World Cup Final: USA vs Japan

[Stautner]

How do we get the best athletes to go to soccer instead of some other sport? We stop putting an inferior product on the field! If we could put players onto Champions League caliber squads and avoid poor results against lesser opponents the interest in soccer would increase. You do this by increasing the level of technical ability on the field.

Quality over quantity. Once you take care of the first the second will happen on it's own.

Obviously increasing the level of technical ability on the field will help, but how do you do that with the same coaches that aren't teaching it now. You can't just magically make better coaches. It has to happen over time that more quality coaches come into the game, and again, the larger the pool of athletes and athletically minded players that play the game, the larger the pool of eventual coaches to choose from will be.

And, of course, part of what will help with putting an inferior product on the field is drawing the more elite athletes, so it's kind of a Catch-22. The reality is that it's a process, just as it was with the early days of football and basketball. They didn't immediate have the popularity they do now, but over time they grew. They started out in the early days with caoches who had never played the game, but over time the coaching pool grew and better coaches with a better understanding of the game became available. That's the kind of thing I am talking about with soccer as well.

And personally i think soccer is well on its way and headed in the right direction. When I was a kid there was no organized soccer, and over the years it became a sport a few played here and there, mostly those that couldn't make it in other sports and whose parents still wanted them to experience a team activity, and it has grown today where it is huge with the younger kids and you are ocassionally seeing a top quality athlete stick with it as he gets older. Over time I think that trend will continue, and soccer will continue to improve in the US.

 

[Cythim]

Easy, you import coaching from countries who know how to play soccer. We've already taken the first step with Klinsmann. We aren't the only nation that plays soccer and we certainly aren't the best at it. If someone else is better than you at something you borrow their people to teach you how to do it.

We also have several foreign coaches and front office personnel throughout MLS that are capable of improving the youth academies of those teams. Over half of the MLS coaches were actually foreign-born, even though some grew up in the states.

 

[Stautner]

Easy, you import coaching from countries who know how to play soccer. We've already taken the first step with Klinsmann. We aren't the only nation that plays soccer and we certainly aren't the best at it. If someone else is better than you at something you borrow their people to teach you how to do it.

We also have several foreign coaches and front office personnel throughout MLS that are capable of improving the youth academies of those teams. Over half of the MLS coaches were actually foreign-born, even though some grew up in the states.

Hmm, well I guess that's a bit of a shortcut, and the same can occur with the talent by importing players as well, but ultimately we still have to develop our own coaches and players, and right now soccer is at the stage in the US that basketball was 50-60 years ago. The good news for soccer fans is the groundwork has been laid with good youth programs all over the country, so it's just a matter of time as the sport becomes more mainstream in our culture.

 

[joseephuss]

The problem is less a question of what sport an athlete chooses than providing access to an underserved, under-recruited, unnoticed group of athletes. An invisible group that isn't being tapped.

Klinsmann, who lives in Southern California, obviously has spent a lot of time thinking about the issue. And his answers about what the youth programs of America should be were more forthcoming than his assessment of the current state of the U.S. team.

"The youth teams should reflect again the mixture of cultures. It should reflect what's going on in this country," Klinsmann said. "There's so much influence from the Latin environment over the last 15-20 years, that also has to be reflected in the U.S. national team."

Klinsmann said he wants to tap into America's "melting pot" and find a style that reflects the culture of this country. He's learned a lot during his years of living in the U.S.: about the push for college, about the rigid youth system, about the lack of pickup soccer or hours of kicking a ball around outside of an organized practice.

"It doesn't matter how he plays, with his dad or with his buddies in the street, this will show later on with his technical abilities, with his passing, with his instinct on the field," Klinsmann said of his hypothetical player. "I think that's certainly an area where a lot of work is ahead of us."

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...n/08/02/us.klinsmann/index.html#ixzz1TzfNW9OI

 

[Stautner]

The problem is less a question of what sport an athlete chooses than providing access to an underserved, under-recruited, unnoticed group of athletes. An invisible group that isn't being tapped.

Klinsmann, who lives in Southern California, obviously has spent a lot of time thinking about the issue. And his answers about what the youth programs of America should be were more forthcoming than his assessment of the current state of the U.S. team.

"The youth teams should reflect again the mixture of cultures. It should reflect what's going on in this country," Klinsmann said. "There's so much influence from the Latin environment over the last 15-20 years, that also has to be reflected in the U.S. national team."

Klinsmann said he wants to tap into America's "melting pot" and find a style that reflects the culture of this country. He's learned a lot during his years of living in the U.S.: about the push for college, about the rigid youth system, about the lack of pickup soccer or hours of kicking a ball around outside of an organized practice.

"It doesn't matter how he plays, with his dad or with his buddies in the street, this will show later on with his technical abilities, with his passing, with his instinct on the field," Klinsmann said of his hypothetical player. "I think that's certainly an area where a lot of work is ahead of us."

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...n/08/02/us.klinsmann/index.html#ixzz1TzfNW9OI

This blends into what I am saying - the bigger the pool of athletes the better. Soccer simply has to become more popular, more accessible, more accepted in US culture, more mainstream. Anybody who thinks soccer is competing for athletes on anywhere near the same level as other sports is fooling themselves. Kids grow up around people going nuts over basketball, baseball and football - those sports are all over prime time TV. They are all over the front page of the newspaper. They are all over the home page for ESPN.com. Soccer gets that attention during the World Cup and Olympics.