What would it take for the U.S. to win a World Cup in Your Lifetime?

I know have been MIA for the last few months, but I'm back! Right on time for the world cup, with less than two months left. It's crazy how fast time flies!!

 

The other day I bumped into a page called ESPN FC World Cup Stories on Medium.  They provide prompts and anybody can post their thoughts on them. One of the prompts they provided was "What would it take for the U.S. to win a world cup in your lifetime?" Here is my response.

 

For some time now I’ve heard that the likelihood of the U.S. winning a world cup in my lifetime is higher than before.  I would hope that is true since soccer is growing in the U.S. and the odds must be getting higher. There are things that definitely need to change in order for it to happen.  

Let’s start at the root of the problem: scouting and youth player development.  

 Soccer is the biggest sport in the world. One of the reasons for that is that it’s so simple to play and requires no official equipment. How many of us haven’t kicked a can of soda or water bottle and pretended it’s a soccer ball? Or used sweaters as goal posts? I know someone who says that scoring a goal is like making a pass to the net. There are no complicated rules. (No, the offside rule is not complicated). You don’t need to have money to play; unfortunately, in the U.S. it feels like you do.

I grew up playing soccer and so did my brother. We played recreationally because we could not afford competitive soccer.  Club soccer comes out to cost at least a thousand dollars per player and for a low income family that is not feasible.  Money should not be an obstacle in developing great talent. More funding is required to develop our youth teams and ultimately provide those players with the ability and avenue for them to progress. Of course there is high school soccer, which is more affordable than club, but then you have the issue of will you be seen? It feels like you don’t just need money, but also need connections.

 It’s frustrating because I know that our country has at least 11 players that have the talent to beat any team from any other country. There shouldn’t be a reason why our only expectation should be to get out of the group stage of the World Cup. The problem is looking in the right places to find these players AND develop them. I’m one who believes that you are either born to play soccer or you are not. Those that are born to do this sometimes are not so lucky and get pushed to do other things for whatever reason.  We need to be able to help these players develop without them having to sacrifice something else.   

We DO have the talent in this country; we just NEED to come up with a way to stop it from falling through the cracks.  

The next thing we need to look at is our league. The structure and quality of our domestic league needs to improve. In no other country in the world do they have drafts. In other words to sign with a team you need to have gone to college. Various teams have youth development programs, but again the issue of money comes in to play. It seems that in the U.S., playing soccer requires a huge financial investment with a very risky payoff. Major League Soccer just released player salaries which showed the huge disparity in wages. You have the best player in the U.S., Michael Bradley, earning $6 million while there are other players earning in the mid $30,000s. That is not a salary you can raise a family with.

You have players like Hercules Gomez who are offered pathetic contracts and move to play in other leagues. In his case Mexico, where he went on to lead the Mexican goalscoring charts with the likes of Javier ”Chicharito” Hernandez.  I find it frustrating that a player that represents the U.S. has to move to another country to play professionally.  

You then have the issue of player rights. Teams can own the rights of players. Under MLS rules, any player who leaves the league after receiving a “bona Fide” offer from his MLS side, still has his rights retained by the team.” In other words, if that player decides to return to MLS, he has to give that team first refusal. Changing the structure of the league and teams will result in quality being increased.  

Most people agree that European leagues are better. They are more competitive and most if not all players that have won the world cup have played in Europe at some point in their life. In Europe, most players are scouted at very young ages. By the time they are 21 or 22, you will know if they are going to make it because they have been playing professionally for a few years now. In the U.S., at that age, is when they are barely getting started professionally; after graduating from college.  If they are lucky and get scouted by European scouts when they are 15-18 years old, they have a tough choice to make. Most would prefer to keep their college eligibility than risk going to Europe unless they are guaranteed a European club spot, which most agents can’t offer.

I’m not saying we have to be exactly like Europe in every respect but we do have to change if we want to contend with their teams and their players. Once we have a better system in which we find and develop talent, we will win the World Cup.