US Soccer, specifically MLS, is twenty years out from competing on an international level, as evident in the MLS All-Star game July 28th.
With a thriving sports nation at our doorstep, how is it that we (the United States) cannot create a highly skilled and internationally competitive soccer program. Something that we can go into a All-Star game against a top Euro team and at least compete. 5-2 is not a competition. 5-2 is token. It is almost a “thanks for coming, oh that’s right, we are
Manchester United With a 5-2 Victory Over The MLS All-Stars
the visitors”.
What will it take? How long will that take?
As a four-year-old, I started playing soccer on a AYSO team and proceeded to play year after year and soon all year round. I played on club teams, select teams, competition teams, high school varsity teams (3 years). I loved and still love the game.
As a kid, coming up in the ranks of soccer, there was never a culture for a career in soccer, a “I am going to be a professional soccer player”. Simply put, there wasn’t a professional league to dream of at the time. So what are we, a half-dozen years into this, legitimate professional opportunity for soccer players. How long does it take to have kids see nothing short of a career in the MLS?
Like baseball, football, basketball and maybe even hockey, kids for decades have shot for the starts in their pee-wee and little leagues, for becoming a professionals in their sport. This aspiration at a 4,5 or 6 year old level, drives passion throughout the developmental years with the fruit of their efforts before them.
Today we are sitting with our first generations being able to see a formed career path for soccer and at 4,5 or 6, they know that they can work through the leagues, playing all of the time toward the aspiration and passion of being a professional soccer player. We are thus, 12 to 20 years from seeing these first kids know nothing short of a real aspiration and drive to be a professional in the field of soccer. This drive pushes development and removes plateaus for those who are able.
We must be patient to see that for the MLS soccer program and for the Men’s US Soccer team to really compete (the women have and will continue to – worthy of an entire other post) with the big boys of international soccer where decades of the same aspiration have been in place and concretely exist.
Open Report 