It’s been a few days since the US Men’s National Team was knocked out of the World Cup in an embarrassing 4-1 loss to Belgium. Since we live in a world of hot takes, everyone has rushed to the internet to offer postmortem opinions on this year’s World Cup run and the future of the men’s team.
The consensus across the board seems to come to two things. This current roster is “too soft”, and the structure we’ve built for youth development won’t pay dividends in the long run. I think when you look at those claims from a million-foot overview, there’s definitely some truth in those statements, but they aren’t the whole truth.
I never enjoy it when people complain that a player is too soft. I think it’s a far too simplistic complaint that people use when they don’t have an answer for why someone underperformed.
Christian Pulisic didn’t have a great World Cup performance, and once again missed important games due to injury. We can’t get into his head to see whether he was actually able to play, but I’m sure nobody’s more upset about their lack of availability than he is. This is two World Cups in a row during Pulisic’s prime that he was unavailable in the biggest moments for the USMNT.
It doesn’t help that Pulisic sat out last summer’s Gold Cup to get himself healthy for the following season and World Cup. Of course, the Gold Cup was another disappointment for the Americans, only bringing more negative media attention to Pulisic.
I’m not sure that these failures were due to toughness; I just don’t think the US has enough talent.
Youth development has been one of the most talked-about problems in soccer; the problem is easy to see, but the solution seems quite difficult. Competitive youth sports programs across the United States are tied at the hip to private equity and other for-profit ventures, and it’s killed opportunities for those without wealth to access high-level sports.
Travel teams have sold parents on the idea that if they invest in their kids now, they will receive full athletic scholarships in the future. This has led youth programs to focus on two things: making money and winning games. Winning is the antithesis to development. Other countries have realized that and encourage affordable options for their kids to play sports and take their time improving at them.
The American ideology of “win at all costs” can be great in some regards, but it’s not the best for developing talent. The US will always be behind other nations in soccer, but now we’re seeing other countries catch up in other sports as well. Outside of American football, which almost no other countries play, the best player in the other American pro sports is someone from another country.
There simply aren’t enough opportunities for affordable growth for all athletes in the US. The era of American dominance in most sports will slowly come to an end if big changes aren’t made. We’ve already shown that when we take profit out of the picture, we can make great players.
FC Dallas signed Chris Richards and Weston McKennie to their youth programs at a young age and developed them into European-quality players. How many players aren’t given these opportunities and fall through the cracks because of limited opportunities? Of course, there are more sports options in the US than in other countries, but I just don’t feel these other countries are letting their most talented athletes fall through the cracks like we are here.
Unfortunately, there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. Youth sports are a $50 billion business, and that’s only going to get worse. It’s a shame what might happen to the future of sports in this country if no changes are made to this shameful industry.
