Here is a simple plan to make soccer great in America.
1) Stop trying to mimic everything Europe does. This is not a knock on Europe, but we need to realize just like the success of football and baseball, there is a culture component. Europe has there’s and we have our own so we need to build off our sports culture.
2) We need to strengthen local play. This means in states with the density and popularity of soccer like Florida we need to build local competitive leagues. These leagues like ECNL, DA, R3 are missing the mark. We spend more time traveling to play then we do training. There is no reason for Florida to have three leagues that require ridiculous travel to develop players. Playing teams within a two hour radius should be all you need to do. Do 1 or 2 in-state tournaments. Go out of state or up to New Jersey, South Carolina once or twice a year and you bring some travel excitement.
3) Support high school soccer. Yes, it’s quality is not up to club standards...not even close in many cases. I will say that many players benefit from the freedom it gives them to explore and try things that sometimes gets negative reaction on the club side. And it builds community interest in the sport from families who don’t have higher level club players. How many football and basketball players from a high school team make pro? Not many, but there are a heck of lot of people who played in their youth and those that don’t make it big are fans of their friends or peers who do.
4) Most important. Make it our sport with our culture. We need to better align with College soccer. This is our sports culture. Play club and high school, play college and go pro. I want to watch an MLS game where I know players I watched in club and college. I want to hear of the stories of them growing up in Tampa or Orlando and how they played for the local club and high school and went on to play college ball at Duke, Penn State, USF, etc and watch them get drafted. Until this becomes our way and not the Europeans way we will be struggling to hit the popularity it has the potential to be.
1) Stop trying to mimic everything Europe does. This is not a knock on Europe, but we need to realize just like the success of football and baseball, there is a culture component. Europe has there’s and we have our own so we need to build off our sports culture.
2) We need to strengthen local play. This means in states with the density and popularity of soccer like Florida we need to build local competitive leagues. These leagues like ECNL, DA, R3 are missing the mark. We spend more time traveling to play then we do training. There is no reason for Florida to have three leagues that require ridiculous travel to develop players. Playing teams within a two hour radius should be all you need to do. Do 1 or 2 in-state tournaments. Go out of state or up to New Jersey, South Carolina once or twice a year and you bring some travel excitement.
3) Support high school soccer. Yes, it’s quality is not up to club standards...not even close in many cases. I will say that many players benefit from the freedom it gives them to explore and try things that sometimes gets negative reaction on the club side. And it builds community interest in the sport from families who don’t have higher level club players. How many football and basketball players from a high school team make pro? Not many, but there are a heck of lot of people who played in their youth and those that don’t make it big are fans of their friends or peers who do.
4) Most important. Make it our sport with our culture. We need to better align with College soccer. This is our sports culture. Play club and high school, play college and go pro. I want to watch an MLS game where I know players I watched in club and college. I want to hear of the stories of them growing up in Tampa or Orlando and how they played for the local club and high school and went on to play college ball at Duke, Penn State, USF, etc and watch them get drafted. Until this becomes our way and not the Europeans way we will be struggling to hit the popularity it has the potential to be.
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