Why have America never produced a world class football player ?

[TN Toffee]

I don’t see that happening. SMU received the death penalty in football, yet eventually brought it back as part of “enhancing the college experience “.

They only actually had to shut the program down for one season though. They were just sanctioned in such a way that they basically had no hope of competing for a decade or more. Also didn’t help their recovery that the old Southwest Conference started to disintegrate at almost the same time.

 

[Catfish Blues]

Too busy shooting each other

If transferred to England, this could add a whole new dimension to when some arl arse from the Bullens shouts "Shoot ffs" at DCL.

 

[Ballly]

I went to an Everton match at Bournemouth a couple years ago, and the experience of watching Premier League level football being played in a venue that small was almost surreal. To be honest, Goodison feels really small to me a lot of the time. 5000 is probably a pretty standard crowd for Friday night game between two big high schools in my part of The States. However some places, especially Texas can draw WAAAY more than that. If memory serves, the 6A state championship game in Texas drew over 50k one year.

Yes, absolutely. The Texas state title 6A game (the largest populous high schools are classed 6A and then down 5A and 4A etc for clarity) is now held in the Cowboys stadium every year and as you say draws close to 50K. American football is huge in the southern states and is so dominant that all the big universitys in that region dont have mens soccer programs as their scholarships are all used by the am football programs. Powerhouse universities like Univ of Oklahoma, Alabama, Texas, Texas A&M, LSU and Auburn all have top womens soccer programs but none on the mens side. As such, the high schools as you say in places like the Dallas metro area are mad for their high school football. Google Allen high schools stadium (a suburb north east of Dallas) and see pictures of their $60M stadium for proof......and that was built 8 years ago Consequently, high school soccer takes a massive back seat there, even though Dallas especially has some of the best youth soccer clubs in the country like FC Dallas, Dallas Texans, Andromeda FC, Solar SC and a not so good club called Liverpool FC America.

 

[Martin Alvito]

There are three basic problems.

1) Talent goes where the money is perceived to be. We don't produce world class tennis players any more either, in part because only a very few elite players vacuum up the lion's share of the available money.

The guaranteed money available from reaching the NBA, NFL or MLB level is much higher than what a kid can realistically expect to earn in MLS, and even more modest success at the college level in the former two sports can be a massive networking capital boost for a kid. That is much less true of soccer here.

2) Of the kids that do choose to pursue a professional soccer career, very few of them reach a specialized academy focused on developing them into professionals because they would have to go abroad to do it. Relatively few families can, or will, uproot themselves to go to, say, Madrid to watch their kid grow up during their academy years. So most real talents spend less time developing under inferior coaching than a similar talent would in the European system.

3) Our grassroots soccer organizations are largely volunteer, and the coaches don't have the training to develop elementary school kids into kids that foreign academies would want. Numerous European clubs do have outposts all over the place here, but they're generally more concerned with spending money to scout talent than they are with developing it.

Advanced training and leagues are very pay-to-play and very time consuming for parents, which ultimately excludes a lot of talented kids. Clint Dempsey's family literally reordered their entire financial and temporal lives around putting him in a position to have a shot. Not every parent will do that, which is an additional barrier.

Klinsmann was right in that we clearly need to reorder things entirely at the grassroots level in order to produce world-class players, but the reality is that USA Soccer doesn't have the clout or the resources to fix these systemic problems.

 

[The binman chronicles]

Landon Donovan was world class on and off the pitch and if anyone says anything different prepare to duel.

 

[The binman chronicles]

I love the way they play footy too.

It’s all about attacking first and defending second.

Makes for mad and exciting games.

This man agrees with you:

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And on that basis I'm out.

 

[blue1948]

athletics and golf also bigger than Football (soccer). So I've been told.
in fact I think you can also add boxing. The proverbial hungry kids go for boxing.
Then there's swimming and tennis.
Many sports before football.
I know this is a football forum but the same question could be asked about rugby. You would think that as America are good at the old American football that they could play rugby. But no. They cant.

The reason they don't swap over to rugby is the money .Oh and it is a man's game .

 

[Billy Dean]

It’s starting to change. With the younger generation I see it surpassing both baseball and hockey in popularity within 10 years. We’re still new to the club academy system and are starting to move past the pay to play. We’re also not far away from being able to put out a legitimate 11 to at least hang with the big boys of the world. Consider this as a potential starting 11 for 2022, and then note the current ages. We’re starting to come on.

————————-Steffen(25)————————-
Cannon(22)——??————Brooks(27)—Dest(19)
————————Adams(21)—————————
————Mckennie(21)—-Reyna(17)——————
Weah(20)——-—-Sargent(20)———-Pulisic(21)

By the time your home world cup comes around I think you'll be pretty decent

 

[USABlue]

Landon Donovan was world class on and off the pitch and if anyone says anything different prepare to duel.

Landon made an Everton mention tonight in regards to how important history is

 

[USABlue]

By the time your home world cup comes around I think you'll be pretty decent

Agreed, that 2026 team barring major injuries to the top players should make a decent go of it, especially at home. The most important thing is getting these players that 2022 WC experience. Missing the last world cup I feel was a massive blow

 

[Seathestars]

Never produced a world class footballer but they have some top of the range serial killers

 

[BlueTX]

Yes, absolutely. The Texas state title 6A game (the largest populous high schools are classed 6A and then down 5A and 4A etc for clarity) is now held in the Cowboys stadium every year and as you say draws close to 50K. American football is huge in the southern states and is so dominant that all the big universitys in that region dont have mens soccer programs as their scholarships are all used by the am football programs. Powerhouse universities like Univ of Oklahoma, Alabama, Texas, Texas A&M, LSU and Auburn all have top womens soccer programs but none on the mens side. As such, the high schools as you say in places like the Dallas metro area are mad for their high school football. Google Allen high schools stadium (a suburb north east of Dallas) and see pictures of their $60M stadium for proof......and that was built 8 years ago Consequently, high school soccer takes a massive back seat there, even though Dallas especially has some of the best youth soccer clubs in the country like FC Dallas, Dallas Texans, Andromeda FC, Solar SC and a not so good club called Liverpool FC America.

To expand on your points:

Annually The University of Texas at Austin is in the top 3 of revenues for athletic programs in the country (most often it is first). It has financial resources that might rival the big 6 in England - $250 million in revenue with relatively little direct commerical sponsorship.

It does not have a men's scholarship football (non-American) program.

Neither does Texas A&M. Or Texas Tech. In fact, there are only 4 universities in the state that play Division 1 soccer/football. And those schools, by NCAA rule, are allowed fewer than 10 scholarships total per team and they are awarded annually. The highest level of American college football is allowed 85 scholarships and players are most often awarded 4-year scholarships.

 

[TN Toffee]

To expand on your points:

Annually The University of Texas at Austin is in the top 3 of revenues for athletic programs in the country (most often it is first). It has financial resources that might rival the big 6 in England - $250 million in revenue with relatively little direct commerical sponsorship.

It does not have a men's scholarship football (non-American) program.

Neither does Texas A&M. Or Texas Tech. In fact, there are only 4 universities in the state that play Division 1 soccer/football. And those schools, by NCAA rule, are allowed fewer than 10 scholarships total per team and they are awarded annually. The highest level of American college football is allowed 85 scholarships and players are most often awarded 4-year scholarships.

I’d think because of Title IX, it would be mathematically difficult for any school with a big time football program (American) to offer soccer scholarships to men. Baseball is still considerably more popular than soccer here, yet most schools still are only able offer a handful of full baseball scholarships.

 

[AmericasToffee]

I’d think because of Title IX, it would be mathematically difficult for any school with a big time football program (American) to offer soccer scholarships to men. Baseball is still considerably more popular than soccer here, yet most schools still are only able offer a handful of full baseball scholarships.

I don't agree with that

 

[BlueTX]

I’d think because of Title IX, it would be mathematically difficult for any school with a big time football program (American) to offer soccer scholarships to men. Baseball is still considerably more popular than soccer here, yet most schools still are only able offer a handful of full baseball scholarships.

I'm not sure how many do but randomly selected two big northern American football schools: Notre Dame and Ohio State. Both offer men's soccer scholarships.