U.S. Soccer’s Elitism Problem

[Unregistered]

Then why not go back to college athletes?
And they don't care as a result of the dream team...not much fun to watch anymore, is it?

I stopped watching almost any basketball years ago. I think the AAU movement and the 3 point line have created a boring, homogeneous game that lacks the creativity and flair I seek in sports entertainment. Another sport ruined by elitism!!

[Unregistered]

Your kid's not going to gnash his teeth and pull out his hair if you take his soccer ball away (he's got other interests and options!) and while he sounds like a great kid and a fierce competitor, he therefore lacks the laser focus and near-pathetic devotion that is needed to elevate the game here.

Who cares.

Why should teenagers potentially disadvantage themselves by skipping college to play soccer?

[Unregistered]

I've been resisting saying this for a long time, but after almost 10 years of "involvement" in local rec, travel, and club soccer (and I know ten years is but a blip on the screen) I've come to realize that the only players who matter are the ones who, to quote Richard Gere in Officer and a Gentleman, "have no place else to go"--meaning the game is the ONLY thing for them, meaning there is nothing that competes for their time, interest, or attention, meaning soccer isn't a way to "get" something other than MORE soccer--not daddy's praise, not college, not fame, not even a paycheck--it is the GAME that matters to them. It burns in them internally. Pay-to-play stands the "success pyramid" on its head because with money comes distractions, the main (and fatal) one being the realization that "the game" isn't everything--and once a player realizes that the game ISN'T everything, he is done. DONE. "Soccer isn't everything" is truly a bell that can't be "unrung".
So, in the US, when we "front load" soccer with privileged kids, we necessarily clog the system with players who are going to lack the needed desperation. All us urban, suburban or ex-urban doctors, lawyers, teachers and everyone else with a steady paycheck have by our success eliminated our offspring from advancing the national cause. (There may be plenty of rich kids in the NT "pool", but I know for damn sure none of them will ADVANCE our national standing. Soccer just doesn't work that way. No "zero sum" game works that way.)
It is painful and dispiriting to realize that until the ranks are full of kids who KNOW NOTHING BUT SOCCER, live nothing but soccer, and when they flame-out of soccer will not even be qualified to COACH soccer, much less succeed in some other professional field, until then we will be nothing but the third rate pretenders we now are.
Until the faces of our NT players reflect the faces of the least privileged, least affluent--and, yes, least successful members of our society we will be hamstrung by a handicap of our own making: The knowledge that "soccer isn't everything.

Absurdly simplistic and mostly wrong. Guess what deprivation usually produces? More deprivation. There are plenty of world class athletes who didn't suffer in poverty or who conversely didn't fail because they had "too much." Too many half-baked philosophers on this site promoting ridiculous assertions.

[Unregistered]

Who cares.

Why should teenagers potentially disadvantage themselves by skipping college to play soccer?

Not saying they should, just recognizing they WON'T "disadvantage" themselves at the altar of the beautiful game, and accepting that soccer in the USA will continue as privileged activity rather than a passion. I'm ok with this. We'll never rule world rugby either.

[Unregistered]

Not saying they should, just recognizing they WON'T "disadvantage" themselves at the altar of the beautiful game, and accepting that soccer in the USA will continue as privileged activity rather than a passion. I'm ok with this. We'll never rule world rugby either.

The greatest irony of all is the fact that soccer grew out of the lower class sections in England as a response to the upper crust society of rugby
Cheapest sport in the world to play and now it's considered a "privileged activity"
Can't make this stuff up.