joseephuss;3982048 said:
I don't know if there is one specific reason why soccer fails in the US. Fail meaning, having great success in the World Cup and sending a large number of players to the premier leagues of Europe.
Here are my reasons:
1. While youth soccer is big, there is a drop off in the teenage years. There are many local youth teams you can play for, but that number dwindles during the teenage years. And if you want to be a part of the high quality teams it is going to cost you and your family some money. If you ever look up the story of Clint Dempsey you see where his family had to pay a lot of money for him to play on a club team in Dallas. He had to commute back and forth from Nacogdoches. That doesn't happen in other countries. They have good competitive leagues for all ages. Those countries also go out and recruit the top talent and cover their expenses. Soccer can be a very cheap game to play, but the higher the quality the higher the cost. And when you have other options that are cheaper in those regards you lose some of your better athletes.
2. I think coaching in the U.S. is second tier at best. Spain and Germany have a ton of coaches that go to clinics and training to become better at their craft. I think the number of UEFA certified coaches in those two countries far surpasses that of other European countries. The majority of coaches in the U.S. aren't up to that standard.
3. Culture plays a part. It is not the only thing. Some countries have a culture of soccer, but still don't do great at the World Cup. Yet the teams that excel at the sport definitely have a soccer culture about them that the U.S. lacks and maybe always will. It is one thing to have a large population of kids playing in soccer leagues growing up. It is another thing to live and breath soccer. A kid may have a practice every Wednesday and a game every Saturday. What is he doing outside of that time? How does that compare to a kid growing up in one of the great soccer countries? I bet that those kids in the other countries do more things associated with soccer outside of the Wednesday practice and Saturday game than the kids in the U.S. They have been doing it a lot longer in those countries. You don't catch up with that overnight. Although soccer has grown quite a bit over the years, it has a long way to go to be a big part of the culture of the U.S.
I disagree that U.S. soccer is too structured with regards to practice as opposed to just going out and playing. Germany has always been known as very structured in their soccer. Italy plays a rather boring brand of soccer of defense, defense, defense and then counter. Brasil distorts the perception on how teams/countries prepare. They just play and have fun. At least that is the way it looks and it works for them. That is not how every country approaches the game.
I can tell you that in any club team I've ever seen, you don't practice on Wed and play on Saturday. It's much more intense then that. You do live, eat and breath soccer but that's kinda beside the point I think. I am not sure how club soccer is coached where you are at Josee but here, the club soccer coaches are not guys who are not up to speed on the latest coaching techniques by any stretch. In fact, the bulk of the expense is for the retention of these coaches and the assistant coaches who are typically players who are currently playing college or semi pro soccer. If you play HS soccer, it's completely different but you do practice every day.
As far as structured play, even in Europe, they actually play much more then we do. For example, in Europe, you have club teams that are set up to coach a certain style of offense and defense. It's very likely that if you play soccer in Germany and you don't move or join another club, it very possible that you are going to play the same style of soccer. I.E., the same defense and the same offense. In the U.S., when you play Club Soccer, you have different teams all the time. On every team, you have different coaching and a different style. Basically, kids are learning new offense and defenses all the time. You take the basics forward with you but you relearn the rest a lot of times. You spent the majority of practice learning and practicing these things as opposed to actually playing soccer. It is very different here in this regard. Much more structured and much less fun.
Now, if your point is that the Germans have their stuff much more together then we do because they are consistent in their approach from 5 to 17, then yeah, that's a true statement IMO and I would agree with you. However, from the perspective of the player, here in the U.S., it is much more structured because you are having to focus on relearning things from team to team, according to the style of play that HC uses. Much less time to actually play the game and just enjoy it.
