Pulisic

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Most American youth players don't have a Croatian passport like Pulisic did. We need our own academy, even if those who can go to Europe still should.

Yeah,

And United States is so big, where would you base this one program? and who will flip the traveling expenses? How are you going to find the truly gifted? Today, money talks. It will be another ECNL; if you have the money you can do it.

[Unregistered]

Yeah,

And United States is so big, where would you base this one program? and who will flip the traveling expenses? How are you going to find the truly gifted? Today, money talks. It will be another ECNL; if you have the money you can do it.

The US has many times the population of Croatia, it should be able to host more than one such academy were the stature of soccer to elevate.

That said, Pulisic didn't go abroad to go to any (independent) youth club or academy--he trained in the US until signing a pro contract. And when JK encourages talented US players to "go overseas", that's what he means--try their luck in the European leagues (or even Liga MX, I suppose) rather that MLS. I don't think JK is suggesting that talented American kids move abroad to get into foreign youth systems.

[Unregistered]

Two smart soccer playing parents and kids, who by many accounts was obsessed with soccer, and the kid has a soccer mind that you can't teach. In other words, we won't see many like him.

"And no player, from any place in the world, has scored two goals at as young of an age as Pulisic in the 53 years of the German Bundesliga.

"They don't grow on trees," said former U.S. men's national team assistant coach Martin Vasquez, of Pulisic. "They don't come in bunches."

On the field Pulisic exists where he's supposed to be, passes where teammates are going to be and plays the ball like he's decided where it is meant to be. He shows few signs of being manufactured.

Because Pulisic isn't a product. He happened. No institution gave him the instinct to run through two opponents with the second, third and fourth touches of his league debut, which he did.

He was born to two parents who played the sport, knew what to tell him about it but found themselves having to say very little. Kelley and Mark Pulisic's son was obsessed with soccer – sometimes defiantly so – and absorbed an understanding of its timing, spacing and artistry through an unusually high level of exposure to the game.

His path from that home, through Manheim-based PA Classics' Development Academy and U.S. Under-17 residency represents the best-case scenario for an American player waking up in 2016.

Pulisic can and is celebrated by U.S. Soccer. At the front of a generation of players reshaping American soccer at the youth, collegiate and professional levels, he is progress. But the fact that he sees, thinks about and simply plays the game so much better than the first generation of Americans who grew up knowing soccer as a career choice — that's problematic.

"He's a perfect storm," former U.S. and D.C United midfielder and current D.C. United head coach Ben Olsen said. "And it's going to have to be perfect.

"Why we don't have more perfect storms, I don't know. Because there's enough dads that have played soccer, there's enough. That's what's mindblowing in this whole thing is that we're not producing more kids like him that are at least knocking on the door of some of these big teams."

http://www.pennlive.com/sports/index...us_soccer.html