ESD till the current Sting ECNL player bound for UT.

I think if that was the mode, we would have seen by now several non-ECNL players taking the cue and follow the established path.  None are showing.

Tornado11, I would greatly respect you IF you will follow your own advice.  Just go ahead and pull your dd from Solar ECNL, let her play ESD HS soccer and attend tons of Soccer Camps, including UNC, and then we would gladly welcome you back here to give testimonials on how great an experience it was.

And if by now your dd has not attended at least 10 different camps since her HS Freshman year, I would venture that she might already be behind the recruiting curve.

Oohh and by the way, Anson and his two assistants attended several ECNL games in the just concluded Florida ECNL Showcase (including two of our games). I wonder what they were doing there instead of just waiting for the summer camps!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/sports/committing-to-play-for-a-college-then-starting-9th-grade.html?_r=0

I am shocked out how I took this article completely different than the rest of you. I think the word skill is getting lost in translation the way it is used in this article.

I interpreted this article as Kobe blasting our youth system for promoting individuals ("big men bringing the ball up the court...but don't know how to post") instead of teaching the basic fundamentals. It is no secret that in NTX soccer the term skill=tricks but that is not what Kobe is talking about. The kid that is showcased as a 6'5" point guard in 8th grade ends up with zero understanding of how to play in the post when he is asked to do so at the next level.

Skill to him is fundamental...a fundamental understanding of the game and how to not have to rely on athleticism or tricks. The skill he is referring to is in regards to understanding the game better than your opponent. In soccer terms, our kids have all the tricks in the world, but can't take a ball out of the air with a good touch or hit a 30 yard ball to someone's feet. Those are the skills that get lost in our "showcase the individual" environment.

Our kids are never taught a system or how to best play in a particular system to get a result as a squad. For those of you that knock the talent of US players, I would argue that as individuals we are not as far behind as people think. It is when we ask those talented individuals to become part of a group that we lag further and further behind.

Except for C Ronaldo and Fat Ronaldo, most of the greatest players over the past 20 years have not been freak athletes or tricksters. The one thing they have in common is an understanding of the game that is light years ahead of others...Messi, Zidane, Scholes, Keane, Viera, Pirlo - none of these would be considered world class athletes, but every one of them does the basics better than anyone else.

There are tons of kids U12 and below that look like world beaters on the field, but once they get to a level where others understand how to defend and not dive in on their 37 consecutive step overs, what do they have? Do they have the vision to pick out a pass, do they have the understanding how to find the channels to get on the ball?

Our kids have grown up identifying idols by watching you tube clips instead of by watching full matches. We would be better off teaching all of our kids to try and play like a Scholes/Pirlo instead of a Ronaldinho. Those that have the athletic ability will be that much better off having an ingrained understanding of the game and the way it should be played.

This is where we are going wrong and in my opinion this is what Kobe is referring to in this article. Until our coaches understand that skill=fundamentals, not tricks to faster we will begin to develop players.

My challenge to you is the next time you are watching any training session U12 or below...see how many kids are very comfortable doing step overs and tricky turns but still can't trap a ball properly when it is hit to them with any pace. I would bet if you actually watched for this, you would be amazed. I've seen it, and I know others out there have...the 5 year old dancing around like a ballerina on the ball, but still can't kick a ball properly. Why are we skipping steps 1-20 and going straight to step 21 of development?

yellowcard5 wrote: My challenge to you is the next time you are watching any training session U12 or below...see how many kids are very comfortable doing step overs and tricky turns but still can't trap a ball properly when it is hit to them with any pace.  I would bet if you actually watched for this, you would be amazed.  I've seen it, and I know others out there have...the 5 year old dancing around like a ballerina on the ball, but still can't kick a ball properly.  Why are we skipping steps 1-20 and going straight to step 21 of development?

BOOM!! Nailed it!

At the top levels most sports are about both skill AND athleticism.

I don't know if I can handle seeing even one more post claiming Messi isn't a world class athlete or wouldn't have made a top team in NTX because of his size. What are ya'll watching! Dude was faster over 10 yards with a ball than world class defenders without one.  His change of direction combined with his acceleration and close control
was incredible before he slowed down the past year after his injury.

 Same with maradona...world class athlete...world class skill...just happened to be a short dude with tree trunk legs and great balance. Just because he wouldn't win an olympic 100M dash doesn't mean he wasn't a world class athlete.

 Ronaldinho...top 10 G.O.A.T if you ask me...in his prime? Skill combined with athleticism made him damn near unstoppable. A complete joy to watch. When his athleticism fell off,he's still a tremendously skilled player, but he's no longer world class. Even Xavi and Pirlo...great CMs with extraordinary vision, but they were still great athletes with top level endurance and quickness, and once their athleticism and ability to keep up fell off, so did their minutes on top level teams.

People amaze me acting as if Scholes or Zidane or Cryuff or Iniesta or any of the classic skill players were just average, ordinary athletes that just somehow managed to dominate at the top levels of world soccer because of their smarts and skill alone. Just Stop it! Lol.

 And while I'm ranting, we better hope us soccer doesn't try to copy spain and fall off the opposite end of the spectrum recruiting short, slow kids with great skill because Barca had a great run. I watched a boys DA disney game on espn3 last week where a u.s. team played a euro academy team...it was shocking. American team had all these small, skillful kids looked like barca wanna beez...but slow as molasses... and the europeans had the same skill with bigger and faster athletes and far better tactical awareness...basically ran us off the field.

Every kid doesn't need to try to play like Pirlo, especially if they've got Ronaldo pace or Messi agility and acceleration. Spain HAS to play the way they play, but we are not Spain. Germany didn't copy Spain did they? They took some elements from Cryuff, but you don't see german national team with a bunch of dirt slow but highly skilled miniature krauts running around. They'd look mighty silly never letting a ball be crossed in the air when their national demographic is loaded with tall athletes.

 Kobe was basically saying too many talented youth with great athleticism are being used to make the adults money in an AAU system which is more focused on travel games and showcases than teaching fundamentals...pretty much the same thing some were saying in this thread before it went sideways with the inevitable ECNL tangent.  I see where you're coming from, but the issue is not just ball tricks. It's whether the current system is producing as complete players as we've had in the past....from our pool of great athletes. It's not a complete parallel to soccer because there is a ton of money involved from the shoe companies in AAU, and even with the problems our bb players are still, by far, the best in the world.

The problem in north tx. Is that any Tom dick and Harry can start a club, coach a team, and collect tons of money to do it. I am pretty sure that people in Barcelona are not complaining about the big club taking over. Why? Because their is one way, that has been proven, to develope their soccer players and that way is done by one club. its the American way! Everyone is a club player and at the end of the day you get a trophy. We as parents have created this. If we are not happy with playing time, position, or coach we will just keep moving until we get what we want. Then if we can't find what we are looking for we will just make our own team and club.

Zizou wrote:The problem in north tx. Is that any Tom dick and Harry can start a club, coach a team, and collect tons of money to do it. I am pretty sure that people in Barcelona are not complaining about the big club taking over. Why? Because their is one way, that has been proven, to develope their soccer players and that way is done by one club. its the American way! Everyone is a club player and at the end of the day you get a trophy. We as parents have created this. If we are not happy with playing time, position, or coach we will just keep moving until we get what we want. Then if we can't find what we are looking for we will just make our own team and club.

I agree it's the parents paying the ever increasing fees that are the life blood of the whole pyramid. We do it because we add it all up and believe there is value in having our kids participate. You need an open market  in pay to play or else the costs will skyrocket when one organization creates a monopoly. Most likely you'll be getting increased costs for the same quality.

A small handful of clubs control almost the entire player market in NTX...especially the elite college bound kids which are the carrots pulling the whole cart...the issue in Ntx isn't a lack of structured clubs able to have their way with players because of too many mom and pop clubs...the issue is a knowledgable mom and pop startup shouldn't be able to produce the same quality of player as the structured club...Joe dad coach is not going to Spain and start up a team for his kid to get max playing time and end up putting out the same quality as Barcelona...barca's advantage is not based on the number of parents willing to pay the highest fees to train their kids...dad coach in Spain would be overjoyed if he created ANY players good enough to send to Barca.

If us soccer had the power to dissolve all small clubs across the country and force all players to be trained by selected incumbent mega clubs, I doubt we'd be any more competitive on the world stage, and you'd probably need to run a hedge fund to afford the costs.

The Barca's of the world work closely with the small clubs of the area in Catalonia. That's the difference between us and them.

For example, Babar is a small club based in Barcelona. Players train and play, Barca coaches will watch them, evaluate them and the good ones get invited into Barca... Does Babar fear this, no... They work with Barca.

Babar is just like Kicks... Difference being is that Barca is not trying to put Babar out of business by stealing all the players and coaches. Its a give and take relationship both ways.

I watched two NTX boys that had trained with Barca go play for Barbar in the futsal tourney I watched, why.. Because Babar was short a couple players and Barca wanted to give em a look, but had a full squad.

What a concept!

Borussia wrote:The Barca's of the world work closely with the small clubs of the area in Catalonia.  That's the difference between us and them.  

For example, Babar is a small club based in Barcelona.  Players train and play, Barca coaches will watch them, evaluate them and the good ones get invited into Barca... Does Babar fear this, no... They work with Barca.

Babar is just like Kicks... Difference being is that Barca is not trying to put Babar out of business by stealing all the players and coaches.  Its a give and take relationship both ways.  

I watched two NTX boys that had trained with Barca go play for Barbar in the futsal tourney I watched, why.. Because Babar was short a couple players and Barca wanted to give em a look, but had a full squad.  

What a concept!

Because barbar is probably paid by barca when one of their players goes up. Kicks and ntx big club are both being paid by the same source...parents wallet.

Spain's national team club Barcelona, Germany's national team club Bayern Munich. It seems on the men's side the national team players primarily come from the top clubs in the country. China,s women's national team all early pre-selected players trained together play together and have been together under one system all their playing career.

Nope, no money is paid to Babar. They receive players.. Not every player can stay at barca... As some move in... Others move out.

I agree, Barcelona has all the control! Money,

You don't hear the same giant sucking sound of the clubs going after the cash over there. Babar was given free entry into the tournament I witnessed. They sent volunteers from their club to run the tourney in exchange for entry for all their squads.

Still big club calling all the shots!

Barcelona, is a multi- million dollar club. They don't need the money they have the revenue!

Zizou wrote:Still big club calling all the shots!

So bring it home...which big club should call the shots in NTX? Fc dallas since they have a pro team? Sting since they have the most college contacts? Liverpool since they have the most academy teams?

It's got to be the club that can produce revenue without parents. The hole idea is to produce a Lvl playing field for development of elite women soccer players eliminating the pay to play model.

I am not a fan of the pay to play model, but this country is also not littered with professional clubs that have an A side that produces revenue that they can turn around and sink into youth players, besides the MLS teams.

That would limit the markets to only MLS markets and only what those clubs can sustain, unless they begin a working relationship with the mom and pop start ups.... Barca working with Babar as en example....

Its a vicious cycle and one that is for the most part engrained in our society as Americans. "want it bigger, better, and badder than my neighbor, and Win baby Win"

Winning and development go hand and hand, it just takes time, and patience is not something a lot of NTX parents have.

4-3-3 wrote:At the top levels most sports are about both skill AND athleticism.

I don't know if I can handle seeing even one more post claiming Messi isn't a world class athlete or wouldn't have made a top team in NTX because of his size. What are ya'll watching! Dude was faster over 10 yards with a ball than world class defenders without one.  His change of direction combined with his acceleration and close control
was incredible before he slowed down the past year after his injury.

 Same with maradona...world class athlete...world class skill...just happened to be a short dude with tree trunk legs and great balance. Just because he wouldn't win an olympic 100M dash doesn't mean he wasn't a world class athlete.

 Ronaldinho...top 10 G.O.A.T if you ask me...in his prime? Skill combined with athleticism made him damn near unstoppable. A complete joy to watch. When his athleticism fell off,he's still a tremendously skilled player, but he's no longer world class. Even Xavi and Pirlo...great CMs with extraordinary vision, but they were still great athletes with top level endurance and quickness, and once their athleticism and ability to keep up fell off, so did their minutes on top level teams.

People amaze me acting as if Scholes or Zidane or Cryuff or Iniesta or any of the classic skill players were just average, ordinary athletes that just somehow managed to dominate at the top levels of world soccer because of their smarts and skill alone. Just Stop it! Lol.

 And while I'm ranting, we better hope us soccer doesn't try to copy spain and fall off the opposite end of the spectrum recruiting short, slow kids with great skill because Barca had a great run. I watched a boys DA disney game on espn3 last week where a u.s. team played a euro academy team...it was shocking. American team had all these small, skillful kids looked like barca wanna beez...but slow as molasses... and the europeans had the same skill with bigger and faster athletes and far better tactical awareness...basically ran us off the field.

Every kid doesn't need to try to play like Pirlo, especially if they've got Ronaldo pace or Messi agility and acceleration. Spain HAS to play the way they play, but we are not Spain. Germany didn't copy Spain did they? They took some elements from Cryuff, but you don't see german national team with a bunch of dirt slow but highly skilled miniature krauts running around. They'd look mighty silly never letting a ball be crossed in the air when their national demographic is loaded with tall athletes.

 Kobe was basically saying too many talented youth with great athleticism are being used to make the adults money in an AAU system which is more focused on travel games and showcases than teaching fundamentals...pretty much the same thing some were saying in this thread before it went sideways with the inevitable ECNL tangent.  I see where you're coming from, but the issue is not just ball tricks. It's whether the current system is producing as complete players as we've had in the past....from our pool of great athletes. It's not a complete parallel to soccer because there is a ton of money involved from the shoe companies in AAU, and even with the problems our bb players are still, by far, the best in the world.

Not quite sure what you are on about - either completely wumming or the analogies have been lost on you.

Nowhere did anyone say that Messi, Maradona, Scholes, etc. aren't world class athletes. However, they are players that rely on the basic understanding and reading of the game for success...much more so than their athleticism.

I have tried to help you by highlighting your points, which in the end fall right in line to what is being discussed. I also don't recall saying that we should teach kids to play like anyone in particular. I will stand behind the thought that if we can teach kids to try and read the game like them we would be better off. Could you imagine the player that can read and understand the game combined with the athleticism that we produce in the US?

I disagree with the ones that say that pay to play is the only issue, there are too many other issues at hand that we should be focusing on. If you really want to point to a difference between us and the rest of the world, it is the fact that the best 8 year olds and older play alongside the other best 8 year olds in that area. Our youth teams are watered down and there is a gap on most teams between the best player on the team and the worst player on the team. These kids get better in training and you get better much faster when you are training with and against the best of the best on a weekly basis.

Last one on Messi...while he is absolutely one of the quickest over 5-10 meters, it is his forethought and basic understanding that has him 2 steps ahead of everyone else. Combine the fact that his brain is already 2 steps ahead with his quickness and you get one of the greatest that has ever played.

You definitely have to have both athleticism and a great understanding of what is happening around you to become a truly great player. One can't be taught and you can still be a very good player without the first if you contain the second.

yellowcard5 wrote:

4-3-3 wrote:At the top levels most sports are about both skill AND athleticism.

I don't know if I can handle seeing even one more post claiming Messi isn't a world class athlete or wouldn't have made a top team in NTX because of his size. What are ya'll watching! Dude was faster over 10 yards with a ball than world class defenders without one.  His change of direction combined with his acceleration and close control
was incredible before he slowed down the past year after his injury.

 Same with maradona...world class athlete...world class skill...just happened to be a short dude with tree trunk legs and great balance. Just because he wouldn't win an olympic 100M dash doesn't mean he wasn't a world class athlete.

 Ronaldinho...top 10 G.O.A.T if you ask me...in his prime? Skill combined with athleticism made him damn near unstoppable. A complete joy to watch. When his athleticism fell off,he's still a tremendously skilled player, but he's no longer world class. Even Xavi and Pirlo...great CMs with extraordinary vision, but they were still great athletes with top level endurance and quickness, and once their athleticism and ability to keep up fell off, so did their minutes on top level teams.

People amaze me acting as if Scholes or Zidane or Cryuff or Iniesta or any of the classic skill players were just average, ordinary athletes that just somehow managed to dominate at the top levels of world soccer because of their smarts and skill alone. Just Stop it! Lol.

 And while I'm ranting, we better hope us soccer doesn't try to copy spain and fall off the opposite end of the spectrum recruiting short, slow kids with great skill because Barca had a great run. I watched a boys DA disney game on espn3 last week where a u.s. team played a euro academy team...it was shocking. American team had all these small, skillful kids looked like barca wanna beez...but slow as molasses... and the europeans had the same skill with bigger and faster athletes and far better tactical awareness...basically ran us off the field.

Every kid doesn't need to try to play like Pirlo, especially if they've got Ronaldo pace or Messi agility and acceleration. Spain HAS to play the way they play, but we are not Spain. Germany didn't copy Spain did they? They took some elements from Cryuff, but you don't see german national team with a bunch of dirt slow but highly skilled miniature krauts running around. They'd look mighty silly never letting a ball be crossed in the air when their national demographic is loaded with tall athletes.

 Kobe was basically saying too many talented youth with great athleticism are being used to make the adults money in an AAU system which is more focused on travel games and showcases than teaching fundamentals...pretty much the same thing some were saying in this thread before it went sideways with the inevitable ECNL tangent.  I see where you're coming from, but the issue is not just ball tricks. It's whether the current system is producing as complete players as we've had in the past....from our pool of great athletes. It's not a complete parallel to soccer because there is a ton of money involved from the shoe companies in AAU, and even with the problems our bb players are still, by far, the best in the world.

Not quite sure what you are on about - either completely wumming or the analogies have been lost on you.

Nowhere did anyone say that Messi, Maradona, Scholes, etc. aren't world class athletes.  However, they are players that rely on the basic understanding and reading of the game for success...much more so than their athleticism.  

I have tried to help you by highlighting your points, which in the end fall right in line to what is being discussed.  I also don't recall saying that we should teach kids to play like anyone in particular.  I will stand behind the thought that if we can teach kids to try and read the game like them we would be better off.  Could you imagine the player that can read and understand the game combined with the athleticism that we produce in the US?

I disagree with the ones that say that pay to play is the only issue, there are too many other issues at hand that we should be focusing on.  If you really want to point to a difference between us and the rest of the world, it is the fact that the best 8 year olds and older play alongside the other best 8 year olds in that area.  Our youth teams are watered down and there is a gap on most teams between the best player on the team and the worst player on the team.  These kids get better in training and you get better much faster when you are training with and against the best of the best on a weekly basis.

Last one on Messi...while he is absolutely one of the quickest over 5-10 meters, it is his forethought and basic understanding that has him 2 steps ahead of everyone else.  Combine the fact that his brain is already 2 steps ahead with his quickness and you get one of the greatest that has ever played.

You definitely have to have both athleticism and a great understanding of what is happening around you to become a truly great player.  One can't be taught and you can still be a very good player without the first if you contain the second.

I'm laughing at Messi's brain.

I don't know 4-3-3, but he is one of my favorite posters. He often brings things back to ATHLETICISM. That rubs people the wrong way. I was initially confused by this reaction, but I'm starting to understand it now. I suspect 4-3-3 has an athletic DD. No comment on the other side.

If that 5 year old that can "dance around that ball like a ballerina" is also blessed with elite athleticism, you may have something. The reality is that most of them are not.

Athleticism is worthless unless trained in the art of the game.  Thats why you see all the Mia Hamms of the Acacadey world that were so fast at Ulittle caught and passed by the ones trained properly and can utilize it when it matters.  

You should know, your coach is one that will tell anyone that will listen... in academy the fast ones look good... in select when it becomes a skill game, if the fast ones havent learned, they just look fast and lost... as the skilled ones play around them.

4-3-3 knows this... you both have the same coach.

What proof or evidence exists that Messi thinks any faster than Aguero, Suarez or any other top 10 world class forward. They all understand the game at that level. There is a ton of evidence in watching his games before he got hurt that he routinely ran past 3, 4 or 5 defenders while carrying the ball. In the last year, it's clear he does not have the same explosiveness, and while his production is still world class, it's not where it once was.
So if he's a step slower and now easier to contain, how does one conclude his athleticism wasn't a huge part of his game?

We're setting up these EITHER / OR constructs that aren't real, and in my opinion don't make much sense. Yellowcard specifically said players need to be taught to play like Pirlo instead of Ronaldinho at early ages...and then the ones that have athleticism will be better off since now they understand the game.

I completely disagree. For one, that's implying Ronaldinho didn't understand the game because he used tricks and skill at game speed. Most true soccer folks would acknowledge Ronaldinho is as much a soccer genius as Zidane, so that implication is laughable. They both understand the game at world class levels.

Which leads me to the one of the MAIN problems with American soccer. People bring their cultural stereotypes and predispositions from American life into their evaluation of soccer players. Ronaldinho is pacey and skillfull...uses tricks...therefore he's a great athlete and doesn't understand the game. Scholes is clinical and efficient, not a speed burner, therefore he's not an great athlete and understands the game above most others.

It's just silly. I've said it before, it's why you'll rarely see an American yaya toure or Paul Pogba...those players are going up top to score goals or going outside to run up and down the flanks because they'll be pigeon-holed as great athletes at early ages. Both yaya and pogba probably showed great vision as youth players...and that's why they were developed by world class academies to be skillfull athletes in the thinking man's area of the field.  Thing is, we're also not likely to see an american Scholes, Xavi or Pirlo because the athleticism required to do what those players do is underestimated and we think we can put the beckerman types out there to do that job.

Yes some players depend more on their athleticism than others...that's the nature sport and of the different roles and positions on the field.

American sports fans are caught up in using pure speed as the measure of athleticism. How many would say Jerome Boateng is as great an athlete as Ronaldo? Not many. But if I'm picking a team I'm taking Boateng at center back well before I'm taking Ronaldo. In fact you put a team of 11 Ronaldo's or Messi's together and that team might dominate youth u12 and below games but won't win many games at the top level.

And for that reason I completely disagree with the idea we need to build more 8 year old super teams...that's the type of thinking that's running the costs through the roof and leading to under developed players. If you have 10 Messi's on a u8 team that means 7 or 8 of those lil Messi's won't be seeing enough of the ball because the top few Messi's won't be giving it up. If any one of those 10 Messi's is sitting on the bench that means they're giving up minutes they could be playing on another team with fewer Messi's.

I also completely disagree with the point that a major problem is u.s. kids watching too much youtube doing too many ball tricks. LOL. Sorry don't buy it. Young kids need to love the ball and love the game. If they grow up spending time mastering the ball enough to pull off what ronaldo does at game speed...more power to them. They will have plenty of time to become robots later in their club soccer career. LOl.

If anything we should be thanking youtube for giving more of our kids an easier pathway to fall in love with the game. Yellow, not sure how you don't think pay to play is a major issue...when it's one of the key structural differences between us and the rest of the world. But that's probably why you honed in on the ball tricks thing and totally missed Kobe calling out the money being made off the kids in AAU.